Sign in with Facebook
Paul Fulcher's Reviews > Youth
Youth
by
by
The next day I start my job at the Currency Exchange typing pool and Hitler invades Austria.
Ungdom (1967) by Tove Ditlevsen is the second in her wonderful trilogy of memoirs, which started with Barndom (Childhood) - my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This 2nd volume was also translated by Tiina Nunnally and originally published in the mid 1980s, but re-released in 2019.
The first volume ended with Tove's graduation from school, aged 14, and in this volume she is able to escape her childhood and finally enters the world of adulthood. The focus is on her emergence into adulthood and the need to settle down with a family and a job. But for Tove the office jobs her family find for her don’t appeal and nor do the young men she meets as dances:
I think about my childhood ghost: the stable skilled worker. I don’t have anything against a skilled worker; it’s the word ‘stable’ that blocks out all my bright future dreams.
The different thing about me is that I write poetry, but at the same time there’s a lot that’s ordinary about me. Like all young girls, I want to get married and have children and have a home of my own.
Towards the novel’s end a potential win-win arrives when an editor of a literary journal agrees to publish one of her poems. On the way to meet him she thinks:
If he’s single, I have nothing against marrying him. Entirely sight unseen.
The editor, Viggo F., transpires to be 53, older than her parents, but they are keen she settles down and she approaches the potential relationship with her eyes open, telling him:
I once knew someone who said that all people want to use each other for something. I want to use you to get my poems published.
As she ages, world events start to intrude more, in part as she is more aware of them and in part as the word slides inevitably to war. This volume ends in September 1939 with England declaring war on Germany:
Will my poetry collection come out now?
Will daily life continue at all?
Will Viggo F. marry me when the whole world is burning.
Will Hitler’s evil shadow fall over Denmark?
Another excellent and compact read.
Ungdom (1967) by Tove Ditlevsen is the second in her wonderful trilogy of memoirs, which started with Barndom (Childhood) - my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This 2nd volume was also translated by Tiina Nunnally and originally published in the mid 1980s, but re-released in 2019.
The first volume ended with Tove's graduation from school, aged 14, and in this volume she is able to escape her childhood and finally enters the world of adulthood. The focus is on her emergence into adulthood and the need to settle down with a family and a job. But for Tove the office jobs her family find for her don’t appeal and nor do the young men she meets as dances:
I think about my childhood ghost: the stable skilled worker. I don’t have anything against a skilled worker; it’s the word ‘stable’ that blocks out all my bright future dreams.
The different thing about me is that I write poetry, but at the same time there’s a lot that’s ordinary about me. Like all young girls, I want to get married and have children and have a home of my own.
Towards the novel’s end a potential win-win arrives when an editor of a literary journal agrees to publish one of her poems. On the way to meet him she thinks:
If he’s single, I have nothing against marrying him. Entirely sight unseen.
The editor, Viggo F., transpires to be 53, older than her parents, but they are keen she settles down and she approaches the potential relationship with her eyes open, telling him:
I once knew someone who said that all people want to use each other for something. I want to use you to get my poems published.
As she ages, world events start to intrude more, in part as she is more aware of them and in part as the word slides inevitably to war. This volume ends in September 1939 with England declaring war on Germany:
Will my poetry collection come out now?
Will daily life continue at all?
Will Viggo F. marry me when the whole world is burning.
Will Hitler’s evil shadow fall over Denmark?
Another excellent and compact read.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Youth.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Comments Showing 1-3 of 3 (3 new)
date
newest »
newest »
Thanks - I wasn't aware of that album.
In that case, I highly recommend it! The first track, jalousi, is the album’s best-known and best-liked song in Denmark (or was, 20 years ago!)
It has a real ‘70s feel, but personally I love it, and love Anne Linnet’s voice!
It has a real ‘70s feel, but personally I love it, and love Anne Linnet’s voice!
I’m currently listening to Anne Linnet singing Tove Ditlevsen’s poems to put me in the mood before I receive my books and get cracking on this trilogy!
You may be familiar with Anne Linnet’s work and with this particular album, but if not, the album was released a year after Tove Ditlevsen’s death (1976), and is called “ANNE LINNET synger Tove Ditlevsen KVINDESIND” (kvindesind = a woman’s mind)
You can also find her songs on the OST of the movie Barndommens Gade (i.e. “Childhood Street”), an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Tove Ditlevsen which was directed by Astrid Henning-Jensen in 1986.
Thanks again!