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Roman
Editor:
Posted October
Release year:
2020
«Fine tuned novel.»
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A new novel by Mirjam Kristensen is greeted with great anticipation. For the beautiful and long-lasting debut novel, “The days are transparent” (2000), he received the Tarjei Vesaas debut award. Since Kristensen deservedly received both the Bjørnson Scholarship and the Amalie Skram Award. In the novels, he writes closely about intangible experiences, such as feelings of alienation and various experiences of loss. So too in this year’s novel “Sudden Darkness.” Again, it is about people disappearing, within themselves or outside of a lifetime, for a period of time or forever.
Disappears
The narrator of the novel is mainly Judith; mother of young children and researcher. He paces around the apartment in the house, trying to write, but his thoughts flow in all directions. Judith in particular thinks of Hulda. The two had an intense relationship in high school, but after Hulda had a son, Simon, they lost touch.
Now, Hulda has suddenly disappeared from her husband and children. Everyone is desperate, but after eleven days, Hulda is suddenly back, without justification of any kind. He calls Judith, doesn’t explain anything, but announces: Seventeen-year-old son Simon has to move in with Judith.
When men become cannon fodder
Depression and loneliness
Judith accepts. However, Judith does not appear to be an undivided sympathetic figure. It seems a bit limitless, almost invasive when it comes to the lives of others, especially Huldas. This is well written. Judith is very present to Hulda’s husband during the disappearance and later to Hulda’s son. In fact, so present that it follows Simon, thankfully, it turns out. Later, when Simon’s friend dies, Judith throws herself, almost greedily, into tragedy. Maybe to get away from your own life.
Kristensen writes thoughtfully and kindly, exploring existential relationships and experiences such as death, attachment, depression, and loneliness. However, the novel is not entirely convincing. Judith’s relationship with Hulda is too vague and is explained more than it is shown. Why Judith is so engrossed in Hulda is unclear to the reader. So the action in the book also seems a bit weakly thought out, a bit unmotivated.
Convenient letter
“Sudden Darkness” is easy to read and legible. The novel reveals human vulnerability; how they fight forward, upstream, to be ruthlessly carried back, into the past. To put it with F. Scott Fitzgerald. When Judith finally receives a letter from Hulda in the novel, everything clears up. In the letter, Hulda explains herself, revealing that her mother took her life and that the darkness that struck her mother affects her as well.
The letter thus clarifies, in a somewhat convenient way, the friendship and the reasons for the relationship. It confirms in a sense the reader’s sense of doubt. Because Hulda’s story — the relationship with mother, father, darkness, and alienation that she describes in the letter — is experienced as the “truest”, the most intense and flammable in the novel. Let’s see Hulda’s full story next time.
An excellent novel about loneliness.
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