I continued exploring the Copenhague Trilogy with the next volume covering the ´young years´ of Tove Ditlevsen, as she is about to move away from home and has her first poem published. The book starts with her first working day - which may be the last too - but continues with her fine observations of Denmark at war, the social precarity surrounding her and her new human and self-discoveries.
There are many elements that at this age it´s hard to come to pieces altogether in real life, even harder within the literary realm. In Youth/Jugend, as I read the book in the German translation from Danish by Ursel Allenstein, the voice is curious as what is happening to her is not necessarily planned, although she is working hard toward it. There is that impulse of the youth towards the world and its people, something that maybe later will be consider as ´mistakes´ but right now it is just pure desire - to discover, explore, try. In a way that makes you curious to see what will finally happen to Tove in the next - and last - volume.
Her voice resonate with the style of contemporary memoir writers, like Rachel Cusk which testifies that memoir writing is not a matter of timebounded style but, as some may expect, of personality. A mindset that may transcend times and centuries in the name of literature is a curious journey in itself.
Rating: 4 stars
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