The Child

by Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold, Martin Aitken (Translator)

A young mother speaks to her second born child. Since the drama of childbirth, all feels calm. The world is new and full of surprises, even though dangers lurk behind every corner; a car out of control, disease ever-present in the air, the unforgiving speed of time. She tells of the times before the child was born, when the world felt unsure and enveloped in darkness, of long nights with an older lover, of her writing career and the precariousness of beginning a relationship and then a family with her husband, Bo. A portrait of modern motherhood, THE CHILD is a love story about what it means to be alive and stay alive, no matter how hard the journey.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Literature, Scandinavian Literature, Family

160 pages, Hardcover

First published August 3, 2018

About the author

Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold made her literary debut in 2009 with the novel 'The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am'. The book was nominated for the Norwegian Booksellers' Prize, the P2-listeners' Novel Prize and won the Tarjei Vesaas' Debutant Prize (judged by The Literary Council of The Norwegian Authors´ Union). It was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013. Skomsvold has dramatized the novel and the play premieres at the National Theatre (Oslo) in 2014.

In 2012 Skomsvold published her second novel, 'Monsterhuman'. It was shortlisted for the P2-listeners' Novel Prize and Natt & Dag's Best Book of 2012.

The poetry collection 'A Little Sad Mathematics' was published in 2013.

Skomsvold's books are translated into more than twenty languages.

Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold has also published several essays, short stories and poems in anthologies and literary magazines. She is on the editorial board of the literary magazine Bokvennen litterært magasin.

Skomsvold studied mathematics and computer science at the University of Oslo and at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Subsequently, she attended the Writers' Class at the Nansen Academy in Lillehammer and completed studies at the Academy of Writing in Bergen. She has also studied literature at the University of Oslo, and French at Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, France.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘There are no limits here in the world, no limits what can happen to us, the things we can do to ourselves.’

Life is a great big sloppy ball of possibilities seasoned with joy, sorrow and hope. Life can change in a moment, creating a seam of who we were and who we are, and one of the most meaningful of these moments is the birth of a child, which reconfigures your entire existence and reorganizes your priorities. The Child by Norwegian poet and novelist Kjersti A. Skomsvold, author of The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am, chronicles the processing of past and present self in deeply introspective passages addressed to the narrator’s second born child. Her story comes alive in such breathtakingly pristine prose, wonderfully translated into English by Martin Aitken, sending the reader through a heart-rending chronicle of the narrator’s life and emotional state across her loves, losses and maternal fears. The Child is an achingly beautiful book with poetic musings washed in somber tones that examine the ways having children is an incredible gift along with the way ‘my own death has come closer since I’ve had kids; life seems longer and shorter at the same time.’

I cannot rave about the prose in this book enough. Told in short bursts that piece together and skip all around the narrator’s lifetime, like puddling various sections while building a large puzzle, this brief novel comes at you slowly yet overtakes you with its beauty. It’s like feeling waves of poetic insight wash over you as you lay on the beaches of its craft. There is a sense this is also an expression of postpartum depression in the ways the happiness and love feels constantly beleaguered by anxiety, grief and reflections on the past from a mindset of remorse. The narrator seems to be trying to shake these and embrace the warmth of new love, but is recognizing that love isn’t just an extension outward but a look inward. ‘I thought love meant discovering a new person,’ she write, ‘but it’s more discovering yourself, and that’s painful.’ We are all better for joining her on this path of self-discovery, and one can’t help but wonder how much this is autofiction and where the fiction and her own biography intersect.

‘Falling in love went so fast, then being a family of three, and then four, went even faster.’

Broken into three chapters across 160 pages, The Child first teases past bruises and desires then slowly presses into them to baptize herself in the painful process of facing them. It’s really moving. She addresses the death of her beloved aunt (‘all I want is someone’s hand to hold when I die’), the death of a close friend, maternal fears, a long-term illness at a young age and, of course, the courtship and rocky early days of her relationship with her husband Bo. There are the constant fears of safety and doing parenting right, coupled with the anxieties of passing on hurt, such as ‘passing on my depression to the child every single day.’ There is this desire to ‘heal the wounds inflicted in my first family,’ she says, ‘my childhood family,’ adjacent to shouldering of responsibility of being the parent instead of the child. ‘I’m so glad it’s my turn to be grown-up now,’ she confesses, ‘that I don’t have to be the child any more.’ But there is always the fear her actions are leading to future suffering for her children.

’I wondered how many kisses, how many cuddles, it would take to repair him, and if we could live long enough to give him and each other sufficient love to make it right.’

The love for each other is key in this book, particularly when Bo comes into play. There is a really honest depiction of their relationship, from the cute moments shelving their books together on a single shelf and realizing ‘I kept hearing “we” whenever he said “I”,’ to painful memories of hard times, fights and squashing the notions of leaving. Nothing is sentimental, in fact it is as raw and real as it get, but everything is beautiful.

‘The question is: do ghosts get more of less dangerous when you toss a sheet over them?’

The past pains reverberate loudly through the present, particularly having watched a close friend, and possibly romantic relation, take their own life after a long haul of self-inflicted suffering on top of feelings of inadequacy in the world. ‘I didn’t cry tears, I became tears,’ she confesses while musing that ‘grief lasts such a long time, such a very long time, so long it feels like it will inhabit me for good.’ This is the world she has brought children into, something we all must confront when being parents, particularly if we are the sort to feel uneasy about this world. Yet, on the flip side, there is also such beauty and love shines a path through the darkness, even if it is small, fleeting, or uncertain.

’It’s morning and you’re two months old. I sense that you’re in love with me, infatuated almost; you light up when I look at you, then look away coyly. And I’m in love with you too. You smooth your tiny hand gently over my arm, and I feel flattered that you care for me. You’re imposing slightly higher demands on our conversations now and become offended if I don’t respond, you stop smiling. I think its a good sign.’

This juxtaposition of wanting to feel hope, to welcome love, with the griefs of the world feels so authentic that it cuts straight to your heart.

‘I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.’
-Jeanette Winterson

Having a child does indeed change you, and this book quite earnestly addresses the way we address the cacophony of our past selves along with the present self moving forward. This is such a moving depiction of motherhood, though not one that will simply flaunt the goodness but allows the hardships and worries their space as well. There are the fears going into it, that we are losing our past selves, such as the narrator worrying having a child will take away her space to be a writer, and the primary thread is that is that having a child changes us in dramatic ways because it is casting off an old self and a difficult, painful situation:

’But it wasn’t the child that altered my brain, colored and shaped it anew: it was the experience of going through a crisis. And this didn’t change the words, it stole them…’

Skomsvold gives voice to postpartum depression and this book feels like one that could reach many hearts and remind readers that these feelings are valid and also for others to have empathy. Life is a road of twists and turns, tragedies and abrupt changes of paths. While some may find it a bit slight and slow, The Child addresses these issues in gorgeous prose and is certainly an impactful book full of heart.

4/5

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello, people--this novel deserves far more attention here on goodreads. Give it a try. This novel is about motherhood the way Medea is about motherhood. This book is about motherhood the way Little Women would be about motherhood if written by Virginia Woolf and from Marmee's point of view. Yes, a woman gives birth and cares for a baby, but the baby acts as a magnificent lens through which the narrator (and through her, Skomsvold) interrogates herself about the deepest philosophical questions about what it means to be alive, to live intentionally, to live well. I don't think the title or the publisher's framing of this novel does it justice as it's so much deeper than the story of a mother-child bond...although that in itself is a worthy subject, the narrator has almost a masculine detachment from the act of 'mothering' in itself--she has a certain objectivity to her baby that allows her to see human helplessness in all its forms.

I knew I was in for an amazing reading experience when I came to the narrator's musings about the artist Agnes Martin..."She made me feel cheerful, full of vitality, even; her simple brush strokes gave me space to think between the lines..." and what follows after are three biographical paragraphs about Agnes Martin that end with a description of Martin's last known work of art before she died: "It's as if her hand has taken over from her will, life has taken over just before death..." and so it is that I felt the book drum-beats between the optimism of new life and the despair and pain of life itself, with its inevitable endings.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since the experience of pregnancy and motherhood is one I can never have it makes me all the more interested in reading about it. I've never even felt inclined to be a father but I want to understand the process and emotional repercussions of parenthood. Kjersti A Skomsvold is a Norwegian author who has published an utterly captivating, beautifully-written and poignant account of a woman in the first several months following the birth of her second child. What's so compelling about her point of view is the way her identity transforms amidst this new responsibility but retains a consistency. It's like the tectonic plates of her personality shift to lay bare the core of her being with all her passion, strengths and insecurities. She's an author who endeavours to keep writing amidst the responsibilities and emotional strain of her life. At the same time it's fascinating how her experience is paired against others such as her great aunt who is experiencing dementia, a writer friend who committed suicide and her partner Bo with whom she's had a complicated relationship. Through her interactions we glean an awareness of all the stages of life experienced at once as the roles she plays constantly switch and are paired against the lives of others.

Read my full review of The Child by Kjersti A Skomsvold on LonesomeReader

[Yaprak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hızlandıkça Azalıyorum ve 33 romanlarını okuduğum Kjersti Skomsvold'un Çocuk isimli kitabı, yazarın ikinci çocuğuna yazdığı uzun bir mektup gibi. Doğum sancılarıyla başlayan kitap, yazarın hayatına girip çıkan insanlarla, çocuğunun babasıyla tanışma ve sevgili olma süreçlerini anlatmasıyla devam ediyor.

Dürüst, duygusal bir metin bu. Özellikle anne olan okurlar benden daha fazla empati kuracağından daha çok etkilenecektir mutlaka. Benim hissiyatım ''Peki, hoş bir metin bu. Ama sanki bu kadar.'' yönünde oldu. Yine de kısa fakat güzel bir metin okumak isterseniz bir şans verebilirsiniz diye düşünüyorum.

[Sinem A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Üç mü dört mü diye çok düşündüm ama ilk kitabı kadar büyük bir etki yaratmadı bende. Çok genel bir konu üzerinde çok özel ama bir o kadar da leziz bir anlatı örmeyi bence başarmış bir kitap.

[Viera Némethová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kniha je krásne vycizelovaná, každá veta je vymodelovaná a premyslená.
Autorka po narodení druhého dieťaťa nachádza práve v ňom prijímateľa svojich zamyslení o jej živote.
Vzťah s otcom jej detí, ktorý sa nezrodil ako romantická láska z filmu vykresľuje tak láskyplne a otvorene. Láska Kjersti a Boa, ktorá sa zrodila z váhania a pochybností je zachytená veľmi krehko a elegantne. Príbeh je plný silných,, vnútorných pocitov, ktoré pred, pri a po narodení dieťaťa možno nevysloví, ale si odžije každá žena - matka.

" Dospelý človek dokáže znášať váhu svojich pocitov a nezakolísať, ani pocitmi nezaťažovať ostatných." Peter Bastian

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written novella about love, life, motherhood and art.

[Aubrei K (earlgreypls) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this.

It’s written as a letter from a mother to her second child, but it’s not just about motherhood. It’s almost stream of consciousness, and there’s no clear plot. The author jumps back and forth in time and discusses past relationships, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, grief, and loss. The tone is melancholy and lonely, but it feels so honest.

I am someone who never wants to have children, which made this a really interesting read for me. I could relate so much to the narrators anxiety and cynicism about the world. I can imagine if I were to have children those feelings would only be amplified, which seemed to be the case here.

The writing was lovely and poetic, with so many beautiful references to other pieces of literature.

”In the wounds we inflict on each other (or perhaps
it's the same wound that just gets a bit bigger, a bit deeper every time) we have planted a child, two children, and from these wounds our children will grow.”

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of this book which I very much enjoyed – passages that I flagged for their brilliance – but on the whole I was not fully satisfied.
Although this book is called The Child, and the blurb on the back says it is all about motherhood, really it is about relationships and one particular mother’s relationship with her partner Bo. There are elements of this relationship which raise powerful and difficult memories for me. The narrator “steals” Bo from someone else. While that was not exactly the same for me, I had been in a long relationship before I met a new partner and there was always a suspicion, a jealousy or a wariness in my new partner when she looked back at what I had done before. That is why this passage works so well for me:

Or maybe it was the time Bo was going to text his former partner – not the last one, but the one before that. We’d found a name for the child, only then it felt a bit odd because his former partner also had a child with the same name, he said, and he thought it best to inform her from the start. I can understand that now, in hindsight, but at the time it felt like the name broke and came apart, and I was distraught.

This is echoed again by this excellent observation about relationships. We come with pasts and more often than not, failures for which we must be, at least in part, responsible:

People aren’t blank pages when they meet, with no past; that’s not what being a human’s like. Perhaps my dad thought about an old flame of his as he sat at Mum’s loom, weaving tapestries, waiting for her to get ready to go out, crossing her fingers that he’d learned his lesson and that everything was going to work out better this time. It didn’t, but fortunately it took thirty years for him to realise, which meant I could be born first and reach that very age, thirty.

About half way through the book we catch a scent of the narrators previous relationship, with her writing teacher.

He was my writing teacher. I came from my sick bed to the writing course where he taught; he was the writer who saw the writer in me, the impossible dream I nurtured of writing a novel, he saw that novel when I couldn’t see it myself.

After she starts to study on the other side of the country, he begins to phone in the night and to send her messages. I love the honesty of some of the prose at this point:

Then there were all the compliments, the declarations of love – you’re so lovely, so beautiful when you laugh, and you laugh so often – words that take a person in. It’s impossible not to be taken in by such words, and I wanted to be as well, but what I didn’t think about was how hard it was going to be to free myself from them again.

There is a lovely comparison between being in the woods and writing:

…what was good about the woods was that I knew who I was there, but the truth is that in the woods I am finally free of myself, I can simply exist. In my writing I decide for myself who I am, but there too it’s only when I give up my protection, when I become detached from the thought of what the words are meant to be, to become, that something emerges in which I can recognise myself. It is the same with love too. In love, and in the woods and poetry, I can escape from myself. Thoughts and emotions become healed.

The relationship the writer has with Bo is often difficult and takes time for the reader to figure out. They both feel very damaged and almost afraid to fully connect with each other. There need for each other, however, engulfs them.

We turned away from each other, we hurt each other. It felt like having a great big comb dragged through me, all the teeth ripping me apart on the inside, making my body tremble. He was so weary from not feeling any firm ground underfoot, and I was so scared of loving him, I kept dying of fright the whole time.

And so we continue with these little observations about her life with Bo:

Oddly, I became more scared of losing Bo after he moved in with me. I still am scared; for instance I get scared of losing him just writing these sentences, as if somehow they’ll become a spell…

Satisfied with the little flashes, but not quite happy with the whole.

[Maria Johansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barnet er en ny og forfriskende fortælling om at tage hul på moderskabet og være i moderrollen. Den beskriver den splittelse, der kan medfølge, når livet ændres på et splitsekund og man må se i øjnene, at nu er man først og fremmest mor for et andet menneske.
En smuk og tankevækkende roman, som får alle mine varmeste anbefalinger.

Jeg uddyber her: https://bookmeupscotty.blogspot.com/2...

[Fiktiviteter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Läs min recension på bloggen: https://www.fiktiviteter.se/2019/05/2...

[Gülşah'ın kitaplığı · Rating 4 out of 5]

"O hatırlamadığımız çocukluk yıllarımızı anne babalarımız da hatırlamıyor, doğa neden böyle yapmış, ilk yılları neden gizli kılmış? Çocuk başkaları için bir giz, çocuk kendisi için bile bir giz "

Yazardan okuduğum üçüncü kitap bu. Diğer kitabı gibi bu kitap da biraz melankolik, depresif ve ara ara da Ümit vaat eden cümlelerle anlatılan bir hayat.... Ve çok gerçekçi... Kimseye söylemediğimiz, ama yer yer içimizden, aklımızdan geçirdiğimiz, fark ettiğimiz, düştüğümüz, kalktığımız, tanıklık ettiğimiz yaşama dair bir novella....

Özellikle anneliğe dair öyle cümleleri vardı ki...bazı yerlerde hak.vermemek imkânsız..ki böyle düşününce o zamanlar üzüldüğünüz, rahatsız olduğunuz duyguları yaşayan başka birinden dinlemek, okumak rahatlatıcı....
Eğer bu tarz seviyorsanız, listeye ekleyin derim.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dette var veldig spesielt.. Ga overhode ingen mening? Sikkert treffende for de som har barn, men forventningene til forfatteren ble ikke oppfylt. Avbrøt halvveis..

[Sami Özer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Türkçe çevirisini bekliyoruz.@jaguar kitap

[Taran Halvorsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tegnehanne skriver i Bare vent. Babybobla illustrert at man ikke kan unngå klisjeene når man snakker om å få barn, men betyr dette at alle bøker om det å få barn skal være skrevet i en klisjé? Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold viser dessverre ikke et eksempel som motstrider denne påstanden i Barnet. Teksten er overøst av klisjeer der jeg-et snakker til den nyfødte. Språket er ellers enkelt og pent, men mangler det lille ekstra, i tillegg til at det hadde noen irriterende gjentagelser underveis av at alt i livet til jeg-et blir «visket ut».

Handlingsmessig hadde jeg sett for meg at romanen var mer rettet mot jeg-ets forhold til det nyfødte du-et, men dette virket mer som en unnskyldning for å egentlig fortelle om jeg-ets forhold til barnefaren, Bo. En liten avsporing der historien om en navnløs venn kommer inn, har heller ingen forbindelse til du-et annet enn gjennom jeg-et og Bos forhold, som fortelleren så hardt insisterer på at må være med for å kunne forstå hele forholdet til Bo (noe jeg personlig ikke helt ser). Likevel må jeg innrømme at historien til vennen var noe av det mer interessante i romanen, selv om jeg ikke ser nødvendigheten av å ha det med. (PS. Det irriterte meg at vennen ikke fikk et navn. Enten gir du alle karakterene navn, eller ingen..)

Alt i alt følte jeg at jeg leste en dagboktekst som ikke hadde noen fast grunn, men heller flere avsporende tankerekker som så hardt prøvde å finne en forbindelse til bokens tittel, altså «barnet». Men jeg har hørt mye fint om Skomsvolds romaner. Jeg tror bare at jeg startet i feil ende av forfatterskapet.

[Neda Alaei · Rating 4 out of 5]

«(..) jeg gjør dem om til ett menneske, menneskene jeg har elsket, trodd jeg kunne elske, slår seg sammen, alle tidligere forelskelse vokser sammen til én forestilling, som greinene på et tre vokser ned i stammen, forsvinner under jorda, jeg begraver dem der.»

[Yahaira · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Change, loss, grief, art, writing. All wrapped around and intertwined with motherhood.

I don't know why, but I loved the idea of infinite childhood.

[Kine Albrigtsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ungene blir uteliggere i barnehagen. Om å elske. Tørre.

Jeg slukte denne, til tross for at jeg ikke har barn. Fin og skarp og utydelig.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely little novel about life and love, the family you are born into and the family you create with your partner, and getting through the darkness that comes along the way.

[Kaija · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unsettling AF, this was like rereading my own postpartum journal entries. I’m still not sure what I just experienced, because it’s like I’ve already experienced it once before. Simple and real and beautiful beyond measure.

[Bjørg (mellom linjene) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mange gode parti, men svak heilheit. Eg fekk litt kjensla av å lytte til ein samtale mellom gode venner, litt på utsida, slik at eg ikkje alltid skjønte samanhengane dei andre snakka om.

[Geir Tønnessen · Rating 5 out of 5]

For et nydelig språk, Skomsvold får det å skrive til å virke så naturlig og enkelt. Når man leser føles det som setningene flyter ut av henne.

[Phil reading_fastandslow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrator/author of this book writes to her second child, but the address becomes a mirror of sorts: grief, illness, and love folding into one another. The tone is melancholy but never self-pitying; it’s more like she’s is mourning the passage of time because life is sweet. I liked this book. It was more of a poetic diary of an unrepeatable time in the author’s family life, than a narrative.

“He was in my arms and in my heart and all the time he was changing ever so slightly. There was something new by the minute, and something else that was lost, and before I knew it that time was gone.

What if I came to forget the way he would lie there whispering after he woke up, as if he were afraid to prick a hole in the day, or the night, with his voice?

What if I came to forget the way he moved his feet when he was eating, as if he were playing the piano, stepping on its golden pedals?”

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ganske god bok. Jeg ble selv mamma for snart et år siden, så kjente igjen en del.

Jeg ble overrasket over meg selv at jeg klarte å tyde, lage mening, av det ganske så billedlige, poetiske språket.

Tror nok man må ha barn for å like denne boka 😊

[Karenina (Nina Ruthström) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nätt och fint om kärlek och barn på samma gång tungt och mörkt om sömnsvårigheter och ångest.

”När jag tänker tillbaka på tidigare minnen, måste jag först komma ihåg att då fanns ni inte, innan jag kan återkalla minnet på nytt, ni har färgat alla minnen med era liv.”

[Vilde Bratland Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vakker liten bok om alle historiene som fører frem til å få et barn. Ble ordentlig rørt, selv om jeg ikke er mamma selv. Anbefales ❤️

[belisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeni bir şeyden söz etmiyor olsa da yeni ve güzel anlatıyor, edebiyatını seviyorum, kendisini de sevmeye başladım, özellikle Jeanette Winteron'dan yaptığı alıntıyı gördüğümde

[krispy · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a sad yet sweet book, thinking of giving birth once then even twice, of bringing life into the world and being responsible for it, it never struck me like this that not only does the mother need to be brave but maybe more importantly the child

[Sümeyye Yıldız]

Türkçe'ye Çocuk olarak çevrilen anlatı. Çocuğa ya da okuyunca konuşan yazarı dinleriz. Anne olmakla çocuklarla ilgili bununla beraber ilişkileri halihazırdaki zamanda anlatıyor. Duru, akıcı.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetisk, stykket og delt. Angsten for alt som kan gå galt, med spedbarnet, forholdet og med en selv. Er denne boka best å lese når en står oppi det, som nybakt mor, eller best når man har det på avstand - og kan gjenkjenne, men ikke la det gripe for sterkt?

«Jeg tenker på alle de ubrukelige voksne man som barn er nødt til å forholde seg til, og som man ikke vet er ubrukelige, først som voksen skjønte jeg at håndballtreneren jeg hadde da jeg var seks år, var en heks.»

«Før trodde jeg at det gode med skogen er at jeg der vet hvem jeg er, men sannheten er at jeg i skogen endelig blir fri fra meg selv, jeg kan bare være.»