#Asta Olivia Nordenhof

[eva248]

Lecturas de abril. Cuarta semana

Búscame / Gregorio Casamayor. Editorial Acantilado, 2023 Una mañana lluviosa, el fotógrafo Paul Knobel encuentra un diario íntimo en una parada de taxis de Brooklyn. Mientras lo examina, el cuaderno se abre por azar en la entrada del 5 de julio, donde puede leerse una enigmática frase que traslada a Paul al último verano que pasó con su madre en Cape Cod. Acaso por esta coincidencia, el…

[feelingsmixed]

Books of 2023

At the end of the year, I look through my diary where I note down the books, I have read this year and gather them in a list. I read quite a lot (this year, I’ve read 57 books) – naturally, some are better than others. Here are my favorites from 2023.

Some of the books but not all because this year, I borrowed a lot of books from the library and from my friends who all have great taste.

Janet Malcolm: In the Freud archives (1984) and The journalist and the murderer (1989)

I’ve been introduced to many of my favorite authors by my friend Nanna, who in the beginning of this year lent me In the Freud archives, a journalistic encounter of a conflict in the psychoanalytic milieu in New York about Freud’s legacy, more specifically, about Freud’s relation to the seduction theory. The book reads like a crime novel while also asking fundamental psychoanalytic questions. Why does it matter so much what Freud thought about the seduction theory, I thought to myself at the beginning of the book. Quite a lot, it turns out. The journalist and the murderer changed the way I think about interviewing and representations, and I think everyone who works with written representations of people should read this. I’ve been schooled in thinking about ethnographic representations through a political and decolonial lens but The journalist made me think about it through psychoanalytical terms as well – the impossibility of representing others reflect the impossibility of knowing yourself fully.

Nell Dunn: Talking to women (1964)

I finished this book in January when I was on a writing retreat in Skagen at an old refugium. Outside, it was cold and windy, the days were short, I sat inside by my desk, attempting to finish an article. At night in bed, I read Talking to women, a collection of interviews Dunn made with women she knew about love, work, motherhood – in other words, about life. Although the interviews are from the early ‘60s, they convey recognizable aspects of womanhood, both the pleasures and the pain. Dunn’s interview isn’t the detached style of a journalist or a sociologist but that of a friend: she intervenes, discusses, comforts her subjects, resulting in the interviews also demonstrating female friendships.

Elena Ferrante: Days of abandonment (2002)

This is the first Ferrante book I’ve read outside of the Neapolitan quartet. I think it’s one of the bravest books I’ve read about what love can do to you – I’ve written about the book’s qualities in another blogpost, so I won’t say much more about it, just that it shook me deeply with its painful depictions of betrayal, disappointment, and jealousy.

Henrik Pontoppidan: Lykke-Per (1898-1904)

My stepmum gifted me this book years ago but I’ve never gotten around to reading it until this summer, expecting it to be one of those boring classics you are forced to analyze in Danish class. I never heard much about it what it is actually about: the story’s hero, Lykke-Per, grows up the son of a very conservative priest in Western Jutland but early on rejects his family’s way of living, and decides to move to Copenhagen and study engineering. Here, he befriends several members of the establishment, makes great engineering plans for Denmark, and tries to marry into the bourgeoise and leave his background for good. However, in my opinion, the real hero of the book is Per’s fiancé, Jakobe, the extremely intelligent daughter of a wealthy Jewish family who’s trying to find her way in the man-dominated world she feels uncomfortable in. It's a book both about the modernization of Denmark, as well as an existential story about getting what you want and then not wanting it, about human relationships, about antisemitism, about women’s struggles and a page turner? I think I’ll return to this book in the future.

Fleur Jaeggy: Sweet days of discipline (1991)

I love ominous books about communities of girls and women, and this was no exception. It takes place in a Swiss boarding school and is written in the first person, but the narrator remains elusive, impossible to grasp outside of the group of women. “When you’re in boarding school you imagine how grand and free the world is, and when you leave, you’d sometimes like to hear the sound of the school bell again”. More Fleur Jaeggy in 2024!

Malte Tellerup: Spræng fabrikken (2023)

I couldn’t stop 1) thinking about this book and 2) telling everyone who would listen about it. It’s a very short book which a reviewer called ‘anti-literature’ – it’s about three young people living on a small farm where they experiment with regenerative agriculture when they are told that they will have to leave the land due to the neighboring chemical factory expanding. They give up their farming and instead start making bombs for attacking the factory. I’m planning on writing a separate post on this book, so I won’t say much more other than this being the best piece of ‘climate literature’ I have read.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof: Djævlebogen (2023)

Nordenhof was maybe the first contemporary author I read who demonstrated how literature can be political and personal at the same time with her poetry book “det nemme og det ensomme” (the easiness and the loneliness). I’ve longed for this book, the second in a planned septology, since she published the first one in 2020 and read it in one setting. It’s about the possibility of love under capitalism, about money, sex work, strange encounters and mixes the novel with poetry. Here’s (a badly translated) part of the poem which makes up the introduction in which she describes her troubles with writing the book:

“my motto/which I had forgotten/while I was struggling/to write a/real book/about the inner life of great men/my motto/here it is/it is simple/and great/fuck men!/when I remembered this/I remembered/that I can do/what I want.”

Natalia Ginzburg: All our yesterdays (1952)

Sally Rooney described this as a perfect novel, and I would agree. It’s about a family living in fascist Italy with the youngest girl of the family as the protagonist who however doesn’t take up more space in the novel than the rest of its characters which the novel follows through the Second World War as some of them join the resistance and others find other ways to cope with fascism. The novel explores the impact fascism and war have on different people, without viewing this as a reflection of essential character traits or depicting some as inherently evil and others as inherently good. Ginzburg has an eye for the small things that make up people – certain turns of phrases, bodily manners, temperaments – and the necessarily ever-changing relationships between them, writing about these with great feeling and humour. I enjoyed the way the novel treats politics and politicization not primarily through public life, but in the personal relationships of the characters.

I’m quite satisfied that only one (!) US-American author made it onto this list. Next year, I’d like to read more authors from the Global South and perhaps even more POETRY. I also want to continue reading the same books as my friends because literature is, truly, best when discussed with others. Until then, I’m off to buy champagne and lemons for New Year’s Eve – see you!

[jannickej]

Djävulsboken Asta Olivia Nordenhof Norstedts

[tequilatiller]

en våd græsplæne og mig

det blir dejligt at træde ud på den

her lugter af ahorn

det nemme og det ensomme

ik dø for egen hånd ik eje sig selv fuldstændig

det lovmæssige og pligterne

sørge for te og appelsiner til de syge

at livet kommer udefra

morgenens tidligste vand

nerverne er galere end jeg

- asta olivia nordenhoff, det nemme og det ensomme

[rovdyr]

jeg synes tit jeg bliver spurgt om jeg betragter mig selv som feminist, og jeg bliver hver gang overrasket. jeg betragter mig selv som feminist, og jeg formoder at det er åbenlyst for enhver at jeg betragter mig selv som feminist. når det så ikke er det kan det måske blandt andet skyldes en bekvem fejlslutning fra min side, om at det er unødvendigt som sådan at tilslutte sig ismen offentligt. nu har jeg så igen fået anledning til at besvare spørgsmålet til et interview, og denne gang hvor der var god tid brugte jeg anledningen til at skrive alle de tanker ned der umiddelbart dukker op når jeg sidder og kigger på spørgsmålet : ja, jeg identificerer mig selv som feminist fordi jeg ikke kan sige mig fri for en øget tilbøjelighed til at ringeagte mennesker hvis de har en kvindekrop. jeg identificerer mig lettere med mænd, og jeg sympatiserer lettere med mænd. jeg er mere optaget af at opnå mænds respekt og kærlighed end kvinders. det er en daglig opgave for mig at være opmærksom på de tilbøjeligheder for at kunne yde dem den modstand de SKAL ydes. jeg ved ikke om der findes en svensk eller norsk pendant (interviwet er til vagant, ik noget overordnet kultursammenligning på spil her) til det danske ord øretæveindbydende, som er et af de mest voldelige udtryk jeg kender, dels fordi det søger at legitimere voldslysten ved at henlægge dens årsag hos den anden, dels fordi det tilstræber at barnliggøre den, der vækker voldslysten, øretæver er et begreb man bruger om voldshandlinger der har til formål at korrigere uartige børn. det er et begreb, jeg har overtaget fra min mor. for nyligt gik det op for mig, at det begreb, som jeg afskyr og forsøger at bortjage fra mit ordforråd, kun dukker op når jeg er præsenteret for en kvinde hvis væremåde eller udsagn vækker mit mishag. jeg begyndte at tænke over om min mor også kun havde brugt begrebet om kvinder, og jeg tror det forholder sig sådan. det klinger helt forkert at forestille mig hende sige det om en mand hvis adfærd hun ikke brød sig om. det er næsten uudholdeligt for mig at tænke på min mor og jeg, som begge er (for min mors vedkommende var) vildt prægede af at have levet med min fars kvindeangst og had, som sidder foran tv’et og bliver enige om at en kvinde er øretæveindbydende. jeg havde muligvis fået høvl af min far hvis jeg havde været en dreng, men helt givet ikke den samme slags, de samme. mit køn spillede en afgørende rolle for hans momentane had og panik. det kan jeg sige med sikkerhed fordi hans overfald altid blev ledsaget af sætningen: du er en sindssyg kvinde. min alder uafhængigt. du er en sindssyg kvinde. du er en sindssyg kvinde. jo mere ængstelig, krybende, underdanig jeg blev, des større raseriet. min far, som var vokset op med en voldelig far som også tæskede hans mor, har vel set sin mor i min krybende adfærd, og han har vel set min mor, som han tæskede, i min krybende adfærd. jeg identificerer mig som feminist fordi hvis jeg ikke forestillede mig at den form for kulturel vold kunne ophøre så ville jeg rådne op. jeg tænker tit på at de kvindelige guder forsvandt parallelt med at købmandskulturen opstod. fordi man begyndte at handle med kvinder måtte man også nedvurdere dem i forhold til købmanden. i den forstand, at handel på en anden måde en udveksling forudsætter hierarki, er feminisme for mig også antikapitalisme. jeg kan godt føle mig fremmed for dele af den feminisme der præger den offentlige debat. kvinder på direktionsgangene. fremtidens ledere. den slags. jeg kan ikke se nogen anledninger til at have respekt for særlig mange direktionsgange, om det er mænd eller kvinder der sidder der. den længsel jeg måtte ha mod at blive pave, chef for nato, direktør i mærsk (eller en af de helt enormt få kvinder der får nobels litteraturpris) forsøger jeg at bekæmpe, for ud fra et socialt perspektiv kan jeg ikke se andet end at det er nogle latterlige erhverv. lad de rige hvide mænd beholde deres tragiske kedelige lort og lad os undergrave dem udenom. simpelthen organisere noget andet. feminisme for mig er sådan set blandt andet at modarbejde at få magt (i hvert fald den type magt der centraliserer sig og bliver noget i sig selv, noget bestandigt). At hver gang man taler, er den tales fremmest opgave at indbyde til at andre begynder at tale. feminisme er for mig at hævde det magtesløse og æreløse, det dødelige, det i den forstand biologiske og med alt ligeværdige menneske. det menneske som er svagt og derfor må yde omsorg for det fælles. det er at hævde samtalen over ordet. det forgængelige over far i det høje. yes

asta olivia nordenhof

[stephaniedall]

Asta Oliva Nordenhof