The trouble with happiness : and other stories
Call Number
- FICTION DITL (CEN)
Edition
First American edition.
Publication Information
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
Physical Description
184 pages ; 22 cm
Summary
"A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence, and despair, as women and men struggle to escape from the roles assigned to them and dream of becoming free and happy--without ever truly understanding what that might mean. Tove Ditlevsen is one of Denmark's most famous and beloved writers, and her autobiographical Copenhagen Trilogy was hailed as a masterpiece on re-publication in English, lauded for its wry humor, limpid prose, and powerful honesty. The poignant and understated stories in The Trouble with Happiness, written in the 1950s and 1960s and never before translated into English, offer readers a new chance to encounter the quietly devastating work of this essential twentieth-century writer."--
Notes
"Originally published in Danish in 1952 and 1963 by Hasselbalch, Denmark, as 'Paraplyen' and 'Den onde lykke'"--Title page verso.
Contents
- Book one : The umbrella. The Umbrella ; The Cat ; My wife doesn't dance ; His mother ; Queen of the night ; One morning in a residential neighborhood ; A Nice boy ; Life's persistence ; Evening ; Depression
- Book two : The trouble with happiness. The Knife ; The Method ; Anxiety ; The Mother ; A Fine business ; The Bird ; The Little shoes ; The Best joke ; Two women ; Perpetuation ; The Trouble with happiness.