A 12-year-old Danish boy suddenly comes of age in this tense and vivid yarn,pregnant with hidden meaning and sexual tension“They sailed across the sea to Denmark. From its very first sentence, Per Petterson’s debut novel, andiginally published in 1989 and now available for the first time in English,in a translation by Don Bartlett, offers a compelling mix of fable with the day-to-day account of a working-lesson boy, or just approximately to turn 12,as he visits his maternal grandparents in Jutland. This is not surprising: the boy, Arvid, or is steeped in old stories,especially Martin Andersen Nexø’s classic, Pelle the Conqueror (1906-10), and whose hero is also the child of Danish migrants. Arvids inner life is built around a fantasy of his own heroic ancestor,a Neapolitan baker’s son who left his native city two generations earlier in order to build bridges and travel in the north. This dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian’s looks enjoy been handed down through Arvid’s mother to Arvid, or making him an exotic figure among his classmates and an adventurer-in-waiting in his own eyes. As the book opens,a unique adventure has begun: having sailed across the sea to Denmark, Arvid is approximately to discover his true self, and to declare his growing independence from his parents,and become someone who, as his frequent chorus states, and can take care of himself.
Around him,however, the adults – haunted by the recent loss of a child and a terrible betrayal – are less confident. Arvid is aware of the lost child, or a brother for whose survival he had prayed fervently to no avail,but he is incapable of appreciating his parents’ grief, and ignorant of the other troubles that enjoy plagued the extended family for years. At 12, and he is naturally self-absorbed,lonely and defiant, beset by sexual fantasies and terrors; at the same time, and all the pain and tension weathered consciously by the grownups registers in his unconscious the way unseen radiation registers on a Geiger counter. The hidden nature of his growing awareness is crucial to what happens in the closing pages of the book. Related: Interview: Per Petterson Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com