Det sukker så tungt udi skoven er et udvalg af Astrid Ehrencron-Kiddes (1871-1960), noveller om den synske Martin Willén, skrevet mellem 1909 og 1924. De foregår som oftest i de svenske skove i Värmland, hvor naturen, grusomme scener og særegne personskildringer er omdrejningspunkter.
Indhold: Alle sjæles nat Den lille pige med violerne Det sukker så tungt udi skoven Pensée Apoteket De hvide træer En aften på Askaryd Natten i Östravåg En aften ved Lure Færgested Gensynet
This is an excellent collection of some of Astrid Ehrencron's gothic short stories about Martin Willén, a 19th(?) century Swedish lawyer with clairvoyant tendencies. Most of the stories are set in the Swedish countryside (there's a very foggy Victorian London exception), with lonesome farms and beautifully described nature, especially the deep woods, and in most of them somebody die horribly, whether we're talking children having to cover miles through the woods every day to get to school being devoured by a pack of wolves, a very reluctant young nun getting bashed to death with a giant hammer, or a man who, after having avenged his girlfriend's death, joins her by getting stuck to the slowly moving arm of a large clock gradually lowering him into a body of water. Apart from the clairvoyance letting the main character - who is really more of a POV than a protagonist - see either horrible things that has happened long ago or, rarely and he cannot change it, will happen - there is very little straight-up supernatural here - even the story with the dead man seeking him out because he wants a lawyer to help him as he's been evicted from his grave has a natural explanation - but the gothic is everpresent and excellent.
This was quite a weird reading experience. The first half of the book didn't catch my attention at all. I felt like I read it just to read it, which doesn't happen very often for me, but the second half had stories that touched me deeply and the chilling settings worked way better in the last stories in my opinion. It was almost like the reader followed the 'main character's' experience - first everything felt distant and absurd, as it didn't have anything to do with you/him, but then all of a sudden everything came close, almost like a wave you saw coming but didn't try to run from. You didn't think your/his fate possible until it, and all of its consequences, were at your/his feet.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
10 noveller. Jeg læste de fire første. De var sjove og spændende, men jeg kan ikke holde ud at læse det gamle sprog. Jeg stopper hele tiden op. Det ødelægger flowet i at læse en god bog. Hvis den en gang bliver oversat til nudansk, vil jeg læse den færdig.