The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen is an absorbing read. Ditlevsen was a Danish writer during and after the German occupation of Copenhagen, and this trilogy--ominously titled Childhood, Youth, and Dependency--recounts her early life, relationships, and addiction to opiates. She is born in poverty, the child of an unhappy marriage. Her early education yields a talent for writing poetry. Unable to continue school past her mid-teens, she works a series of mundane and abusive office jobs. Recognized for her writing, she marries a much older editor of a literary magazine not for love, but for a chance to escape her social class. Bad lovers are a motif in The Copenhagen Trilogy. On one hand, Ditlevsen wants stability and peace that her childhood lacked. On the other hand, she has trouble navigating the sexual fluidity of her post-Christian bohemian milieu. After an adulterous one-night stand with a medical student, she becomes pregnant with his child. She comes to him to receive an abortion, and is given Demerol as an anesthetic.
The first two parts of The Copenhagen Trilogy are poetic and interesting. The final installment is terrifying. That first dose of Demerol makes the room expand "to a radiant hall, and [her] feel completely relaxed, lazy and happy as never before." The word "Demerol" sounds, to her, "like birdsong." The longing for that "indescribable blissful feeling" overturns her life. She leaves her husband for the reckless and enabling med student, indifferent to her previous obligations. There are times when the reader wants to intervene in Ditlevsen's early relational bunglings, to tell her to stop when it's clear that she's picking the wrong man, but during Dependency, one can only observe in horror as her whole life becomes consumed with Demerol and methadone. Ditlevesen died in 1977, and when The Copenhagen Trilogy was finally translated into English a few years ago, it made a big impression. It's hard going, but she was an important, talented, and tragic voice.
