Tove Ditlevsen (1917–1976) was a Danish national treasure writer.
The Copenhagen Trilogy, a collection of classic works, was selected by the New York Times as one of the "Top Ten Books of 2021".
In her lifetime, she has played many roles - difficult to accept her ordinary working class; an artist who can give up everything and focus on creation; or a housewife who is trapped in self-contradiction; a hermit who completely refuses to communicate with people; and the role she has been trying to get rid of since middle age - the addict.
Photograph: Per Pejstrup/Press Association Images
Dieter Levensen has been writing since she was ten years old, and by the time she was twenty, her poems were already well known in Denmark. But Dieter Levenson never labeled her 20s as "youth", because she felt that the innocence of so-called youth had been shattered when she was 14 years old.
Dieter Levenson stood on the street where he had passed as a child
Location: Xiguanxiang, Copenhagen, 1950
Photograph:Birthe Melchiors/Scanpix
Over the years, she worked as a maid. Because of ignorance, he dipped a sponge in water to brush the piano, and was thrown out of his house and left the street. She also worked as a babysitter for a boy, and she still vividly remembers the boy yelling at her, "You must do as I say, or I will shoot you in the head"; she lived for some time in the slab bed with a portrait of Hitler; she was married once; she fell in love with a romantic lover, and then found that he wrote the same letter to each of his lovers.
Photograph: Jarner Palle/Ritzau
Man, where should I put it in my life? In the Copenhagen trilogy, Dieter Levensen unreservedly reveals the contradiction between self-identity and marriage belief. On one side is her sincere inner "female poet" self-identification, and on the other side is the deep marriage faith brought to her by her strong mother. She deeply believes in her heart that if a girl can find a good marriage, it is like a drifting boat finding a harbor to dock, and all the suffering caused by economic conditions and social bullying will end.
In 1951, at the age of 34, Dieter Levenson
Photograph：Johnny bonne
Ebbe was her first marriage. In "Dependence", Dieter Levinson reveals her journey from lover to marriage with Ebbe, a man who looks exactly like the popular British actor Leslie Howard.
When Dieter Levenson first met Ebbe, they had a great conversation. She was fascinated by Ebbe's literary style and speech, especially when he quoted again and again from Goethe's Trost of Trannen.
"He took me in his arms... For the first time, I felt joy from the heart, that feeling of being loved, it was the first time in my life. - "Dependence"
Dieter Levenson and Her Children (1948)
Photograph：inga Aistrup
The two naturally fell in love and soon developed into a marriage. In Dieter Levenson's writings, Ebbe has always been a loving boy, the perfect husband. After giving birth to his first baby, Helle, Dieter Levenson should have naturally embarked on a happy life. The world was unpredictable, and she inexplicably fell into an impermanent mental state, becoming silent and cold. And her husband Ebbe's views and words made her believe at the time - "As long as you start writing and writing good works, you will realize the value of your life, and you don't have to worry about anything else." ”
Photograph：AKG,TT news agency
Dieter Levenson began to become very dependent on Ebbe spiritually, and she pinned her life value entirely on writing and Ebbe. This stalemate lasted for a long time, until once she finished her work, stayed out of the way, went to Zealand, and got rid of the environment on which she depended, she realized, "Both of us have changed, our respective careers occupy our respective lives, and the youth that overflows us has long passed away." ”
When Dieter Levenson began experimenting with domerol (a prescription painkiller) and "began to enjoy the world of the self," her relationship with Ebbe came to an end. The drug completely changed Dieter Levenson's life, and according to her, at this time, she felt that she was beginning to truly "fall in love with herself".
Dieter Levenson and her husband, Victor Andrison, began their marriage in 1951
Photograph：Busser
"An hour can feel like a year. But a year later, it felt like just an hour had passed. These feelings depend entirely on what is in the syringe. - "Dependence"
Year after year, Dieter Levinson's use of the drug had become almost uncontrolled, and she had lost the concept of time. Unwilling to fall, she tried to return to normal. During this time, she met true love at first sight, a husband who accompanied her to her old age, Victor Andrison.
Photo: Scanpix / Per Pejstrup
From the beginning of his marriage to Victor, Victor has been at Dieter Levenson's side, fighting her life of drug addiction. Victor was deeply in love with Dieter Levenson, and he was bent on completely erasing Dieter Levenson's use of drugs. He began to become inseparable from Dieter Levenson, and in order to limit Dieter Levensen's access to drugs, he resolutely moved out of his Copenhagen home with Dieter Levenson and lived in the far suburbs of Birkler.
"I was rescued from the chaos, but when I went to the blood test window or to the door of the pharmacy, the numbing cloud attracted me so much that it called me back. I knew from then on that I could never get out of my desire for that cloud. - "Dependence"
photograph: Ida Anderson
"Dependence" was not translated until 2019 to form the now highly acclaimed Copenhagen Trilogy. Three of them are:
Barndom (Childhood),
Ungdom (Youth),
Gift (Dependency).
The New York Times named the Copenhagen Trilogy the Top Ten Books of 2021.
Copenhagen Trilogy
"Words are repressing, but it is comfortable to read", this is Eisenberg's evaluation of Dieter Levensen, a language in which DietreVinsen's words convey the core emotion.
Dieter Levinson in 1972, this photo was taken four years before she committed suicide on medication
Scanpix Ritzau / TopFoto
Dieter Levenson is like a legend, firmly following his talent and sensitive nature in the absence of support, and constantly trying throughout his life. Face the torments of love, art, and family, and finally realize your artistic ambitions and desire for high society in the midst of bloody trauma and drug addiction.
Some of the image sources:
TopFoto
Ida Anderson
Buses
no Aistrup
Jarner Palle/Ritzau
Johnny good
Per Pejstrup/Press Association Images
Birthe Melchiors/Scanpix
AKG,TT news agency
Some text sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/16/the-copenhagen-tirlogy-by-tove-ditlevsen-review
https://referentialliterature.wordpress.com/2021/02/06/dependency-tove-ditlevsen/
https://arkiv.klassekampen.no/article/20160130/PLUSS/160139946
https://www.idaandreasen.com/tove-ditlevsen-documentary
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/books/review/best-books-2021.html
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