Shortlist Man Booker 2017
Spoiler Alert
I found myself struggling to write this blog. I wanted to really appreciate History of Wolves – it had been nominated for the most prestigious literary prize had it not? -, but could not deny that I liked History of Wolves but did not think it a masterpiece worthy of being nominated let alone winning the Booker. Her choice to illustrate her theme (‘what’s the difference between what you think and what you end up doing versus what’s the difference between what you want to believe and what you do?’) by elaborating on it in three story lines has backfired.
Main character Madeline is a loner: character and upbringing have made her keep her distance. She has hardly any friends and allow few people to come actually closer. She is definitely not one of the popular girls.When she is 15 years old two events influence her life: a teacher is accused of sexual misconduct by a fellow student, her 4-year old neighbour dies. The difficult relationship between Madeline and her parents being present throughout the entire novel.
Fridlund has grown-up Madeline looking back on the events and the people who they concerned. As a result her distance, her loner character comes out even stronger. Madeline as a grown-up, still the loner, adds insights to the events she could not have had as a young girl.
Fridlund combines sexual misconduct with religiously orientated physical neglect. At first there seems to be no relationship between either storyline. Only at the end of the novel, when Fridlund has Madeline comment on the difference between thinking, doing and believing, it becomes clear that the events exemplify this comment. I find myself having difficulties accepting Madeline’s way of supporting her classmate. I did not have any difficulty at all accepting that as a young girl Madeline could not defend her young neighbour against his zealous parents, Her ways of trying to comfort her class mate are just too grown up, too influenced by Madeline’s memory in looking back. Or, another possibility, I just do not get adolescents.
Fridlund is a writer who knows how to express things, who knows how to structure a story. The combining of the story lines however is too far-fetched, too artificial, Madeline because of the grown-up perspective ends up even more at a distance. Her loneliness becomes a mere mechanical thing. As a result Fridlund does not manage to strengthen the real combining factor: the loneliness of Madeline.
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