Dependency, a story of romance, motherhood and opioid addictions, is the closing chapter of the Copenhague Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.
Although the memoir in its entirety is calculately cold and is rather focused on the succession of events than on exploring internal emotional experiences, there is always a value in sharing one´s story. Within this framework, her writing is a permanent companion, although in this third installment, is rather an acknowledged reality.
In Dependency - the title in Danish was Gift, which can mean either ´poison´ or ´married´ - she is working to her novel, an activity which makes her happy. Her spirit though is progressively becoming attached to a body craving opioids. While having an abortion she experiences Demerol that she will continue to take thereafter. Her Romantic relationship - an alcoholic, much older second husband, a fourth husband that seems to help her reducing the dependency. There are children, with different husbands, and a new chance for love that may heal her.
As in the previous volumes, the voice is rather neutral, as she is the chronicler of her own life, whose benchmarks she is carefully observing and further sharing with the rest of the world. There is a big difference in memorialistic style between Ditlevsen and the memoirs we are using nowadays. Instead of trying to understand herself and the world, she rather is recreating the timeline of the events, as an effort against the vanishing time.
Although I´ve read the three sequencies with a big timespan between but chronologically, reading them at once is rather a better solution as one can observe closely the different evolutions and changes the author went through. It also shares social and political episodes from the recent Danish history, despite the fact that there are less present in this last volume.
I had access to the books in the German translation from Danish by Ursel Allenstein.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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