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2011 Reading #36: My Mother Gets Married by Moa Martinson
Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.
34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin.
35. Edge of Our Lives by Mark Rich.
36. My Mother Gets Married (Mor gifter sig) by Moa Martinson, translated by Margaret S. Lacy. We read a snippet of Martinson's Women and Appletrees back in the first Scandinavian Lit survey course I ever took; I've probably been carrying this novel around since around that time. Martinson (born Helga Maria Swarts; no relation) was a social realist at a time when that label meant something more literal than it does now; she grew up terribly poor, in a society where women were not treated much better than livestock. My Mother Gets Married is, in the larger sense, autobiographical; told from the point of view of "Mia," it follows her and her mother through several moves and varying levels of poverty, with the stepfather alluded to in the title drifting in and out of the picture, leaving them for drink or other women. The characters of Mia and her mother Hedvig are painstakingly and heartbreakingly drawn, as are the relationships between them and the other women in their lives; the husband's adoptive mother, Mia's classmate and best friend who turns out to be her stepfather's illegitimate child, and the young neighbor trapped in a marriage with a similarly jealous and undependable man. Brutal stuff at time, but well worth the read.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.
34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin.
35. Edge of Our Lives by Mark Rich.
36. My Mother Gets Married (Mor gifter sig) by Moa Martinson, translated by Margaret S. Lacy. We read a snippet of Martinson's Women and Appletrees back in the first Scandinavian Lit survey course I ever took; I've probably been carrying this novel around since around that time. Martinson (born Helga Maria Swarts; no relation) was a social realist at a time when that label meant something more literal than it does now; she grew up terribly poor, in a society where women were not treated much better than livestock. My Mother Gets Married is, in the larger sense, autobiographical; told from the point of view of "Mia," it follows her and her mother through several moves and varying levels of poverty, with the stepfather alluded to in the title drifting in and out of the picture, leaving them for drink or other women. The characters of Mia and her mother Hedvig are painstakingly and heartbreakingly drawn, as are the relationships between them and the other women in their lives; the husband's adoptive mother, Mia's classmate and best friend who turns out to be her stepfather's illegitimate child, and the young neighbor trapped in a marriage with a similarly jealous and undependable man. Brutal stuff at time, but well worth the read.