Tove Ditlevsen led a challenging life. Now a biography worth reading has been published about the Danish author, who was discovered late in this country.
Die Autorin Tove Ditlevsen 1959 Photo: imago
If you could take a look from above at the entire life of Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976), at all the roles she held, everything she portrayed, everything she went through, you would probably get dizzy.
The Danish star writer wrote love poems and psychiatric prose, worked as a suggestion box columnist for newspapers, was addicted to medication, described herself as “crazy”, had four marriages and three children, at the same time wanted to try out free love and ultimately put an end to this turbulent life herself.
Tove Ditlevsen has always been a well-known author in Denmark, internationally and in Germany she has only really been discovered in recent years, especially through the republished Copenhagen trilogy (“Childhood”, “Youth”, “Dependence”). A biography has now been published, written by the Danish literary critic Jens Andersen, who has also written books about the life stories of Astrid Lindgren and Hans Christian Andersen.
Tove Ditlevsen’s life and literature were closely linked; she can be seen as an early representative of autofiction. For her, writing meant revealing a lot about herself, “exposing herself,” as she said. Above all, her prose should reflect unvarnished reality. “I write best when there is something that has caused me distress in some way. I see no material for myself in the idyll,” biographer Andersen quotes her as saying.
Jens Andersen: “Tove Ditlevsen. Your life”. Translated from Danish by Ulrich Sonnenberg. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2023. 224 pages, 24 euros
Ditlevsen comes from a working class family in Copenhagen and was active in the Danish capital’s intellectual scene from early adulthood – a classic story of upward mobility. She married men who were journalists and writers, but felt alienated in more educated circles throughout her life.
A celebrity and diva
She repeatedly had mental breakdowns and was often in the psychiatric hospital. While living with doctor Carl T. Ryberg, she became addicted to medication, with her husband acting as her dealer.
But she was also a celebrity, a diva, which Andersen brings out well. When asked at a young age what she wanted from life, she said: “Power, fame and a lot of money. I would like to be famous. I like it when people recognize me, turn around when I walk in somewhere and say: ‘That’s Tove Ditlevsen!’” She has achieved this goal, at least in her home country.
Maybe what people liked about her was how clearly and bluntly she spoke about marriage, about sex, about drugs, about madness. “She was in her element in her role as obnoxious, lewd and immodest,” Andersen writes. She herself said of her early fame: “I was kind of back then Françoise Sagan. Young, with an interesting backstory and with a small, piquant touch of ‘tragicity’ about me.”
Dumber from kids and washing up
This compact biography is most interesting where Ditlevsen’s identity concepts appear incompatible, all too contradictory: she was an outlaw, but always wanted to live a middle-class life. She defended marriage, but knew what it did to the women of her time (she spoke of “spiritually related beings […]who are married to idiots and become dumber and dumber with children and washing up.”
She was a feminist and as such avant-garde in Denmark, but later did not want to support the women’s movement. As a walking contradiction, Tove Ditlevsen is a phenomenon.
Her understanding of literature can only be fully understood if one considers that writing about (her own) brutal reality of life meant a moment of liberation for Ditlevsen: “That’s why I have to write about my life, section by section. The process of realization only comes when I write. “Writing is an escape from unbearable reality,” Andersen quotes his protagonist.
Because her prose is just as dense, pointed, and sometimes almost aphoristic as this statement, you should also read Ditlevsen’s novels after this biography.
2023-11-04 14:21:13
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