“The story of Sigbjørn’s and my beginnings is both painful and touching,” writes Synne Sun Løes at the beginning of this collection of essays. After a complicated twin birth, the mother hovered between life and death in the hospital in South Korea in 1975. In despair, the father chose to adopt the children away because he could not take care of them alone. When the mother miraculously came to the rescue, it was too late to withdraw the adoption. The parents left a note at the orphanage with a plea for the twins to get in touch if they were ever to return. 26 years later, Synne’s brother is traveling in South Korea. He finds the note at the orphanage and contacts the biological parents. Synne travels the following year and in adulthood gets to know her mother, father and sister. She calls her parents in Norway mum and dad. The proud cry With foreign adoption as a backdrop, Løes explores a number of themes related to identity. She writes about being different and about the aversion to that same difference. She writes about cultural roots and traumas that can be inherited. Not least, she uses her own experience as a conversation therapist and brings psychoanalytic perspectives into the texts. Løes is a keen storyteller and chooses telling details with care. She writes about the films her Norwegian 25-year-old mother was offered by SAS on the flight to and from Korea in 1975 – “Funny Lady” with Barbara Streisand on the way down, “The Wind and the Lion” with Sean Connery on the way back. She depicts her father’s tears when they met each other in adulthood and brings out the cultural differences between Norway and South Korea. Crying in South Korea can, in addition to vulnerability, also stand for strength and pride and can symbolize something heroic. With the Right to Infringe The primary driving force in the book seems to be a wild and devilish energy. Løes enters current debates about offense and racism and advocates the ambiguous: The essayist’s double vision appears refreshing and generous in several places. Elsewhere it gets confusing. In the essay “With the right to offend”, Løes explores the white anti-racist Robin DiAngelo’s perspectives on “white fragility”. DiAngelo is known to argue that whites will almost always have conscious or unconscious prejudice when dealing with melanin-rich people. In the same chapter, Løes supports Siv Jensen’s right to dress up as Pocahontas. It is primarily the media’s focus on minorities being violated that is offensive, not the costume itself. Løes writes: “May the whole world dress up as Pocahontas, Oprah Winfrey, Sølvpilen and Karate Kid. And must ‘the white race’ internalize their own smallness and marginalized insight into how historically and in the present they relate (consciously and unconsciously) to their own and others’ skin color – and how a white mindset has affected and damaged society, groups and individuals throughout the ages.” In the desire to embrace several positions at once, Løe’s argument can appear non-committal. BRAGE WINNER: Synne Sun Løes debuted in 1999 with “Yoko is alone”. The breakthrough came with the young adult novel “Å spise blomster til frocht”, for which she won the Brage Prize in 2002. Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB Løes’ flowery language is most interesting when she anchors the text in the concrete, for example in her own family history. In the reflections, it is as if the texts sometimes lose their footing, and the language can become excessively flowery. In one place, she compares people who look different to angels: “But angels will always remain enigmatic and mythical. Invisible and eternal. Different. With its flapping wings. Floating. Beyond any definition. Not infrequently, they will seek refuge between safe novel covers or in subtle poetic verses. On the other side of the moon. Where brands don’t exist, where they can spread their wings.” This is one of several examples of linguistic images which, in my opinion, make it difficult for the reader to follow along. In the same way, the ironic narrator’s voice can sometimes confuse, especially when it tips over into the sarcasm. For a while I was unsure whether Løes was serious when she suggested that white women should test drive two or three Asian men to get over their own prejudices. Potential energy The book is an original contribution to the ongoing conversation about adoption abroad and gives an insight into a complex experience of being different in Norway. Løe’s perspectives challenge the majority population to look with new lenses at their own natural position. But the potent energy that lies in the both wise and raw in Løe’s writing is not sufficiently channeled into a form that carries all the way in. news reviewer Photo: Cappelen Damm Title: “No one can spit on a smiling face” Author: Synne Sun Løes Genre: Essay collection Publisher: Cappelen Damm Pages: 193 Published: 7 March 2023
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“No one can spit on a smiling face” by Synne Sun Løes – Reviews and recommendations
