I picked this book up for Women in Translation Month not knowing much about it. It is a collection of short stories (most 3-5 pages long), with no connections other than thematically, taking place all over the world. The theme seems to be a kind of longing. Whether it is for belonging or understanding or some sort of completion. All the POV characters, men and women, seem to have a sort of itch that things are not quite as they wish them to be. Some escape their irritation, some do not. Some are not particularly likable, some are instantly familiar. A charming and quick read. ( )

A collection of short, enigmatic stories about people who are not quite at home in the world, in which the real thing that's going on often seems to be somewhere in the background, just hinted at in a passing phrase that you might almost miss the first time you read it.

The man in the opening story "In a deer stand" is stuck in a forest, injured and waiting for rescuers who might never arrive, but his real concern is with someone called Lisette who seems to have become the third person in his marriage; in the title story "Wild swims" a woman imagines swimming illegally in the moat of a fortress, but finds the necessary contact with other people involved in the experience of using a municipal swimming pool every bit as wild and dangerous. And so on in the other twelve stories squashed into this 120-page Pushkin Press book: Nors keeps on turning everyday reality into something strange and challenging. ( )

Fitting 14 stories in about 23K words (in the English translation anyway; the Danish original may have been a few thousand words shorter or longer) does not allow much space for each story (and none of them is significantly longer than the rest). I like stories but I often find the very short ones to be unsatisfying - unless they rely on surprises in the last paragraphs, the length rarely allows for much depth. And yet, there are some types, usually the ones where a single moment in time or an emotion is highlighted, where the shortness works to the benefit of the story.

Dorthe Nors (assisted in the English version by her translator Misha Hoekstra) knows how to make the best use of the limited space here. We have a man who finally decides to stand for himself and ends up stuck outside in the middle of winter; we have people who can keep a grudge; we have a man who believes someone to spend some time after his wife's death who gets a not so nice surprise; we have a man dying from cancer and a woman who helps him - or so it seems anyway. They are all real people - flawed, sometimes borderline bad (and maybe not so borderline) - but people. None of the stories really tell a surprising story (and none of them rely on surprising reveals) but they all build their narratives slowly and carefully, giving you details slowly until the full picture emerges - the non linear storytelling, with elements from the past showing up when you think you already know what happens can be annoying sometimes but here, because of the length of the pieces, it actually helps the story work better and not fall flat at the end.

One thing that strikes you when reading the stories is that even in the most intimate of them, there is a distance - sometimes in space (in addition to the stories set in Denmark, there are stories set in USA, Canada, England and Norway and a few stories which spend at least some of their narrative during some type of travel), sometimes in feelings, sometimes both. Noone seems allowed to feel close to anyone else or to be able to connect properly (with one curious exception - in "Sun Dogs", a writer living in a cabin develops a sudden closeness with the mother of an ex-lover - although even in that, there is a different type of remoteness and lack of closeness). The whole collection feels like the author is trying to say "People are complicated and always there but you are always alone, even when other people are around". Setting a lot of the stories away from home for the characters adds more to that feeling of remoteness and isolation (even in the middle of Boston for one of the characters in "Between Offices"). And even when things are going well, even when there is human connection which seems to work, it does not last - the man in "Hygge" may be chased by most women in the seniors meeting and even allows himself to be caught once in awhile but that does not lead to closeness.

None of the stories really shined and yet, I just kept reading the slim collection. Some of the stories in this collections had been published in Harper's, New Yorker, Tin House, A Public Space. That did not surprise me - the collection is exactly what I expect when I read these magazines.

I still wished some of the stories to be a bit longer, a bit more developed - not because they were missing something to be complete but because of all of the unsaid. But then, that just added to the remoteness. And reading them all in order, in one sitting may not be the best way to read the collection - it works length- and time-wise but it gets a bit too gloomy by the end.

If you expect something to happen in every story, this collection may not be for you. While something does happen indeed, a lot of the "something" is mundane and almost banal. But so is life, isn't it?

It was my first book by Nors and I doubt it will be the last. ( )

More vignettes along the lines of those collected in “Karate Chop”. These are the kind of story that reads great in the New Yorker or similar, but just feels too slight collected like this. My fave was probably the title story, in which a woman goes for a swim. ( )

‘’Both fairground and field have been baking all day in the late-summer sun. It’s September now, and when she walks around the field, the stubble scratches her ankles. But now she’s standing still, in her trench coat and clogs. The moon’s on the rise too.’’

In 14 stories, set in Denmark, Norway, England, Canada and the USA, Dorthe Nors explores the entire spectrum of the human soul with exquisite clarity and a wondrous mixture of compassion and honesty. These aren’t extraordinary people put in extreme situations. They are women and men that have loved and hated, believed and expected. They are people who found themselves longing for the ‘wrong’ person while trying to hide their own secrets. They have been disappointed, they have tried to reverse popular opinions, they have encountered the repercussions of their choices and acts. They are wanderers without a clear destination. These characters are us.

‘’Last night there was screeching in the forest.’’
‘’A mist has risen, the night will be cold, and a wolf has been sighted.’’

In A Deer Stand: A sad, haunting story of the slow disintegration of a marriage due to stubborness, indifference and coldness.

Sun Dogs: A writer who has been trying to cope with a complex relationship meets her lover’s mother. An atmospheric, melancholic story of unspoken confessions and understanding.

Hygge: This one was quite an experience...A date between two rather ridiculous individuals goes wrong. ‘’Hygge’’? No, not quite…

By Sydvest Station: Two young women are knocking on doors and ringing bells for a (fraudulent) errant. But one of them is walking around with a broken heart and a ticking clock and you never know what might happen when you knock on a stranger’s door. An astonishing story, eerie and unsettling.

‘’Even the Mississippi has to start somewhere.’’

Between Offices: A man travelling between states and offices remembers his childhood and is haunted by the presence of a vicious bird. A cryptic, memorable story in a collection where gems come in abundance.

The Fairground: An early-autumn fairground becomes the setting for a woman’s musing on love and broken trust. There is a deep sadness permeating this story and Nors’s writing is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Compaction Birds: A widower finds himself in the company of his lover’s family and the summer night makes him ponder on his choices. The last two paragraphs are a literary dream.

‘’But do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?’’

Pershing Square: In downtown Los Angeles, a woman contemplates men’s views on intelligent women and decides she has had enough. Pershing Square becomes the stage of a play starring people from all walks of life in a society where it is very easy to become an outcast.

Honeysuckle: Where to begin with this story and how can I express its eerie beauty? A tale of summer colours, of honeysuckle and the hazy, late-afternoon light, of desire, of men who believe they have the right to define a woman’s identity, of women who conform.

‘’When mother died, a robin appeared at the feeder. It kept coming back that entire winter. It was Mother who was visiting me.’’

On Narrow Paved Paths: In elegant sarcasm and spot-on, bitter irony, Dorthe Nors describes the last days of Einar, who is about to be defeated by cancer, and his neighbours’ strenuous efforts to be ‘’useful’’. But they are far from ‘’useful’’ and far from compassionate. And Einar offers his broken body to the sad vultures.

Inside St. Paul’s: A man visits St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Next to the tomb of Lord Nelson, he surrenders himself to memories of childhood, innocence and his marriage as it once was. Sad, tangible, haunting.

The Freezer Chest: It feels divinely good when you shove every past (and present) insult down a filthy bully’s throat, no matter what his ‘’fangirls’’ say. And nothing should ever be forgotten. Or forgiven.

‘’There’s a faint glow behind the maple, but it’s probably no one. The road is wet, drizzle, they’re sleeping now. It’s one in the morning, and he can see his face indistinctly in the living room window.’’

Manitoba: A man who has left his secrets in Denmark (or has he?) is residing in a summer house close to a camping spot near Manitoba. The youngsters and the nosy neighbours do little to leave him in peace.

‘’In the evening, the heat hung heavy in the apartment. I sat down on the floor in my underwear, closed my eyes. Down on the street the ambulances drove to and fro, but I’ve learned not to chase sirens anymore.’’

‘’I went for a walk, out towards the big houses around Carlsberg. The front yards there smelled of elder and peony, and it’s good to walk at night.’’

Wild Swims: A woman reminisces about the wild swims of her childhood, haunted by the memories of her best friend. But now? Even venturing to the local swimming pool is torture.

Written like a warm, hazy, summery late afternoon, these stories are full of familiar sadness, memories, uncertainty and the wait for something that doesn’t seem to find its way to us. Poetic, raw, honest, this is a masterpiece by one of the greatest writers of Danish Literature. The translation by Misha Hoekstra is superb!

‘’She cocks an ear to the evening sky, listening. No boys in the bushes. No boys on the fairground, they’ve gone, and she tries to make herself taller in order to see it more clearly. The fox is not there, and it’s good that the ring dove flies off, for now she’s standing on the brink. It’s September. In the yard hang apples and black elderberries. Someone’s placed a good chair under the chestnut, she could just sit down, but she'd rather stand here with the gas can. It’s so quiet, now that everyone’s gone home.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ ( )