(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
She wanders around in the language, Siri Hustvedt, and thereby she also wanders around in life. They are largely life journeys, Hustvedt's recently translated essays. The words on the pages are a series of trips around the nooks and crannies of her life – and with this kind of writing, one reads so much of one's own life into the work. As when Hustvedt writes about the child Siri's fascination with seeing her grandmother take the tooth out of her mouth to clean it and store it overnight. It immediately takes me 35 years back in time, to when a 10-year-old Steffen watched his grandmother perform exactly the same act. This smells like an old lady. This strange act, in which a body part, which the rest of us had as a fixed element in the mouth, suddenly detached itself and could be something of its own. And then I think of my grandfather, for whom several body parts were so detached from his body that he could no longer use them. A partial paralysis gradually worsened. At first he could take the cards himself when we played. Later, we grandchildren had to assist when it had to be pulled in from the pile.
It's so recognisable
It is the kind of wanderings of thought that come to life when you read Hustvedt. In the way that she is constantly in dialogue with the reader. Her language turns outward. It is inviting and inclusive. Maybe not universal but close. One invariably reads one's own life into the text. It's so recognisable. Therefore, you are constantly derailed. You read the text, but you don't only read the text but also the text of your own life. It is almost the one that counts the most – not Hustvedt's words.
How disgust can lead to a pathological, compulsive urge to clean.
Hustvedt makes a virtue of alternating between the general and the particular or even the familial. Now take the essay on disgust and disgust. Here she draws on a range of scientific works to clarify a number of points about the cultural differences in what disgusts people, and how disgust can lead to a pathological, compulsive eagerness to clean. At Hustvedt, scientifically based sentences are folded together with anecdotal sections about Hustvedt's own mother, who used a measuring tape to ensure that there was exactly the same distance between the plates when the table was set for guests. This alternation enriches the reading experience and once again results in Hustvedt's words wandering towards the reader's own life.
The parenting role
This is probably also due to the dominant themes in the collection of essays: where you come from, the environment that shaped you, the people, the landscapes and the memories. For Hustvedt, Norway is of course very important.
Here is Mandal, where Siri's mother lived in her childhood before the family emigrated to the United States. Here are memories of the sea. Here is my grandparents' farm in Minnesota. Most of all, however, there are reflections on the parental role; both being a parent and having parents. And then to lose them. The love for the mother fills a lot. It is so heartfelt. Not just being born by her, but nurturing respect, recognition, admiration and friendship. And because there is love, there is sorrow. There is the fear of death and the grief over the deceased. It branches into death rituals. The Vikings who burned their dead and pushed them out to sea. The Guayakians who devoured the dead saw that the connection between body and spirit was broken, so that the spirit was freed and thereby could not harm the living. South Koreans who turn the ashes of the deceased into pearl necklaces. Could I wear my mother's ashes around my neck in the form of a chain? To have it happen to me constantly, perhaps even at the moment of my own death, where the chain and thus mother ended up in the ditch with me or passed on to the next generation, who could now carry around both a grandmother and a father?
Mature life walks
Are you missing a conversation partner? In that case, I can highly recommend Hustvedt's essay collection. It is possible that they don't go that deep and stay with you for a very long time. Especially hers corona-essays, which enter the book on page 96, have more the character of the diary's impulsive writing. Hustvedt's flashbacks are, on the other hand, mature journeys through life. And extremely suitable to talk to.
