The Love Story of the Century, a story in verse, takes the reader deep into the pit of a woman’s relationship with her husband, who struggles with alcoholism. Drawing on her own life experiences, Tikkanen creates an authentic and compelling image of addiction. She depicts how it seeps into every crevice of a family, from the physical effects to the mental strain. How, on the worst days, it strips everything away—hope, happy memories, belief that things can change—to leave one grasping desperately into thin air. How the individual fights against it, loved ones try to help, try to leverage the human instinct for compassion and love. But then the help turns to harm and the harm turns to help and suddenly there is no clear view of what is right and what is wrong.
Although her words are spare, Tikkanen uses her time with the reader thoroughly. She explores the varied roles the unnamed narrator must take on with her husband: wife, mother, doctor, saviour, voice of reason, and at times even accomplice. She pulls back the curtain to glimpse the good times in the relationship, before things began to fall apart, while also digging into the emotional and physical abuse that all too often accompany addiction. At times the story depicts a bare existence, a simultaneous acceptance and denial of the situation at hand, perhaps a wilful blindness to simply allow survival from day to day. Yet, in the stronger moments, Tikkanen makes a call to women to shed the gendered expectations placed upon them by society, to escape and live their lives freely.
The narrative voice in this work beautifully and painfully portrays the intense conflict experienced by a spouse when the love of their life struggles with alcoholism. It explores deeply the ripping and tearing apart caused by disparate thoughts and conflicting feelings compounded over time, universal considerations such as: Should I stay? (Should I go?) Maybe it will be different this time, right? (Or maybe not?) It’s okay to stay, because it isn’t affecting the children. (Or is it?) It’s okay to stay because he isn’t hurting me. (Or is he?) If x, y, and z happens again, I will leave. I mean it this time. Or maybe – you know what – maybe it doesn’t matter what I do, so let him be and I will go on with my life. (If I can still call it that.)
While it is easy to get lost in this book, tearing through it quickly in one sitting, don’t let that detract from its depth. Tikkanen has chosen each word carefully to construct a sharp reality where the reader is forced to consider – to very nearly take on for themselves – these conflicting emotions which saturate a life lived with addiction. The structure even reflects this haunting pain, the impact that this illness has on each individual and the whole of a family. Brief lines and frequent breaks build rambling sentences which continue on and on at length with no punctuation, no end, no clear resolution.
First published in 1978, The Love Story of the Century has been translated from Swedish into 19 other languages. What could better demonstrate the universal power of this tale?
The Love Story of the Century is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of February 4th 2020. My sincere thanks to Deep Vellum for gifting me this advance copy to review. All thoughts and opinions here are entirely my own.
Märta Tikkanen is a Finnish-Swedish journalist, writer, and teacher. She is perhaps best known for writing that explores and addresses gender roles, particularly those which oppress women, and the movement for women’s liberation. Over the years her work has won a number of prestigious awards, including the Nordic Women’s Alternative Literature Prize, Finland’s State Prize for the Dissemination of Knowledge, and the Swedish Academy’s Finland Prize. In February 2020, Dallas-based indie publisher Deep Vellum brings her novel The Love Story of the Century back to English readers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Hailed an immediate classic of Finnish literature on its publication in 1978 and an international bestseller that has been translated into 19 languages, Märta Tikkanen’s verse novel is a haunting, profoundly evocative portrait of one woman’s fraught relationship with her alcoholic husband, inspired by the author’s own experience. In language that is as delicate as it is fierce, Tikkanen explores the depths of fear and violence that often accompany addiction and the struggle to reconcile that pain with the deep love and strength necessary to hold a family together through it all. As much a story of resilience as it is suffering, The Love Story of the Century is a bittersweet account of the complexities of addiction, the power of creativity, and the redemption of love.
