Astrid & Veronika
Linda Olsson, 2007
Viking Penguin
259 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143038078
Summary
With extraordinary emotional power, Linda Olsson's stunningly well-crafted debut novel recounts the unusual and unexpected friendship that develops between two women. Veronika, a young writer, rents a house in a small Swedish village as she tries to come to terms with a recent tragedy while also finishing a novel.
Her arrival is silently observed by Astrid, an older, reclusive neighbor who slowly becomes a presence in Veronika's life, offering comfort in the form of companionship and lovingly prepared home-cooked meals.
Set against a haunting Swedish landscape, Astrid & Veronika is a lyrical and meditative novel of love and loss, and a story that will remain with readers long after the characters' secrets are revealed. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Stockholm, Sweden
• Education—J.D., University of Stockholm; University of Wellington
• Currently—lives in Auckland, New Zealand
Linda Olsson is a Swedish-born novelist who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Published in 2003, her first novel, Astrid and Veronika, became an international best seller and was translated into 15 languages. She writes all of her novels in both English and Swedish.
Born and raised in Stockholm, Olsson attended the University of Stockholm. After graduating with a law degree, she worked in banking and finance, eventually getting married and giving birth to three boys.
In 1986, her family left Sweden for Africa where Olsson initially intended to take up a post in Kenya. But she traveled on to Singapore, Britain, and Japan, finally settling in New Zealand with her family in 1990. She continued her studies at the University of Wellington, graduating in English and German literature.
During her time in London, Olsson signed up for a course in creative writing and was encouraged to begin writing short stories. In 2003, after arriving in New Zealand, she won a short story competition run by the Sunday Star Times. She then enrolled in a postgraduate course, "Writing the Novel," and was inspired to try her hand at long-form fiction.
Olsson's first novel was completed in 2005. Astrid and Veronika (originally titled "Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs") became a Swedish bestseller. Subsequent novels include Sonata for Miriam (2009), The Memory of Love (2011—The Kindness of Your Nature in New Zealand ), The Blackbird Sings at Dusk (2016—not available in the U.S.), and A Sister in My House (2016, 2018 in the U.S.).
Under the pen name Adam Sarafis, OLsson has also collaborated with Thomas Sainsbury on the thriller Something is Rotten (2015). (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/6/2018.)
Book Reviews
Unlike the voice of the novel’s omniscient narrator, [the voices of the two women] are natural and vivid, utterly convincing. And unlike the novel’s flatly depicted present, the physical world of the past, in which their stories take place, generously opens to admit us. By the halfway mark, it’s the characters’ voices that are keeping Olsson’s readers going, not her irritating attempt to create suspense. And when the crucial revelations arrive, they’re disappointing. Neither Veronika’s tragedy nor Astrid’s truly illuminates the character of the woman who suffers it. Yet Astrid & Veronika survives this potential derailment because the braiding together of the two women’s voices is simply so beguiling.
Linda Harleman - New York Times
Linda Olsson evokes, with great beauty and precision, the landscape of a friendship between two very different women, each caught in a tragic moment from the past. Their connec-tion, initially as tentative and fragile as the first filaments of ice, gradually strengthens, allowing each woman to give voice to her stories, and in doing so to reclaim "a heart for beauty." Subtle, penetrating, and beautifully written, Astrid and Veronika affirms the power of narrative to transform.
Kim Edwards (author of The Time Traveler's Wife)
In Swedish novelist Olsson's somber debut, Veronika Bergman returns to Sweden after a childhood following her diplomat father around the world (her mother abandoned the family), and after publishing her first novel titled Single, One Way, No Luggage. She rents a small house in a rural town to work on her second, but in solitude finds herself seized by feverish dreams and paralyzed by the "stillness" of the landscape and the memories of her recently dead fiance. Reclusive septuagenarian Astrid Mattson, thought by the village to be a witch, takes an interest in Veronika, and the two strike up a friendship based on loss. Against the backdrop of the changing seasons and their small, plangent houses, the two women slowly tell each other their most closely guarded secrets (which concern their mothers and lovers), and venture, tentatively, out of the safety of their routines. Olsson has a clear feel for the emotional wellsprings of both characters, but can't convert her terse lyricism into a fully realized story.
Publishers Weekly
This is the first novel for Olsson, a native of Stockholm who now lives in New Zealand. Though the pace of her narrative lags at times, readers of Anne Tyler and Jodi Picoult will appreciate the lyrical prose and expert rendering of the themes of heartbreak and loss. —Allison Block
Booklist
Two women, four decades apart in age, share their emotional scars while living next door to each other in a small Swedish town. Olsson's restrained debut has the hallmarks of an Ingmar Bergman film: a leisurely pace, a chilly Scandinavian setting leavened by rich observations of nature and characters whose prim, polite facades eventually disappear, exposing years of anger and hurt. Veronika, a 30-year-old writer, arrives in a tiny village looking for a solitary place where she can work on the follow-up to her successful first novel. The house next to the one she rents is owned by Astrid, a septuagenarian shut-in whose husband is slowly dying in a nursing home miles away. Veronika is sad and embittered, Astrid is so closed-off she has a reputation as the village witch, but as their routines increasingly intersect, their relationship thaws, and they become close friends. Over dinners, hikes and trips into town, they discuss the things that prompted them to seclude themselves. By and large, those things are men: Astrid was cruelly rejected by her grandfather as a child, her true love died when she was a teen, and she spent years in a loveless marriage to a domineering man; Veronika left her boyfriend in Stockholm to live with another man in New Zealand, but that relationship had a tragic ending. It's a story with lots of potential to become overwrought, three-hanky fare, but Olsson refuses to give in to that temptation. Her prose is empathetic while remaining steely and unadorned, never overselling the amount of psychic damage that either character has sustained or glossing over the women's flaws. While the plot demands that the conclusion offer some familiar statements about our capacity toheal, Olsson's observations about breakups and dysfunctional families are carefully thought out and free of cliche. The slow pace is sometimes maddening, but it places the women's personal dramas in strong relief. An appealing, if oddly stoic, meditation on friendship.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Astrid has been solitary for so long. Why, then, do you think she is drawn to Veronika, essentially a stranger, and then later allows herself to open up to her so freely?
2. The houses in the novel serve almost as characters. The author describes Astrid’s house as “dark and warm . . . It was an organic part of her and its shapes were ingrained in her body” (p. 9). Discuss how the author uses the houses in the novel. What is the importance of a home in our lives? How does our house/living space define us? What do you think your house/living space says about you?
3. Astrid’s mother committed suicide when Astrid was six-years-old; Veronika’s mother left when Veronika was a child. Talk about the theme of the “absent mother” and how it influences these characters’ lives.
4. What did you think of Astrid’s confession regarding the death of her child? Were you able to understand her actions? Did knowing this about her past affect the way you felt about her? What do you think Astrid expected Veronika’s reaction would be to her story? Was Astrid taking a risk in telling her? Why do you think Veronika reacts in the way she does?
5. Veronika feels very guilty about the death of her fiancé and agonizes over what she could have done differently that day to prevent his death. Why do you think she feels so guilty?
6. When Astrid tries on the floral swimsuit during Veronika’s birthday “outing,” the women burst out into laughter. (p. 85). Why do the women find this moment so hysterically funny? How does this day, Veronika’s birthday, serve as a turning point in the novel?
7. After her husband dies, Astrid says to Veronika , “There was nothing more to be afraid of. . . . It was never about him. It was about me” (p.167). What does she mean?
8. Veronika visits her father after her fiancé’s death, and when she is leaving her father begins to say, “I wish . . .” but doesn’t complete the sentence (p. 200). What do you think he was going to say? How would you describe Veronika’s relationship with him?
9. Great literary novels skillfully incorporate sometimes elaborate symbolism. In Astrid & Veronika, Ollson makes repeated and significant references to water. Discuss the symbolic function of water in the novel and consider how water may be connected with Olsson’s major themes.
10. Discuss how the seasons shape the novel. How do the seasons influence the characters? Discuss the ways that the seasons affect you throughout the year? Are your memories connected to the seasons in which they took place?
11. In her letter to Veronika, Astrid mentions “a great love” (p. 241). Whom do you think she is talking about?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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