{"id":1983,"date":"2009-07-12T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2009-07-12T04:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2018-02-12T18:40:52","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T22:40:52","slug":"inger-christensens-azorno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2009\/07\/12\/inger-christensens-azorno\/","title":{"rendered":"Inger Christensen: Azorno<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

Azorno<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nby Inger Christensen (1967)
\n<\/span> translated from the Danish by Denise Newman (2009)<\/span>
\nNew Directions (2009)<\/span>
\n112 pp<\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"Azorno\"<\/a>W<\/span>hat a puzzling book!\u00a0\u00a0Or rather —\u00a0what a puzzle of a book.\u00a0How to review it? I think a good way to start is by contrasting it to books that failed me where it succeeded.\u00a0About a year ago I reviewed Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0My feelings toward that book have declined sharply, in part because it has come to\u00a0represent — surely unfairly —\u00a0something I despise. To me, it was obfuscated solely for the sake of appearing more\u00a0substantial than it was, mistaking opaque for profound.\u00a0That is about as bad in my book as being clever just to be clever.\u00a0I like\u00a0inovative and unconventional and even obfuscated\u00a0style, but it should serve and not detract from\u00a0the substance of the book.\u00a0When I started Inger Christensen’s Azorno<\/em>\"\", I was a bit wary because there are enough blatant contradictions and perspective shifts early in the text to suggest Christensen is just poking fun at the reader because, as the author,\u00a0she can.\u00a0(However, there were never parts with strange abstractions like in Gordimer, and I remember that being the worst part of that book.) Well, my worries quickly went away when Azorno<\/em>, though not being clear in itself, clearly settled on some fascinating themes — and the obfuscation enhanced those themes (yes!).<\/p>\n

The first line is very interesting.\u00a0It also introduces the loose boundaries of the text and\u00a0the\u00a0uncertain nature of the facts presented.<\/p>\n

\n

I’ve learned that I’m the woman he first meets on page eight.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I admit, I didn’t wait to read pages\u00a0one through\u00a0seven before skipping to page eight to see who was talking. Strangely, there is no encounter of this sort on page eight, so either that first page is not talking about this <\/em>book or it is lying.\u00a0 Disoriented, I read on to discover what it was talking about. A writer named Sampel is working on a book.\u00a0Azorno is the main character.\u00a0The woman who wrote this introductory sentence\u00a0thinks she is the inspiration for the lovely woman Azorno meets on page eight of Sampel’s book.\u00a0In the next section, another narrator takes over, though at the time the transition is not apparent. It soon becomes obvious that we are dealing with multiple narrators who are writing letters to one another. But\u00a0then come\u00a0the contradictions:<\/p>\n

\n

But if the truth is finally to come out, there’s one thing that can’t have two meanings: Yesterday I was with Azorno here in Rome. It was the first Sunday in May, and the noon hour was unbelievably hot.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the first Sunday in May and the air was unusually cool. I had just said good-bye to Azorno and wasn’t sure which direction to walk now that I was alone after three uninterrupted days with Azorno, who always decides which direction to take . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Slowly, despite the uncertainty of who the women are and where they stand in relationship with each other\u00a0and with Sampel and Azorno,\u00a0the women take shape in the minds of the reader.\u00a0Then Christensen blurs the image, and we’re just not sure (and I never was again sure) who was real and who was imagined, who was writing what I was reading and who was the potential pseudonym. Was one of the women writing this book under an assumed name?\u00a0Was Sampel himself writing it? Is it Sampel’s wife?\u00a0Is it Adorno?<\/p>\n

This might sound frustrating, and I suppose it could be if approached with the wrong expectations. However, as I alluded above, the technique is not without its purpose.\u00a0Furthermore, the story itself is very compelling. See, there are five women in all.\u00a0The one who is silent for the first part of the book takes a greater role in the second half.\u00a0This is Bet Sampel, Sampel’s wife. Here is a heartbreaking thing she says when she finally gets her voice and is not merely the subject of the other women’s letters.<\/p>\n

\n

As early as page eight I noticed a very incisive and loving account of the woman Azorno, the main character, meets.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first I was flattered to think that Sampel had used me as a model for this compelling description, but gradually, as I read on, it became clear that he was describing someone else.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Trying to figure out just who is the inspiration for that fabulous description, Bet narrows it down to four candidates and, using a telegram from Sampel, invites them all to their house while Sampel is away.\u00a0Sampel has been away for months, and during this time Bet has found out she is pregnant with his child. All four women show up, and all of the other four are also pregnant. Christensen doesn’t let this go to melodrama, though, and the scene where the women sit awkwardly around while Bet analyzes them is fantastic. It also ends bizarrely, alluding to the possibility that someone is insane, perhaps institutionalized. And maybe someone has been murdered. Maybe not. Figuring out the truth is not the point.<\/p>\n

\n

There is nothing to be solved, but something to bind. Bind one to the other.\u00a0Bind yourself to a random person whose random circumstances cause you to no longer recognize yourself\u00a0simply as a human being, but rather as a human-made being.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>