Category: Hjorth Vigdis

A selection of 2023 favourites

28th December 2023 / / 6 Comments

I don’t know why it happened, but there were times this year when I just fell out of the habit of reading. This is not what I want, and my aim for 2024 is to find my way back in – with this space to help. For now, though, I’m looking back on 2023. It didn’t feel right to do my usual countdown of twelve books, so instead I’ve picked out six favourites, in no particular order:

Appius and Virginia (1932) by Gertrude Trevelyan 

It sounds as though it will be whimsical: the tale of a woman who buys an orang-utan with the aim of raising it as a human. What it becomes, though, is a chilling exploration of the unbridgeable gap between one mind and another. 

Whale (2004) by Cheon Myeong-kwan
Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim (2022)

I won’t pretend I always knew what I was reading with this book, but I do know I enjoyed it. Whale is a dance through recent Korean history, with trauma, violence, humour and magic all present in the stories of its larger-than-life characters. 

Is Mother Dead (2020) by Vigdis Hjorth
Translated from Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund (2022)

Johanna returns to Oslo after almost thirty years, speculating intensely over what may have happened to her mother. What I found most striking about this novel is how it transforms our perception of Johanna without changing the essential tone of her narration. 

Gentleman Overboard (1937) by Herbert Clyde Lewis

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this portrait of a man whose layers of gentility are literally stripped from him when he falls into the sea. I found it quite powerful, especially in how it highlights that the smallest things can be both significant and insignificant, depending on the viewpoint.

War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek
Translated from Czech by M. and R. Weatherall (1937)

A shape-shifting satire in which intelligent salamanders are first exploited by humans, and then rebel against them. I was pleased to find that the novel still has considerable bite, and appreciated that it couldn’t be reduced easily to a single metaphor or interpretation. 

Time Shelter (2020) by Georgi Gospodinov
Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (2022)

I love how the canvas of this novel widens, from a clinic that helps dementia patients by recreating the past, to a whole continent retreating into nostalgia. Time Shelter examines the dangers of becoming fixated on the past, and the narrator’s memory fails him, suggesting there is no shelter from time after all. 

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There are my reading highlights of 2023. You can find my round-ups from previous years here:

2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.

You can also fined me on social media at Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and X/Twitter. See you next year!

#InternationalBooker2023: Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth (tr. Charlotte Barslund)

23rd March 2023 / / 2 Comments

My next stop on this year’s International Booker journey is Norway, where we meet Johanna. She’s estranged from her family, having left behind them and their plans for her legal career, to make a life as an artist in the US. They didn’t invite her to her father’s funeral, and she didn’t think of going. Now on the verge of sixty, Johanna has returned to Oslo after almost thirty years, for a retrospective of her work. 

Johanna’s thoughts frequently turn to her remaining family: her mother and her sister Ruth. She’s tried calling them, with no answer. Johanna doesn’t even know if her mother is alive, and speculates intensely over what life might be like for her now, what she might be thinking:

Perhaps Mum gets upset merely on hearing my name and so everyone around her avoids saying it. Perhaps Mum feels uneasy every time she hears the name even if it’s just some random Johanna, a skier or a newsreader, the name is mentioned and Mum shudders, Mum is lucky that not many people are called Johanna. Perhaps Mum has succeeded in suppressing unpleasant thoughts about me in her everyday life – she has years of practice – that but then it pops up in a random interviewee on the television whose name is Johanna…

translation from norwegian by Charlotte barslund

That repetition, the rhythm of the translation, all underline Johanna’s level of preoccupation. She has found out her mother’s address, and towards the start of the novel I wanted to say to her: just go there and make contact – whatever has happened, it’s surely better to face it than stay in this cycle of speculation.

Well, that was before Johanna started lurking in her car outside her mother’s home. She finds out that her mother is indeed alive, but doesn’t stop wondering about her. Then, without ever changing the essential tone of the narration, Hjorth transforms our perception of Johanna from a somewhat sympathetic character to one who really isn’t. We start to see why Johanna’s family might want nothing to do with her. 

As a character study, I found Is Mother Dead powerful stuff. It’s also an examination of familial relations at a high pitch. Hjorth’s novel has set the standard for the rest of the International Booker longlist, as far as I’m concerned. 

Book published by Verso Books.

Click here to read my other posts on the 2023 International Booker Prize.

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