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The title could also have been “Can you see me?”
Isn’t that what it’s all about when naive, contact-seeking youth send intimate photos of themselves?
We will all be seen, respected, loved.
And so we go to the bar, over and over again. Although the warnings are many about the frightening consequences of sharing too much of ourselves in electronic format.
Seduced by falling in love
Anna (15) falls in love with Lars sitting across from her in the classroom. Lars with soft hair around his neck, Lars with a tooth that is slightly larger than the other. But he, and what he has done, we can only access little by little.
The book begins with Anna and her family on the move. They travel from Tromsø to a smaller place. Parents have received new jobs. Anna is about to start a new school.
And everything, Anna thinks, is her fault.
The unfolding of what is happening now and what happened before the family moved, feels natural, although it is a good use in both youth and adult novels to retain information and then reveal a bit of prehistory. .
Here the narrative technique is completely in place: Anna is understandably holding things back. She fears that the rumor has traveled in front of her. She fears condemnation and intimidation as she gently tries to make a new friend.
Credible teenager
Newcomer Sigrid Agnethe Hansen, who has spent 30 years, has found a good tone in the performance of Anna, 15 years old.
The anguish, the shame, the bad conscience, and the discouraging hope of someday ending this event that we believe has something to do with a moving image, are intelligently described. The images are creative, like when she writes about the new director, who at first is kind and so serious that: «...She has gone from having the sun on your face to having the moon there“
That the pieces of a broken heart can be rebuilt and created something that is just as good, if not completely the same, is perhaps a simple recognition. But it is also an understandable and comforting image for young readers.
Many young people experience something similar during their teens. Anna feels guilt and shame, but above all she is a victim of the person who has shared the image the most. Fortunately, this is also emphasized in the novel. Because he’s like Anna’s new girlfriend Tina says:
The culprit must receive his punishment.
We don’t know much about the consequences for Lars, other than that he had to meet Anna at the Conflict Council. Maybe he had his reasons for acting the way he did.
In Hansen’s narrative, the explanation can soften the image so that it is not completely black and white about the naive, kind girl, and the crafty, exploitative boy. Still, the author does not apologize for the digital printing. Anna is our confidant. The one that has suffered an overload. The one who will rise again.
“See this?” it’s about a teenager with good powers around him. Anna has understanding parents and, not least, a grandmother who never condemns. She also receives help from a psychologist.
Through careful literary work, Sigrid Agnethe Hansen shows that there is a way further from a complicated interior landscape.
note:
Sigrid Agnethe Hansen is Program Manager at NRK Troms. Author and literary critic have never been known and are not known.
