Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for this copy of The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.

To say that this is a good memoir would be a tremendous understatement. This is one of the best memoirs that I have ever read, written in a style that reminds me distinctly of Karl Ove Knausgaard. They are both Danish writers who seem to be able to write about their lives in a very interesting but matter-of-fact way. The way that both Ditlevsen and Knausgaard manage to make the most mundane parts of a life interesting is astounding to me. I have read pages and pages of the chronicles of their daily lives and am left wanting more.

Having never heard of Tove Ditlevsen prior to this book I was astonished to learn that she died in 1978 and The Copenhagen Trilogy has just recently been translated into English. I am not sure how many more of her works have been translated into English but I hope that there are many more Tove Ditlevsen gems for me to discover. I will certainly be on the lookout for them.

I’m judging a 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“In the morning there was hope. It sat like a fleeting gleam of light in my mother’s smooth black hair that I never dared touch; it lay on my tongue with the sugar and lukewarm oatmeal I was slowly eating while I looked at my mother’s slender, folded hands that lay motionless on the newspaper, on top of the reports of Spanish fly and the Treaty of Versailles.” I mean come on! Stunner. Sure this is only the first paragraph in the novel but as I explained previously, I’m reading at first with one eye towards the exit, I’ve got so many piles to get through and when I hit a paragraph like this, a let myself settle in, I know I’m gonna wanna read the whole thing.

Author of the year! I loved this trilogy --my new favorite writer. Thank you netgalley and fsg. In a just world, Tove Ditlevsen will find as much success and acclaim as Knaussgaard. She's a much more interesting writer and deserves a huge readership (even though she's dead).

It should go without say that this is an incredible work of memoir, and a fascinating look into the life and mind of a writer. Ditlevsen does an incredible job in particular of conveying her inner world - the veil that separates her from reality, for example - but though I found myself recognizing a lot of my own thoughts in hers, I couldn't help but feel a bit deprived of detail. Maybe not so much with her writing life, but certainly the people she was closest to could have done with a bit more focus. I get that Ditlevsen may have opted for a more naturalistic approach here (i.e., people naturally grow apart, someone important in the beginning of your life isn't necessarily always going to be there even if that would make more narrative sense) but I can't help but think that she must have had some thoughts or lingering resentments (or even forgiveness) for her mother in her adult life and it would've been nice (and interesting!) to get a sense of their relationship when she was an adult. Also, I did want more about her writing - more than just that the words flowed or didn't - and what moments in her life may have provoked certain book ideas.

These memoirs definitely cover a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of space, and that's great. But I think some deeper context and details were definitely sacrificed to keep things moving along, and I wish that hadn't been so. This is definitely a worthwhile read, and I would definitely recommend it, but it fell a little short of the mark for me.

I was drawn to this trilogy from the moment I first read about them - before the books were translated in English and available to read in the states. “Childhood ( written in 1967), “Youth”, (written in 1967), and Dependency ( written in 1971).
I thought I was going to need to purchase each book separately...
But to my surprise - with thanks - Farrar, Sraus and Giroux publishing has made these books available as a complete -one book volume.

Even today, Tove Ditlevsen is considered an important voice in Denmark. She was a groundbreaker- for women writers. She was a ‘full-exposure’ type author. She wrote about things ( exposing herself intimately) in ways women were not writing about: airing dirty laundry within her family, sharing truthful feelings about men, sex, marriage, children, drug addiction, and abortion.

Tove Ditlevsen was an interesting woman. She wrote 29 books, including short stories, novels, poetry, and memoirs. She began writing poetry as a young child, and by her early twenties, she was a published author.
Born in Copenhagen, in 1917... she died in 1978 by suicide..

“The Copenhagen trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency” ( memoirs), is divided ( as expected) — between each of these books....giving us an experience of her life - as a child, teen, and adult.
In all three books - even as a child - we feel Tove’s tension between every and all relationships and her devotion to her craft. She was serious about being a published author as young as ten years old.
This book has been appraised as her masterpiece.

“Childhood”:
These were not lovey-dovey cozy years in Tove’s young life.
She wrote:
“Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own”.
Her mother was often angry.... Beautiful, lonely, untouchable...filled with secrets that Tove would never learn.
Her father was serious, melancholy, loved to read. “He was unusually moralistic while her mother, at least as the young woman, was lively and silly, irresponsible and vain”

Tove wrote:
“My mother hit me often and hard, but as a rule it was arbitrary and unjust, and during the punishment I felt something like a secret shame or a heavy sorrow tears to my eyes and increased the painful distance between us”.
“My father never hit me. On the contrary— he was good to me”.

In “Childhood”, we also meet Tove’s older brother, and her aunt and uncle. We learn about a dark time when Tove and the entire family had diphtheria.
An interesting tidbit: if somebody lost their job, and went on welfare, they lost their right to vote.

“Childhood” was maybe the most personal - in ‘feeling’ than the next two memoirs.

In “Youth”...we enter the teen years. Hitler had come into power in Germany. Having left school prematurely, Tove takes on menial jobs: dishwashing, cleaning, and other domestic work.
These are typical years of boys, kissing, billiards, movies, dancing, (the carioca: Brazilian dance resembling the samba), drinking, and breaking away from the family more. But her mother still manages to be critical.
Her mother says to Tove:
”You should take more trouble with your appearance. You should buy a spring suit instead of that bicycle. When you’re not naturally pretty, she says, ‘you have to help things out a bit’. My mother doesn’t say such things to hurt me; she’s just completely ignorant of what goes on inside other people”.

We meet a few of the boys that Tove hangs out with. Erling was interested in politics. He wanted to change social democracy. Tove had little interest in politics- but Erling made Tove feel less lonely.
Tove was writing more and more:
I liked this poem that Tove wrote as a teenager:
“There burns a candle in the night,
it burns for me alone,
and if I blow at it,
it flames up,
and flames for me alone.
But if you breathe softly
and if you breathe quietly,
the candle is certainly more than bright
and burns deep in my own
breast,
for you alone”.

In “Dependency”.... things turned much more dark.....sad.....harrowing.
She was already successful in her twenties.... but she also struggled with the horrors of addiction...dependent on opioid demerol and methadone.
Besides her alcohol and drug addictions, Tove had four marriages, ( almost all sporadic and addicted to damaged men), three children, wanted and unwanted children, two abortions, and a few love affairs.
She was still writing... always forming sentences in her head.... which made her distant and distracted when anyone ( including her husbands), started talking with her.

“In the dark, tarnished corridors of my mind there is a faint impression, like a child’s footprints in damp sand”.

Searingly truthful, (but no sneering blame of anyone),, sarcastic and piercingly raw, ...this trilogy was eloquently written.

For those readers ( like me) who enjoyed Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, and books by Jean Rhys.... then this is a book for you.
Introspective....character driven....books by fearless women with one heck of a powerful voice.

this was a unique read, I really enjoyed the way Tove Ditlevsen wrote the memoir and I really felt for the author. I appreciated that the books were in one collection.

Beginning at the age of 50, Tove Ditlevsen wrote three memoirs, translated and presented here for the first time in a single volume. Not well known outside of Denmark during her years as a prominent poet and author, she wrote with a clarity and bravery that belied the material. Part I, Childhood, delivers a portrait of the life of a young girl growing up in a household devoid of warmth and affection. Her brother, being groomed as a skilled worker in order to escape the struggle of life as a stoker like their father and anxious to flee as soon as he reaches 18 years, says that "...this is a not a family to stay with."

There was nothing abusive, not even neglectful in this childhood, merely lacking in any human connection. In the second section, Youth, she is put out to work as soon as possible at the age of 14.

But it is in the third volume, originally titled Life but changed to Dependency for the translation, that the real effects of Tove's search for love and her life as an increasingly well known poet reaches fruition. This volume, begun when she was 54, reads like a novel in which the doomed heroine is used and misused by, and uses in turn, the various men who come into her life. Most notably, by her third husband, a doctor who gets her hooked on opiods in order to maintain control. This could have been written in the present day, her increasing dependency, realizing she was marrying him because he could supply the means for attaining bliss, and her being hospitalized and weaned off it. However she struggled all her life with addictions. Since it is well known, it is not a spoiler to reveal that shortly after completing this memoir, she succumbed to her addictions and committed suicide.

Tove Ditlevsen, acclaimed Danish writer and poet, bares her soul in this searing 3 volume memoir, 3 compelling volumes of bleakly honest autofiction, published between 1967 and 1971 and now available as a trilogy in an English translation. Hers was a troubled life indeed. The books chart her progress from working class child to literary fame before her decline into drug dependency and finally her suicide. Right from the beginning she wanted to be a poet but her life turned out to be a struggle in so many ways. Frank and honest, her revealing account is painful to read, and I found it heart-breaking and haunting. Highly recommended.