"The most important duty in a relationship is to restrain your own self-hatred. One blessing in the love of a partner is that they receive our sorrows like small gifts. Thank you, they say, and they carry them along as if the darkness were their own."

Oh my god, this book is pure grain Europe, drrrrink it up! (And I say that as a European myself.)

The perfect term for the writing here is: droll. Written with a bone dry wit, full of beautiful observations. It basically is a collection of short anecdotes, about Stine Pilgaard moving to a small town in Denmark, and her adapting (sort of, maybe) to their ways of living and (non-)communicating, interspersed with advice columns she has written for the local paper.

"Dear Martyr, You know the type of person who is always saying what type of person they are. They are never the type that they think. When people define themselves, they are in fact revealing their greatest wishes or their deepest fear. You can never trust an institution that investigates itself, police officers who are questioned by their friends, or academics who quote their own articles. Speak kindly of your husband, dear Martyr, we all have a responsibility when a fellow motorist needs to merge into our lane. Just because you can’t see yourself, it doesn’t mean that you are invisible. Sincerely, The Letterbox"

And it's lovely. It's funny, and well written. Full of beautiful observations. The anecdotes are more of the reactive kind, while the advice columns are more thoughtful.

"The five children are sitting quiet as mice, and with their light curls and blue eyes they look like the front cover of a brochure for the Hitler Youth."

If I have one criticism, it's that because the book relies on anecdotes, it can become a bit samey. There are returning themes (Pilgaard's driving lessons, meetings with other parents, her boyfriend is a teacher and all the girls at his school pine for him), but there's not a lot there, there. Best to space the chapters out, read one now and then.

"Why don’t you ever use your turn signal, I asked Krisser. It’s no one else’s business where I’m going, Krisser said."

Highly recommended.

FUN! that's what I would call this book. I laughed I cried I enjoyed. Sometimes translated books lose their oomph but not this one.

This unusually titled book is the tale of a 30ish young woman, her boyfriend and their infant son as they travel to the “hinterland” of Denmark, West Jutland, where they will reside at a hojskole, a residential school somewhat akin to a high school. She will be what the school calls “the trailing partner” while her boyfriend teaches.

This novel is structured in an unusual way, with short sections, occasional songs apparently adapted from real tunes and fitted to events, and letters to with responses from Letterbox, the advice column that our narrator undertakes in her new town, Velling.

The Land of Short Sentences is about adaptation and communication: learning how to fit in in a new community, trying to adapt as new parents, being a partner in a town of husbands and wives. Or perhaps teaching the new place about adapting to yourself. At times laugh out loud funny while at other times very poignant and deeply thoughtful.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot and recommend for those interested in the craziness of language and how we humans interact. There are interesting notes on the use of songs and translation also in an afterword.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I found this a reasonably amusing tale about a young woman who follows her teacher husband when he gets appointed to a Danish Hojskole, a residential school, popular in Denmark for over 18s which offers a liberal and creative education. The school is in a small town and our poor beleaguered protagonist, who is clearly ill at ease in social situations, has to navigate her way through her new small community. She gets a job as an agony art on a local newspaper and her columns are reproduced in the book, as are some of the songs popular for community singing. We hear about her largely unsuccessful attempts to learn to drive, we hear about her problems dealing with her baby son, and above all we hear about her social ineptitude. I enjoyed it up to about the half way point but then it began to pall, and it all seemed just more of the same. There’s no real narrative arc, no real character development, just a series of anecdotes which became less and less funny as time went on. It certainly wasn’t, for me, the “hilarious” read that it is reputed to be, and which has made it such a bestseller in Denmark. Just a bit of light-hearted froth.

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The Land of Short Sentences (Meter i sekundet) by Stine Pilgaard (translated by Hunter Simpson) follows a young mother and her boyfriend into a rural Danish community. Ms. Pilgaard is an award-winning Danish author.

A young woman, her boyfriend, and new born baby have relocated to West Jutland, Denmark. The young couple has to deal with new people, a new culture, as well as juggling jobs.

The young woman writes advice column, while her boyfriend is a teacher at a Folk High School (højskole). The woman attempts to find her place in the community, as well as with her new family.

This novel is a wry, thoughtful, and sometimes funny slice of life in Denmark. The story of The Land of Short Sentences by Stine Pilgaard takes place over a year, and told through the eyes of the narrator. The young lady is an advice columnist, an “oracle” as she calls herself, and this mechanism allows her to pontificate on her life, friends, and culture.
The advice she gives is pretty bad, which it seems like she knows as she reveals more of herself than actually helps her readers.

More than the story itself, I enjoyed reading about the daily life of a different culture. Hunter Simpson, the translator, did a fantastic job at getting the spirit and atmosphere across – no easy task.

I also learned a few things as well. Højskole, a Danish Folk High School seems like a great concept as the allow students non-formal education, and are unique to Scandinavia’s culture. The driving classes are hilarious, I’m surprised this intelligent young lady didn’t complain about the money-grabbing aspect of it, but it allows her to meet new people – so there’s that.

There’s a lot to like in this book, great characters, beautiful scenes, as well as funny dialogue. However, the story is centered around a new mother, in a foreign place, learning to drive – I’m positive that this middle age schmo is not the target audience.

The translator also introduced me to the tradition of group singing, lejlighedssang (occasional song). Lyrics are set to traditional melodies so everyone can sing. The songs in this book are on the World Editions YouTube channel, which I found once but couldn’t find again. On a side note, World Editions have some great books which I intend to check out.

This is an ARC I read around a month ago and am only just reviewing- which is daft as it’s one of my favourite reads of the year so far!

A woman moves from the city to remote West Jutland, as a new mum and ‘trailing spouse’ - her boyfriend will be teaching at the Folk High School (slightly hippy art college? I was seeing a Danish Dartington College, backalong). We follow her as she attempts to fit in, learn to drive, make friends and get to grips with parenting. This is one of those books where virtually nothing happens- and I loved it!

I have to admit I went in extremely cautious- when funny books miss the mark, they miss badly. Add in the motherhood themes, and the potential for me to hate it was quite great! But I laughed - frequently. The main character’s inappropriate replies in her role as ‘oracle’ were priceless.

It’s very gentle, very subtle and faintly ridiculous, and I look forward to reading anything else Pilgaard has translated into English.

Thank you #NetGalley for the advanced readers copy. Published 14th April

📚 The Land of Short Sentences by Stine Pilgaard, translated by Hunter Simpson 📚

Thanks to @worldedbooks
For the Netgalley eARC of this lovely novel.

"...Sebastian’s eldest daughter comes running over. Do you want to watch my dance show, she asks, jabbing her finger into my shoulder. It’s impossible to take the question as anything but a threat."

The quirky wit of this novel runs throughout, as the main character tries to find a place for herself in a tiny town in Denmark where her boyfriend is working at a folk school (interesting boarding school of sorts for young adults).

She just had a baby, she doesn't know anyone in town, and she can't stop herself from rambling stream of consciousness whenever she meets someone new. She basically stalks a local celebrity because he's apparently so good at small talk and she wants to learn from him.

She can't drive and is running through all the driving instructors, as they edge towards nervous breakdowns and hand her off to the next.

She needs a job - as decided by the principal of the folk school - so she writes an advice column with outrageous answers to the letters.

This novel is cute yet serious, funny and sad in parts, very character driven and does not have much of a plot. I really liked it and even though the main character has some traits I found annoying (working on my type A issues I swear!) I thought she was hilarious and endearing.

If you're looking for something different, this book is short, unique, endearing, and entertaining!

This was good fun. A couple with a young child move to a remote corner of Denmark. The woman is a bit special, she doesn't really understand the social conventions of polite conversation, always gives way too much information and knows no taboos. She is chaotic and so it is extremely difficult for her to pass her driver's test. When she has to organise a party she panics for weeks.

She quickly finds a job as a 'Letterbox' answering readers' questions in the local newspaper and she is excellent at this job, responding in hilarious yet smart and helpful ways. As rational as she is in helping the letter-writers, so helpless is she herself in her own personal relations. Her answers of course given away far too much of her personal life, and they were for me the absolute highlight of the novel.

Happy to have read this: it is a light novel overall without much plot but on a sentence level there is a lot to enjoy with a great many interesting observations and thoughts about language, human interaction and relationships.

An easy read story of a new mother who moves with her partner for his new job and her sideline as an advice columnist. I enjoyed the advice, but found the songs quite hard going, and never felt really involved with the characters.
thank you to netgalley and world editions for an advance copy of this book

"In big cities you try to distinguish yourself, to be noticed, but in small towns the goal is to blend in and become a part of the landscape. People cultivate their commonalities instead of their differences, subtly refer to their mutual interests, that’s the purpose and logic of these conversations."

A young woman has moved to the small town of Velling, in West Jutland, Denmark, with her boyfriend who has a new job teaching at the local Højskole (an adult education institution). City born and bred, she's having trouble getting to know people in her new community. Although she participates in school activities, gives birth to a son and takes driving lessons, she just can't seem to break down the barriers. Various people give her advice, which is ironic, as she has a job writing an advice column for the local newspaper. It's not until she practically stalks the local celebrity - a documentary presenter - into befriending her, that she finds someone who can coach her in the art of small town conversation, as per the above quote. Keep it short, keep it superficial, don't try too hard.

This was a quick, amusing read. I found the thread about the driving lessons quite charming, with instructors continually handing her off to the next one, in order to take a break from this almost hopeless case. I was equally frustrated by the seemingly indiscriminate lack of character names. Although the idea of teaming up with fellow trailing spouse Sebastian to write new songs for the Højskole Songbook didn't really interest me very much (lyrics are interspersed throughout the book), I did spend some time on YouTube listening to examples of Lejlighedssange, including one from the book.

Worth a read, particularly if you are interested in reading about rural Denmark.

A young woman has relocated to a small village (pop c200) in North Jutland so that her partner takes up his post as creative writing teacher at the local Højskole (I have know learned this is a very Danish institution for over 18s who board and join a variety of creative courses with no exams attached for some months). The novel traces the narrator´s steps trying to find her feet in a totally new world: she is a new mother, a new neighbour, a new teacher spouse... The small community has (as most communities do!) its own codes of conduct and communication, and our heroine tries to navigate them all whilst at the same time learning to... drive! a good metaphor for the whole enterprise.

The novel is a comedy of manners -fun, ironic and wise- with (for me) the added bonus of its setting - the unknown, hygge Danish land. Fiction and reality melt in an enticing mix. I found myself checking on the realities of the Velling højskole and extraordinary principal, the hotel (and its owner!) at Skjern, the actuality of the journalist Anders Agger (yes, he is a Danish celebrity, the equal of our own Louis Theroux). And while this is very much a novel about a small community in Denmark, the underlying anxieties about living, our place in the world and our various relationships are very universal and make for a definitely enjoyable read. The text is structured along three main lines: the narrator's first person account of her mundane, quirky adventures AND learning to drive; her work as an ¨oracle¨ (she becomes a most unlikely yet preternaturally wise agony aunt for the local paper and we get to read the letters and our narrator's responses), and, finally, the lyrics of "lejlighedssang" she writes - another very Danish tradition: new lyrics written to existing music for special occasions... all three strands have interest and rewards but I found the structural device a bit mechanic and ultimately I was a bit impatient with it . There is a denouement of sorts but it is in line with whole peripatea... rather constraint.
The original Danish title is Meters per Second... and in conjunction with The Land of Short Sentences makes for a suggestive summary of this novel's aims.
My thanks to World Editions via NetGalley for an opportunity to read this unexpected and interesting novel.

I often find it interesting to read popular books from other countries translated into English, so I was happy to get the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. There were more cultural differences in this book than I expected, but I found much universal humor and appeal. I liked the discussions about integrating as a newcomer into a small village in Denmark and life as a new mother isolated from family and friends. I also enjoyed the main character's advice column, especially considering how inappropriate and unfiltered she is in real life. I think new mothers would particularly appreciate this book, and I hope they all find childcare providers like Mai-Britt, my favorite character.

The Land of Short Sentences is sneakily witty and enticing. On the surface, it appears to be a quiet story about a young woman making a life after moving into a new village with her boyfriend and newborn. But the genius of Pilgaard's writing lies in humorous turns of phrase, sparkling dialogue, and attentiveness to "unremarkable details." It is in the daily particulars of normal life that one's inclusion in community comes easily-- or not.

I enjoyed the lightness of this story but didn't feel connected enough to the characters for it to be un-put-down-able. The advice columns were priceless, though!

Many thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a free advance copy for review.

A young woman relocates to an outlying community in West Jutland, Denmark, and is forced to find her way, not only in the bewildering environment of the residential Folk High School, where her partner has been hired to teach, but also in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population. And on top of it all there's the small matter of juggling her roles as mother to a newborn baby and advice columnist in the local newspaper. In this understated and hilarious novel, Stine Pilgaard conjures a tale of venturing into new and uncharted land, of human relationships, dilemmas, and the ways and byways of social intercourse.

This book is centred on an unnamed narrator, her boyfriend and their one-year-old son. She writes an advice column for a newspaper, he teaches at a hojskole (I hope I have spelled it right), and the baby goes to a daycare run by a woman named Maj-Britt. In the beginning of the story, we are told that the baby was so fascinated by the mooing of cows that his only word is “moo”. When the book ends, the baby learns to say “baaah” like a sheep’s bleat. In between the narrator has to contend with sleepless nights (because of the baby), the jealousy of a lovestruck student of her boyfriend, record driving lessons due to her fear of an accident, and the inability to do small talk. As the novel progresses, we see how she faces her fears and whether or not she overcomes them.

This book is a good, humorous book, but not a compelling read. It does not pull you headlong into its narrative and refuse to be put down. I was hoping for something more literary, because of the title, so the disappointment was mostly my own fault. The chapters alternate between the narrator’s POV, Q&A from her advice column, and songs in the Danish tradition. Initially, I found the songs rather odd but after reading the translator’s note, I came to know that it is common in Danish culture to write/sing songs in well known tunes. The translator in me couldn’t help but wonder how it would have looked in the original Danish version because I know how hard it is translate the rhyme and rhythm of a text without losing sight of its meaning. There is even a playlist on YouTube under the book’s title that lists all the songs featured in the book!

What I could totally relate to was the sleeplessness- I am a twin mom and I hardly slept for the first one and half years. Now they sleep around midnight but unfortunately, my biological clock is now used to a much later bedtime. Talk about parenting woes.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
3.5 stars.

This was a really enjoyable, light read. Our narrator is a new mother in her early thirties who moves to West Jutland, a rural area of Denmark for her partner’s teaching job. We follow her as she goes about her daily life – new baby, new community, settling in, learning to drive, making friends… While she gets a job writing an advice column in a local newspaper (she mostly writes about herself), the locals are full of advice – wanted or not, how best to raise her child, how to fit in. Her boyfriend teaches in a liberal higher education institution where she worries students fancy him a bit too much. Her driving lessons progress at a snail’s pace, instructors giving up with excuses along the lines of ‘I’ve just given up smoking, this is too stressful’. It’s a gentle read but quite funny too. It takes place over a course of one year and in between the advice columns and the narrative are songs the narrator makes up with another ‘trailing partner’, which is how the school refers to teacher’s partners.

A quirky, fun read, which I believe became a bestseller in Denmark and I can easily see it doing very well in the UK. My thanks to World Editions and Netgalley for the opportunity to read The Land of Short Sentences.

ARC eBook from Netgalley; all opinions are my own

This book (by Danish author Stine Pilgaard) reminded me of Ikea furniture: not entirely comfortable, spare, but with just enough heft to hold what it needs to.

The story is interspersed with song lyrics and advice columns written by the main character; the plot takes place over the course of a year at a højskole (folk high schools offering adult education). Her partner is the Creative Writing teacher at the school, and they have 1 year old son. The unnamed main character makes friends with some other people in their new town but the story is fairly unexciting since it consists of day-to-day life.

A young mother follows her partner to a rural community in West Jutland, Denmark, where he teaches at the local school for adult education. Isolated, she is forced to find her way in a bewildering community and in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population.

A young woman relocates to an outlying community in West Jutland, Denmark, and is forced to find her way, not only in the bewildering environment of the residential Folk High School, where her partner has been hired to teach, but also in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population. And on top of it all, there’s the small matter of juggling her roles as mother to a newborn baby and advice columnist in the local newspaper. In this understated and hilarious novel, Stine Pilgaard conjures a tale of venturing into new and uncharted land, of human relationships, dilemmas, and the ways and byways of social intercourse.

The Land Of Short Sentences is the third novel by best-selling Danish author, Stine Pilgaard. It is translated from Danish by Hunter Simpson. A young woman has moved with her boyfriend to the town of Velling in West Jutland, where he is teaching at the local hojskole.

By the time they have been there a year, she has given birth to a son, and been encouraged by the school’s principal to participate in school activities, but finds that conversations with the locals are stilted and stall easily.

Her boyfriend, who is from a small town, tells her “You think in prose, he says, but people here are more concise… Think of your interactions as a nursery rhyme, says my boyfriend, a short ritual. How’s it going, it’s going fine. What a windy day, it sure is. Looks like it’s Monday again, there’s no escaping it. I repeat the phrases slowly, like magic spells I don’t really believe in. My boyfriend advises me to repress my need for intimacy, or at least hide it a little better.”

The principal gets her a job writing an advice column for the local paper: she becomes Letterbox, and replies to pleas for advice from a range of correspondents: The Scheduling Sorceress, The Youthful Elder, The Stubborn Camel, The Nitpicker’s Wife and many more . Her advice is mostly sound and insightful, if a little unusual or flippant at times, and her replies reveal little snippets about herself and her family.

Her only friend seems to be Krisser, a hotel owner whom she met in her mothers’ group. Maj-Britte, the woman who runs the local daycare, seems to be more of a mother figure than a friend, and the principal tells her they are neighbours who might potentially be friends one day. With Sebastian, the husband of the ceramics teacher, she has a certain rapport: they describe themselves as “trailing spouses”. Together they compose a lejlighedssang (community song), Battle Hymn of the Trailing Spouses Protest Song.

Her driving lessons reveal a singular lack of this skill, and she is passed around the instructors as they tire of, or become disillusioned by, lack of progress, until finally Parking Peter gets her to the point of gaining a license conditional on not using reverse gear.

Impressed by how well he is able to communicate with all he meets, she virtually stalks documentary maker and TV celebrity, Anders Agger and convinces him to give her “conversation tempo training … Anders Agger says that if you want to get close to rural people, the focus should be on unremarkable details.”

Interspersed with the first-person narrative are the letters and their replies, and verses that make up various lejlighedssang the protagonist has composed. There is some quirky humour and several good doses of wisdom, but some readers may find the lack of names a little irritating: not only is the protagonist unnamed, but her boyfriend and her baby son (literally for eighteen months!!) are unnamed, while many of the characters are afforded only a descriptor (the grocer, the principal, the neighbour) rather than a name. An original novel that loses half a star of the potential 4.5 star rating for indulging in the annoying editorial affliction of omitting quote marks for speech.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and World Editions.

A woman who is an advice columnist and a new mother moves to rural Denmark and struggles with basic daily tasks like driving and conversing with others. This is full of dry humor, but also full of poignant thoughts on motherhood and belonging. The writing is sparse, but lovely, and the advice letters (my favorite part) were fantastic and fun. And the short sections make the book easy to fly through.