Ester Nilsson, living with Per, is a poet and freelance writer with a philosophy doctrate. "From the horizons of her own consciousness she perceived reality" (p.1). We're told that "The dreadful gulf between thought and words, will and expression, reality and unreality, and the things that flourish in that gulf, are what this story is about" (p.2). Her self-imposed task in life is "decoding reality and locating language's most truthful illustration of it. One day she would understand how everything was connected" (p.13).
She delivers a paper about Hugo Rask, an artist much older than her who subsequently flatters her. She falls in love, neglects Per, who gets her to leave. She's commissioned to interview Rask. They have weekly talks which seem to lead to nothing - "Hugo never followed up anything Ester said. Ester always followed up what Hugo said. Neither of them was really interested in her but they were both interested in him./ Ester made an internal note of his lack of curiosity and generosity, but did not let it influence the reverence she felt." (p.33).
She puzzles over this love, speculating that perhaps "she had engineered falling in love with Hugo because she had imperceptibly grown bored and needed this anxiety intermingled with hope and a bliss that was absolute, in order to feel alive" (p.37). She sees all his words and actions in a positive light.
She finally gets him to visit her flat and stay the night. "Then the morning's conversation began, maybe one of the more common among post-coital interchanges. Its themes were evolutionary: independence, power, weakness, strength, supply and demand, all expressed in the guise of breakfast" (p.59). He leaves in the morning without breakfast. She's aware of "the delight that sinking expectations take in the tiniest positive detail." (p.63)
She overcalculates chance remarks. The naivety and blindness of adolescent infatuation is analysed with philosophical detachment of a mature woman - "The one who wants least has the most power" (p.71). One would call it dramatic irony except that in this case the analyser is also the love-blinded victim. "It's not worth it, she felt. It's always worth it, she thought" (p.80). They meet again -
'I've got to go.'
She nodded. He was experiencing a diffuse sense of guilt. It was detectable in a certain slight lag in the way he moved his head; it disturbed his brow, the corners of his eyes and his posture.
'Are you going to stay here a bit longer and philosophize?' he said.
'Yes. I'll philosophize for a while.'
He leant forward and kissed her cheek. A distinct, affectionate, loving kiss. It was also a kiss that knew something about inadequacy. He stood still, hesitating, before he left.
She stayed a little longer but did not philosophize. It was Wednesday with a whitish haze of the sort that found its way under your collar. A day full of forebodings.
(p.71)
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I don't understand some of the intellectual discussion - e.g. "Paradise was a logical nullity because life was friction and friction could only disappear at death" (p.81). Maybe it's supposed to be nonsense. Maybe it's how philosophy post-docs think, and even the logic course I did an Uni wasn't sufficient to help me understand.
He claims that "he was not interested in anything that was held in wide affection, was uniform or imposed by the elite" (p.76). She becomes more reflective, perceives his artistic weaknesses - "From fear of what he might find, he dared not seek inside himself to understand what was in other people" (p.82), beginning to think he should be grateful for her affection. She realises that
"Strength and competence arouse admiration, but not love. It's the shortcomings in a person that inspire love. But those shortcomings are not enough. ... sooner or later aggressions will be generated by the very thing that arouses affection." (p.97), that "He came across much warmly to strangers" (p.105), and that "The closeness that makes anger permissible was the closeness he did not want to have with her" (p.108). The narrator points out that "Ester was unable to see that ... Words were not enduring monuments to intentions and truths. They were sounds to fill silences with" (p.119)
Having pestered him with phone-calls and texts, never returned, she gives him a break for a couple of months. She phones Per, who starts phoning her back, still hurt. "Ester found it hard to accept she could mean that much to Per, she didn't think it had seemed that way over the years and therefore she didn't really believe him" (p.124). She realises that "Something that had been of crucial importance to her had been nothing but a way of passing the time to Hugo" (p.125). She bumps into him in a cafe. He admits what she'd suspected: that while he'd been seeing her he was with another women. Still was. He argues that monogamy is petty bourgeois. He says he left her because "You've got your life ahead of you. I haven't" (p.132).
The narrator tells us that Ester doesn't understand that people might lie to her because they're kind. "What she missed was that even if her view of the matter was the most reasonable it was not perceived as such, but only as a sign of rigid irreproachability. Which generates shame, which leads to lies. People lie to be free" (p.138)
Months later, Hugo and Ester meet at a party. She realises that "everything in existence wants to live and hope is no exception. It is a parasite ... Its survival lies in a well-developed ability to ignore everything that is not favourable to its growth while pouncing on anything that will feed it" (p.143). She realises that "everybody loved and wept in the same way and for much the same reasons, everybody betrayed and was betrayed in the same way and everybody thought: No one has ever loved like this before" (p.145). She sounds naive to me, despite having a "girl-friend chorus" to support her.
Months later, he e-mails her. Months after that he invites her to a preview of a documentary about him. She thinks the film "embarrassingly deferential". Months later they meet by chance at a boring party and argue. She says that he "mercilessly condemns people's morality". He claims that he only condemns those with power, while she criticizes people whether they have power or not.
She realises that she thinks giving her body to him implies duties on his part, then realises that this logic involves outdated gender roles and honour. She writes an article about it, sends it to a magazine. It's rejected. After a few months, on a whim, she returns a DVD to him in person. He's about to have meal with a young female colleague. They invite Ester along. She accepts. She starts another argument about class politics and power (Stalin, the Taliban), suggesting that his outlook is shallow and self-contradictory. She want to have a final talk with him about their relationship, for closure. It doesn't happen.
"When the parasite Hope is taken from its carrier the Host, the carrier either dies or is set free" (p.195). At the end, a year has passed, and "There was nothing left to understand."
If you find the thoughts about love that I've quoted above insightful, sympathize with her dilemma, and admire her stamina, you'll like this book.
Other reviews
- Julie Myerson (This is a slim volume, but every word packs a punch; every other sentence is so wise and funny that it begs to be quoted ... I think it’s a novel about shame. The shame of rejection, the shame of self-deception, the blushing, excruciating shame that comes of being the one without the power, the one who longs the hardest and cares the most.)
- KH Macomber
- kirkus reviews (The book is lean and compulsively readable as Ester finds increasingly improbable reasons to cling to hope.)
