The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life

Rune Christiansen’s prize-winning novel (capably translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson) is a paean to solitude which suggests that, while loneliness might be widely regarded as an unfortunate aspect of the human condition, it can also be a choice, one that does not have to be sad or tragic.

Lydia Erneman grew up in Northern Sweden, an only child living in intimate proximity to the natural world. Her parents provide for her physical and emotional needs, but even as a child she senses that their marriage is “a form of coexistence” sustained and strengthened by “distance,” “detachment” and “absence.” Lydia matures into a dual awareness, of her connectedness to all things and the separateness that enables her to objectively observe what goes on around her. Above all else, her childhood teaches her how to be alone.

“The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life is a triumph of bare-bones, understated storytelling.”

After graduation, she becomes a veterinarian and takes a position in rural Norway. At this point, her life becomes busy and purposeful. The hands-on nature of her veterinary practice suits her. The work is fulfilling and seems to satisfy her professionally and emotionally. Believing she is content in her solitude, she neither craves nor seeks human contact beyond professional colleagues and the farmers whose animals she treats.

But Christiansen’s quietly powerful narrative demonstrates how events can propel us in unexpected directions, subverting our intentions and landing us amid friendships and attachments we never saw coming. Subtly, inevitably, Christiansen draws us into Lydia’s uneventful life in the manner of a film that ticks along scene by scene, building tension on the sly, as if behind the viewer’s back, until before we know it, we can’t pull our eyes away from the screen. Lydia’s emotional growth occurs while we’re distracted by Christiansen’s contemplative, melancholic prose, which evokes a Nordic landscape of fading light and muted passions. Lydia Erneman’s thoroughly unremarkable days encompass achievement and disappointment, love and loss, serenity and frustration, confusion and certainty. The events that occur in these pages rarely rise above the commonplace. But as we read, Lydia’s story gradually becomes riveting, and we emerge from it with a sense that life lived unobtrusively and on a small scale can be meaningful, impactful, joyous and profoundly worthwhile.

The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life is a triumph of bare-bones, understated storytelling that celebrates the rhythms of ordinary life, those precious moments we spend recalling a childhood memory, listening to the wind in the trees, or sharing a cup of tea with a friend. This is a novel that transcends the quotidian lives depicted in its pages. Haunting, captivating, uplifting.

Rune Christiansen is a Norwegian poet and novelist. One of Norway’s most important literary writers, he is the author of more than 20 books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction. He has won many prestigious awards, including the 2014 Brage Prize for his bestselling novel, The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman’s Life. Fanny and the Mystery in the Grieving Forest was shortlisted for the same prize and published in English by Book*hug Press in 2019. He is also a professor of creative writing. Christiansen lives just outside of Oslo, Norway.

Kari Dickson is a literary translator. She translates from Norwegian, and her work includes literary fiction, children’s books, theatre, and nonfiction. In 2019, Book*hug Press published her translation of Rune Christiansen’s Fanny and the Mystery in the Grieving Forest, and, in 2021, her co-translation of Mona Høvring’s Because Venus Crossed an Alpine Violet on the Day that I Was Born. Dickson lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Book*hug Press (June 6 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 262 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1771668342
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771668347

Ian Colford

Website

Ian Colford’s short fiction has appeared in many literary publications, in print and online. His work has been shortlisted for the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Journey Prize, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and others. His latest novel, The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard, was the winner of the 2022 Guernica Prize and was published by Guernica Editions in 2023. He lives in Halifax.