Summary of Tove Ditlevsen's The Copenhagen Trilogy

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The sun broke over the gypsy wagon, as if it came from inside it, and Scabie Hans came out with bare chest and a wash basin in his hands. When he had poured the water over himself, he put out his hand for a towel and Pretty Lili gave it to him. They didn’t say a word to each other.
#2 When my mother was dressed, she would stand in front of the mirror in the bedroom and spit on a piece of pink tissue paper, which she then rubbed hard across her cheeks. I would carry the cups out to the kitchen, and inside of me long, mysterious words began to crawl across my soul like a protective membrane.
#3 My father was a scoundrel and a drunkard, but at least he wasn’t a socialist. My brother Edvin was going to be a skilled worker, something very special. Skilled workers had real tablecloths on the table instead of newspaper.
#4 The living room is an island of light and warmth for many thousands of evenings. It’s always winter, and out in the world it’s ice cold like in the bedroom and the kitchen. The fire roars in the stove.

Sujets

• Dinamarca
• Denmark

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669355373
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Tove Ditlevsen's The Copenhagen Trilogy
Contents Insights from Chapter 1
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The sun broke over the gypsy wagon, as if it came from inside it, and Scabie Hans came out with bare chest and a wash basin in his hands. When he had poured the water over himself, he put out his hand for a towel and Pretty Lili gave it to him. They didn’t say a word to each other.

#2

When my mother was dressed, she would stand in front of the mirror in the bedroom and spit on a piece of pink tissue paper, which she then rubbed hard across her cheeks. I would carry the cups out to the kitchen, and inside of me long, mysterious words began to crawl across my soul like a protective membrane.

#3

My father was a scoundrel and a drunkard, but at least he wasn’t a socialist. My brother Edvin was going to be a skilled worker, something very special. Skilled workers had real tablecloths on the table instead of newspaper.

#4

The living room is an island of light and warmth for many thousands of evenings. It’s always winter, and out in the world it’s ice cold like in the bedroom and the kitchen. The fire roars in the stove.

#5

I have many songs written by my mother, and before she reaches the end of the first one, Edvin starts hammering again. My parents don’t fight, but I still have nightmares because of the fear that invades me when things have gotten quiet downstairs.

#6

I am six years old, and I am enrolled in school. I can read and write. My mother proudly tells this to everyone who bothers listening to her. I have to hide so many things from my mother, because she is extremely abusive.

#7

I remember being in the principal’s office at school, and the woman looking like a witch, who didn’t offer us any chairs. I understood many things at once: my mother was smaller than other adult women, younger than other mothers, and there was a world outside our neighborhood that she feared.

#8

There are certain facts that are immovable, like the lampposts in the street, but they change in the evening when the lamplighter has touched them with his magic wand. They light up like big soft sunflowers in the narrow borderland between night and day.

#9

I was born on December 14, 1918, in a little two-room apartment in Vesterbro in Copenhagen. My father was a stoker and my mother was a salesgirl. They were married when my brother was born, and my father was sent away many times when he thought my mother was cheating on him.

#10

I was seven years old when disaster struck us. My father had been fired from Riedel Lindegaard, from which everything good had come until then. We never starved, but I got to know the half starvation felt at the smell of dinner coming from the doors of the more well-to-do.

#11

I was the one who bought the bread, and I was never punished for it. My mother hit me often and hard, but as a rule it was arbitrary and unjust, and I felt something like a secret shame or a heavy sorrow that increased the distance between me and my parents.

#12

I was always afraid of the pervert, but my mother was even more so. She took me to the police station and told them that women and children in the building weren’t safe from his filthiness. The officer asked me whether the pervert had bared himself, and I said no with great conviction.

#13

I am very close to the window, and I open it to be even closer to the cloudless, silken sky. I feel very happy, and I long, melancholy lines of verse pass through my soul. I am repelled by my parents’ use of vulgar, coarse words and expressions, but I still respect them.

#14

The sound of the hallway door is heard below me. It’s opened and closed, and a lovely creature slips across the courtyard. It’s Ketty, the beautiful, spiritlike woman from the apartment next to ours. She has on silver high-heel shoes under a long yellow silk dress.

#15

Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own. It’s there all the time, and everyone can see it just as clearly as you can see Pretty Ludvig’s harelip.

#16

Children are often called children because they have no masks or weapons. They are harmless, and you can treat them however you like because there is nothing to fear from them.