The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
Release date: 2000 / 270 pages
Synopsis (from Amazon): Inspired by the true story of Danish painter Einar Wegener and his California-born wife, this tender portrait of a marriage asks: What do you do when someone you love wants to change?
First line: “His wife knew first.”
Review: I’ve written before that I prefer to know very little about a book before I begin reading it. Well, this predilection has never wrought a greater surprise than with The Danish Girl. However, I do not want to divulge too many details since I think there is a satisfying element of suspense to Ebershoff’s narrative.
So, instead I will share the author’s motivation for writing this work and then discuss what I enjoyed about it, as well.
“Marriage fascinates me: how we negotiate its span, how we change within it, how it changes itself, and why some relationships survive themselves and others do not. There isn’t a single marriage that couldn’t provide enough narrative arc for a novel.”
“Whom do we love, and why do we love them, and how do we love them, and what do we do to help and harm that love — a better understanding of all that is, ultimately, what I hope a reader thinks about when the last page has been read.”
Now, let me tease you with a sentence from the actual novel: “Greta had never turned Lili away. There were times, over the course of the summer, when Einar would announce that Lili would be coming to dinner and Greta, drained from a day attending her failed exhibition, would think, Oh, jeepers, the last thing I want to do right now is dine with my husband dressed up as a girl.”
So, that’s as much “plot” as I will reveal in this review. But I will return to the author’s words again to illustrate how a situation that may seem quite strange, can still resonate:
“Something else I came to understand when I began to read about Einar Wegener and Lili Elbe is that we all, in some ways, are born into the wrong body. We struggle throughout our lives to learn to accept the shell that transports us through this world… I asked myself if this is any different that what humanity shoves upon the rest of us? Each of us is defined by our own past, but also by that of our family and lovers and friends and enemies, as well as our country and civilization… Identity — the loss and acquisition of it, the borrowing, the stealing, the rejection, the embrace; we grow up and declare ourselves yet the beautiful and awful past lingers forever. Beneath the rubble and the char, inside the pre-fab concrete and the asbestos tiles, swirling amid the factory belch and cough of the car, rising in the wind, in the face of a daffodil bending beneath the last snow of the year, history and memory are held aloft by imagination and the sun, as bright as a white kite above the river. Nothing is lost, I told myself that day in Dresden. A novel is written so nothing can be lost.”
So, what did I think about when I turned the last page? All of the above, yes, but I was also left with a lingering vision of Ebersoll’s skillful imagery, too. Note this passage from the first page:
“The day was cool, the chill blowing in from the Baltic. They were in their apartment in the Widow House, Einar, small and not yet thirty-five, painting from memory a winter scene of the Kattegat Sea. The black water was white-capped and cruel, the grave of hundreds of fishermen returning to Copenhagen with their salted catch. The neighbor below was a sailor, a man with a bullet-shaped head who cursed his wife. When Einar painted the gray curl of each wave, he imagined the sailor drowning, a desperate hand raised, his potato-vodka voice still calling his wife a port whore. It was how Einar knew just how dark to mix his paints: gray enough to swallow a man like that, to fold over like batter his sinking growl.”
Ebershoff is a lyrical writer and the characters he brought to life will haunt me, I’m sure. Did I enjoy reading this novel? Not really — but I did find the subject matter fasinating and finished the last page so grateful that my own challenges are much less overwhelming than they often seem…
If you are interested in winning a copy, simply leave me a comment and I’ll choose a lucky winner by Saturday! Like to hear more about this novel?
Curious about what others thought?
Here’s the full list of TLC tour stops!
Monday, May 3rd: Peekin’ Between the Pages
Tuesday, May 4th: Bermuda Onion
Wednesday, May 5th: Lit and Life
Thursday, May 6th: Rundpinne
Friday, May 7th: Redlady’s Reading Room
Monday, May 10th: Wordsmithonia
Tuesday, May 11th: Book Addiction
Wednesday, May 12th: Shooting Stars Mag
Thursday, May 13th: The 3R’s Blog
Monday, May 17th: The Zen Leaf
Tuesday, May 18th: Eclectic Eccentric
Wednesday, May 19th: Luxury Reading
Thursday, May 20th: Worducopia
Monday, May 24th: She is Too Fond of Books
Tuesday, May 25th: The Feminist Review
Wednesday, May 26th: Regular Rumination
You told enough about the characters and plot to entice me to want to try this book. Please enter my name in the drawing.
The artist in me would love to read this book. Dressed like a woman….interesting.
You’ve intrigued me.
Sounds like and interesting read. I’d love to receive this!
I thought the writing was wonderful, the characters so well developed and the story so unique. Will definitely be looking for more Ebershoff.