Since the experience of pregnancy and motherhood is one I can never have it makes me all the more interested in reading about it. I've never even felt inclined to be a father but I want to understand the process and emotional repercussions of parenthood. Kjersti A Skomsvold is a Norwegian author who has published an utterly captivating, beautifully-written and poignant account of a woman in the first several months following the birth of her second child. What's so compelling about her point of view is the way her identity transforms amidst this new responsibility but retains a consistency. It's like the tectonic plates of her personality shift to lay bare the core of her being with all her passion, strengths and insecurities. She's an author who endeavours to keep writing amidst the responsibilities and emotional strain of her life. At the same time it's fascinating how her experience is paired against others such as her great aunt who is experiencing dementia, a writer friend who committed suicide and her partner Bo with whom she's had a complicated relationship. Through her interactions we glean an awareness of all the stages of life experienced at once as the roles she plays constantly switch and are paired against the lives of others.
The narrative is composed of short impressionistic accounts of her daily experiences, memories and reflections. They are also directed at the child so it's written in the second person making it feel like both a confidential letter to her progeny and a hymn expressing her innermost soul. It gives an immediacy to this book which is emotional and moving. This style also creates a narrative tension as we only gradually come to understand her past and the circumstances of her life. I found it poignant how when comparing herself to her contemporaries she feels that she's come late to things like having a stable relationship and giving birth to children: “Becoming adult is so very much harder when you haven't the strength.” Gradually we come to understand her abiding feeling of loneliness and depression which have also hindered her ability to fully connect with others: “it's because of loneliness I can hear if my heart's beating. Even with a child inside me I was filled with loneliness, and after the child had come out I felt empty. Loneliness lingered like a phantom pain.” I appreciate how she honestly divulges the mystery of these emotions and allows us to connect with them without feeling the need to try to explain them. Though the obsessions and minute sentiments which attend a volatile relationship grew trying to read about at some later sections of the book I did find many observations very powerful such as “I thought love meant discovering a new person, but it's more discovering yourself, and that's painful.”
It's interesting to compare this novel with Jessie Greengrass' “Sight” which also describes a very close-to-the-core account of motherhood with all its trials and uncertainties. While these bravely honest and confessional testimonies yield a lot of insights they also present a consciously limited, subjective view of these characters which left me longing to understand some of the more practical circumstances of their lives. For instance, I wondered how Skomsvold's unnamed protagonist managed economically amidst the responsibilities of having children but we never get details about this. I'd have appreciated it if the author would have dropped in a line or two about whether she had savings or whether her writing enables her to fully subsist. As a point of comparison “Ghost in the Throat” by Doireann Ni Ghriofa gives a very intimate account of motherhood while also making the reader aware of the challenging financial strain of having a growing family. However, this was only a slight reservation I had about “The Child” because overall it's a very thoughtful, moving and poetic account full of candour and insights.
