While i did like most of the writing in this one there wasn't much of a storyline and i dont think this book will stay with me for long now i've finished it.

I have a special fondness for translated books.

I know that's not at all the point of a translated work, but a big part of my training AS a translator was picking apart translated texts and looking for little phrases or parts of sentences that give away that a work has been translated. Nothing about this was malicious in any way - we just wanted to get better. And even though my master's degree is almost finished and that doctorate thesis is basically already knocking at my door, I still like to do that. I do it to other texts that I know have been translated, I do it to my own texts (both my own translations and my original works), and I do it even with texts that were written by native speakers. It's just part of the reading process.

This little book loves language. The original text was Swedish, and according to the translator's note at the end of the book, some of those sentences were even longer. I don't mind long sentences (as long as I don't have to translate them) and I found these to be almost musical in their timbre and voice. Since I knew this was a translated work, I kept looking for things that would give away it's original tongue, and I couldn't. These sentences flow like water out of these pages, and while - honestly - nothing really happens in this book, it was glorious.

I'm not sure I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to be entertained by a book to see it as worthy of their time, because, once again, nothing really happens. This isn't a book that you pick up if you just want to idle away for a few hours. You can't skip through these sentences. It's so short, but it packs a punch.

This book is a recollection of the impact that four people have made on our main character's life. Four people she loved and lost, because all of them are gone in some way or another, four people that burned through her in some special way that others haven't. A soulmate, a friend, a lover, a mother. And in the end, it's about what remains when people are gone, because they never truly leave. I found it astonishingly beautiful, but as I said above, it is extremely short. I wished for some longer passages, even though the translator's note reveals something special about Genberg's writing process: She would start over a section every time she sat down to write and if it wasn't finished in one session. Having read this, I cannot imagine of a mind that could conceive of such beautiful language - in one sitting.

Ultimately, it was a beautiful experience, but I'm not sure that it will stay with me. However, if you love language and writing in any way, shape, or form, give this a try.

Beautifully written story of how so much of your inner life can be determined by one experience or person.

A short read and it was fine but was not one of my most favourite reads of the year.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC

This was a clever, very well-articulated character study framing the theory that the people we meet never leave us; as friendships bloom and fade they leave their mark on our character. This was successfully done but only mildly entertaining. Interesting plots and personalities appeared then faded like the friends that left the MC.

There were also studies of mental illness and abandonment, which unfortunately didn’t leave any mark.

Saying this, I’d be interested to read more from Genberg to see if any of her interesting threads continue.

This was also a superb translation that I hope will be recognised! At first, I couldn’t comprehend the pressure Josefsson might have been under to produce a work as successful and entertaining as the many pages of quotes of praise for the original Swedish version attested. However, the language, pace and quality of the translation was top notch and I recommend this novel on that basis alone.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Headline Publishing Group for the free ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book is divided into four sections each named after a person important in the narrators life. So by talking about these people the narrator describes events during her life. It has lots of long sentences but is very readable and I enjoyed it. I found the last section, Birgitte, about her mother and her mothers anxiety the most moving.

On the surface this is a quiet, short book of four chapters; each about an ordinary person who touched the life of the narrator. It is also an expansive study of the everyday details which make up a life and specifically of the people who pass through our lives and the impressions they leave which echo long after they’ve gone.

I very much enjoyed reading The Details, which I did on a whim after seeing an encouraging post on twitter. It’s a novel I know I will return to, even though I rarely re-read anything. It doesn’t have a traditional “beginning-middle-end” plot, instead we learn about the life of our narrator as she describes a few pivotal people in her life; and they’re not the most obvious choices (i.e. children or spouse).
There is a sense of progression though, as the narrator grows from youth to the present developing insights and realisations.

The writing is reflective as she is recounting memories and the prose is beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever made so many highlights; the way the author (and translator) capture in words unique aspects of the human condition is perfect; spare whilst fully encapsulating.

The narrator is a big reader and books are a running theme, not just favourite authors or titles but also our relationship with books and the subtle roles they play in our lives. Mental health is also another strong theme.

I also like how these reflections are coming to the narrator during a fever, a period of illness heightens our sense of mortality and brings into start contrast that which truly matters.

Highly recommended to everyone who enjoys well written prose. Even if it’s not your usual reading, why not give it a try? At only 175 pages you’ve nothing to loose and a potentially wonderful experience awaits.

I found this book quite fascinating. An apparently simple story - a woman suffering from a high fever in an attack of malaria remembers four people who have been important in her life. The relationships are mapped in considerable detail and the characters become very vivid in their own right. The structure is a very clever way of illuminating a life and I found myself reflecting on my own relationships. A very thought provoking read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Not my thing unfortunately but recommended in multiple videos to my subscribers anyway and several have added to their TBRs as a result.

I had no idea what to expect from this one and what a surprise and a delight this book was, my only criticism is that I wish I could have read it in Swedish ( no complaints on the translation, it was seamless)

The book opens with a woman struck down with a fever and she remembers four people who had a strong influence on her life. Each chapter is dedicated to each of these four people. I loved how we learned about this woman through her relationships with these people. I loved how each chapter meandered and flowed and then ended with devastating clarity.

A surprising joy of a book with wonderful characters and original storytelling.

The Details was a nice enough read, while never quite being spectacular to me. I enjoyed it well enough, but it didn’t stick with me in the slightest. I’m writing this review about a month and a half after finishing it and entirely regretting that gap in time. I don’t remember a whole lot about this book anymore, though I’m also not entirely sure just how well I’d have been able to review it at the time anyway. It was a good book! But I haven’t much more to say about it than that. I enjoyed it, so if it sounds like the kind of book you would like, then give it a go!

4,5 – a beautiful, slim Swedish novel, in which a woman recounts her life through portraits of others: a friend, a lover, a roommate, a mother – each of these 4 portrayed in their own section that together make up the 4 chapters of the book. But behind the scenes, the real protagonist is the narrator.

What matters are not the chronological, sweeping facts but the details, the interactions, not the ´when´ but the ´who´. It is in fact the details, the acute observations, that make the text so lively, and the novel so good. There is not much plot, but it is about how people are and why they were meaningful – even if the encounters were fleeting and they may have disappeared from the narrator´s life.

This became better and better and I was sad when it finished - very highly recommended. It won the most important Swedish literature prize in 2022 and it would certainly get a place on my International Booker longlist.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The Details
by Ia Genberg
Translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson
🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪

When we envisage our life flashing before our eyes, I wonder do we have an accurate impression of which images will make the cut? Will they comprise life's big milestones; births, significant birthdays, go holidays, achievements? Or will it be snapshots of everyday scenarios; your workspace, the bathroom cabinet, the express checkout in Supervalu?

Who will be the people that make the cut? In The Details, the narrator describes four relationships that flash in front of her eyes during the delirium of a fever. Not her children or her partner, but four people she is no longer in contact with, but who for various reasons helped shape her life.

With intimate and dense prose we vicariously relive flat sharing life in 80s Stockholm, New Years Eve 1999 celebrations, a trip around Galway city in search of a missing pal and a profoundly moving portrait of a parent who is incapacitated with anxiety.

This slim novel with elements of autofiction perfectly illustrates how we are the sum of not just our own parts, but of the details that make up all our relationships and what remains when they end.

The cover is interesting and offers a clue to the structure which, like crazy paving uses fragments haphazardly to construct a whole. With throwbacks to periods that match my own pre- "married with children" phase this offers a certain nostalgia sure to be appreciated by a reader who doesn't require plot and is comfortable with steam of conscious narrative.

Publication Date: 8th August 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #headlinebooks for the eGalley

#bookreview #irishbookstagram #thedetails #thedetailsanovel #iagenberg #detaljerna #swedishliterature #womenintranslation #womenintranslationmonth #translatedfiction #translatedliterature #intranslation

A woman in the throes of a fever remembers four of the most important people in her life. Intimate character studies, beautifully written, capturing what it is to be human.

“ The brink of insanity lies at 102 degrees, but not far below, at 100.4, there’s a clearly discernible valley where I wouldn’t mind spending my days. In that band your guard drops, and figures from the past are given access, though not as ghosts. 100.4: a tempera- ture where the body’s ability to stay alive is intact even as your interest in being an alert and informed social being cools, so as long as you can bear to have the past slinking about your legs like a pack of dogs, this valley offers a pleasant lassitude”

Whenever I read translated fiction I always marvel at just how different it is. Ia Grenberg's The Details is a book full of poetic language and gorgeous reflective sentences but nothing actually happens. I've read books that do the same thing and found them extremely annoying but The Details was a one sitting read for me and I was intoxicated by this world that Grenberg had created in her interlinked stories.

I feel like this is one of those books that you can come back to at various points in your life and find something new that you had missed the first time round, where something that was maybe throw-away at one age suddenly becomes so important at another.

I think this book will get a reread in a few years time.

The Details by Ia Genberg is available now.

For more information regarding Headline (@headlinepg) please visit www.headline.co.uk.

DNF - I'm going to try & get my hands on a traditional book format of this translation. My ebook format was a real jumble & I couldn't make my way through most of the story because of the format.

I really don't know how I feel about this book. I think I liked it. Perhaps this response is intended.

The characters are beautifully written and you really get to know them well. It's well written and kept my attention.

I would give other works from this author a read.

Ia Genberg’s The Details sees a woman confined to bed by a mild fever recalling four people who have influenced her life, beginning with her ex-lover Johanna who had showered her with generosity, occasionally revealing a shockingly cold, judgemental side to her character, switched on and off as easily as her lavish praise. Several years before she met Johanna, our narrator had shared a flat with Niki, mercurial and passionate with mood swings that no therapist seemed capable of curbing. Just before the millennium, there had been a brief and passionate affair with the charismatic Alejandro. All three have left an indelible mark on our narrator but it's her mother Birgette who perhaps holds the key to her character.
In her translator’s note, Kira Josefsson mentions Karl Ove Knaussgaard, drawing a parallel between Knausgaard’s prodigious output and Genberg’s concision from which I deduced that her novella is to some extent autobiographical. As Joseffson observes, the narrator’s life is revealed to us refracted through her relationships with others rather than documenting her every action, a style which I find very much more appealing, conveying a great deal with admirable brevity, a tribute to both Genberg and Josefsson’s skills. I found it riveting - accomplished, thoughtful and absorbing.

A short and introspective piece of work that encapsulates the many essences of human life through the narrators’ relationships with different people in her life. Nothing much happens of course but it is well written and there were moments that really touched me.

Moody compelling character study from Sweden. Works for me!

I'm not sure how to adequately review The Details. I stumbled upon it on netgalley and was intrigued by the synopsis of this tiny book. Figured if I didn't like it, well, at least it was short. But I ended up liking it a lot.

In this story, a woman gets malaria, and the subsequent fever takes her mind back to four people who have played major roles over the course of her life-- literally with Johanna, for whom she claims "She was my main character."

The narrator draws each character vividly, making me feel drawn into their intimate world. Johanna, Niki, Alejandro, and her mother, Birgitte, felt real, fleshed out and alive. Through each, the narrator captures something of herself, revealing her own life through her connection to others, as well as exploring themes of love, friendship and mental illness.

The synopsis asks "Who is the real subject of a portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush?" And it is the key question here. Because while this book paints a portrait of four different people, the real story being told is that of the narrator. It illuminates the fact that any one person's story is merely an amalgamation of the people who've shaped their lives.