The characters of Majken van Bruggen do not let the reader into their lives, but we get to know them quite well nonetheless. They become visible through facts, ritual, lines, actions. In an age when the typical first-person narrator is equipped with a perpetually churning brain, this lack of neurotic self-reflection is downright refreshing. This does not mean that we are dealing with harmonious and vigorous people of action, far from it. Tongue-kissing training with the teacher Through eight fairly short short stories, the reader meets people who know their way around life, usually with good reason. But, they don’t feel comfortable in the victim role either. They do something about it. Sometimes it might go well. I write “maybe”, because the short stories end before we know how it ends. Another plus in the margin for van Bruggen, she treats the reader to the sweet, trembling frustration of being cheated of clear endings. In the opening novella “Ford Galaxy”, we meet a girl who has barely finished with Barbie and Ken, but who is more than ready for the next phase in life: beer, sex and car trips. She forcefully pressures the car mechanic Remi to go further and further, without necessarily understanding what this “further” actually meant until it was too late. The teenager in “Algebra” is also exploring, and entices the maths teacher Tor into a tongue kiss. After that training session, she is ready to check up on a boy at school. Then everything is fine, right? Or? Stupid choices and life goes on Failure to care is one key word in the collection. But it’s not easy to be a parent either: When the father in “Pappa er en skurk” tries to spend time with his son after yet another sentence, the first attempt to stay overnight ends with thrashing and howling and screaming, before the father finally calls and asks the mother to pick up the pod . Just do it and it’s over. Two bewildered men stand completely still and wait, and the reader feels sorry for them both. Before the end, after 125 short pages, we have also managed to get to know, among others, the beer old man who lost custody on failing grounds, and the wheelchair user who had sex with the very young domestic worker who perhaps did not overlook the consequences. “White beach” is a suspense novella with action from a city in Southeast Asia, a region van Bruggen documented knowledge of already in the novel “Bangkok baby”. Men hide here to escape punishment in their homeland. The author creates a beautiful tension curve, and I would like to hear from those who were not surprised by what the main character was up to. Out of place, but among the best in the collection. Raw and tender Occasionally, however, the short stories are too scarce and the characters too little developed to be of interest. This applies in particular to “While the lilacs are blooming”, where a dying woman keeps her spirits up with creative lies on the internet, and “Ane Liane” about a very lonely little girl. Here, the endings are also more substantial. But at its best, the sparse, sometimes almost brutal style of Majken van Bruggen is a true stinger. There are no innocents here and no one totally hopeless. They have baggage, they have desires, they have unrealistic dreams. But most people try. And lowering expectations is not the same as giving up. Few manage to deliver their characters as raw and as tender at the same time as Majken van Bruggen. news reports Photo: Kolon Title: “Utskudd” Author: Anniken van Bruggen Genre: Short story collection Publisher: Kolon Number of pages: 125 Date: Autumn 2022 Hi! I am chief critic of fiction at news. Feel free to read my book reviews of “The Surgeon” by Ida Hegazi Høyer, “Løpe ulv” by Kerstin Ekman or “Matrix” by Lauren Groff.
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“Output” by Majken van Bruggen – Reviews and recommendations
