The Umbrella, by Tove Ditlevsen

  

Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) was a Danish poet and author. She is finding late fame with English readers due to recent translations of her fiction and notably her three volume autobiography, The Copenhagen Trilogy. As part of Penguin's Archive series, ten stories are published in this handy little volume celebrating 90 years of Penguin books. (I think all the stories are taken from a Penguin Modern Classics edition of her stories called The Trouble With Happiness.)

For those new to Ditlevsen, her writing is on the gloomy, existential side. Volume one of her memoir Childhood described an unrelentingly miserable upbringing, one in which a sensitive child is misunderstood by peers and parents alike. In The Umbrella, the stories concentrate on joyless marriages that are endured and offer little in the way of personal fulfillment or development. The couples often misunderstand each other and a sense of shame permeates everything. 

True, that doesn't sound too appealing. But for readers who like slow moving, intimate fiction that explores the human psyche in detail, then Ditlevsen is the ticket. At a hundred pages, with most of the stories lasting about ten pages, The Umbrella is a good place to dip into some moody Danish fiction.