The Details
Ratings8
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.6
WINNER OF THE AUGUST PRIZE 2022 (BEST FICTION) WINNER OF THE AFTONBLADET LITERARY PRIZE 2022 A famous broadcaster writes a forgotten love letter; a friend abruptly disappears; a lover leaves something unexpected behind; a traumatised woman is consumed by her own anxiety. In the throes of a high fever, a woman lies bedridden. Suddenly, she is struck with an urge to revisit a particular novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a message from an ex-girlfriend. Pages from her past begin to flip, full of things she cannot forget and people who cannot be forgotten. Johanna, that same ex-girlfriend, now a famous TV host. Niki, the friend who disappeared all those years ago. Alejandro, who appears like a storm in precisely the right moment. And Birgitte, whose elusive qualities shield a painful secret. Who is the real subject of a portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush? The Details is a novel built around four such portraits, unveiling the fragments of memory and experience that make up a life. In exhilarating, provocative prose, Ia Genberg reveals an intimate and powerful celebration of what it means to be human.
Reviews with the most likes.
Had high hopes for this book. I definitely should not have had those hopes. Boring and unrewarding. Nothing about the book wanted me to keep reading (listening).
With its non-linear structure, poetic prose, and dreamlike fragmented (literally) recollection of people and the memories clinging to them, this book offers a fascinating observation of how the narrator's characters and life path are shaped by the circumstances and influential people in her life. It presents quotable thoughts on literature, reading, and human relations. However, it falls short of being truly impressive, lacking that special factor to make it highly memorable for the reader. Overall, I would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
It all came together beautifully in the end, not from a plot perspective (there is none), but in the construction of this character. This book's narrator describes people who have been close to her throughout her life and have had an impact. In her descriptions, you get a glimpse of her worldview, her values, what she admires and what she fears. These descriptions also give way to reflections about their differences.
Here's a few of my favorite examples:
“I found her way of turning on and off both admirable and disconcerting. It insinuated that she had that thing known as ‘full control', which came across as mature, but there was an inhuman bent to it, too, an inhuman temperature.”
“She was an ocean of feelings, with more gradients and nuances than she could handle, as if the full cast of Greek gods and all the emotions and states they represented had been crammed in behind her eyelids.”
This is a character study in relation to people close to her. It's understated in its pursuit of the knowledge of the self. The last chapter really made it feel like all the fragments of this person came together and crystallized into a shape that made more sense to me as a reader. No plot, just vibes.
