How to adjust to the land of short sentences

“The principal knocks three times in quick succession and lets herself in. That’s how we do it out here, she says when I look up at her in surprise. Doesn’t anyone in Villing have sex, I ask, isn’t there anyone who watches porn or masturbates, you can’t get your clothes on after just three knocks. People manage, says the principle . . . .”

So begins Stine Pilgaard’s The Land of Short Sentences, translated from the Danish by Hunter Simpson. Because my knowledge of Danish is non-existent and have no access to the original, I am going to assume the absence of quotation marks, the uncontrolled commas, and the lack of paragraphing is the way the author wrote it. 

Readers who are put off by this will be missing “a tragicomic genre hybrid including advice columns, højskole songs, and a thoroughly maladapted, infinitely charming narrator,” to quote a Danish reviewer. So let me supply some context.

The narrator, her boyfriend, and their infant son have moved from Copenhagen to “Villing” a small (very small) town on the Jutland peninsula. Her boyfriend has taken a job as a teacher in the town’s højskole, which the translator helpfully explains in an endnote, “is attended mostly by young adults looking to deepen their skills in a certain field (e.g.: arts, music, sports, or design).”

The school’s principal worries about the town losing young people to the big city. She says, “We need youthful energies here,” and to give the narrator another reason to stay, “she gives me a job that doesn’t exist and for which I haven’t applied.” The narrator begins to write an advice column aimed at all age groups local newspaper can use.

There is not much plot. The narrator observes and comments on small town life. She adjusts (I think I can use that word) to being a mother. She learns—barely—to drive. She answers reader questions often in considerable detail using her life as the example. 

A 37-year-old married man is a recovering alcoholic. His wife supports him but cannot understand the demons he’s struggling with. “My mentor at AA is a middle-aged woman who knows exactly what I’m living through. My feelings have grown for her as has hers for me . . . .”

The answer, which I’ve edited: “Alas, soulmates rarely make for good couples . . . the sum of darkness that two people share must not be greater than the love, and this fact creates some very natural boundaries for who you can and cannot be with. When I fall in love with someone else’s sorrow, and get swept into their craziness, I know I’ve got to get away as fast as possible. Trust me, it’s best for everyone.”

In addition to Pilgaard’s to translating effervescent prose and sensible advice, Hunter Simpson has also translated nine lejlighedssang or “occasional songs” that are sprinkled throughout. He explains, “These are original lyrics “written for a specific occasion (often a wedding or a birthday) and set to well-known melodies so that everyone can sing along. The song in The Land of Short Sentences could be considered lejlighedssang, as many Danish readers would be able to sing along while reading the lyrics.”

Pilgaard writes, “I’m very interested in language and how we use it as a tool to connect with each other, but language can be a hindrance as well as a helper. The novel is about settling in in a new place and finding a home, but also coming to understand that language won’t always save us, and sometimes it might be the silence that we need.”

As I reread that paragraph, it makes the novel sound ponderous. While serious, it is also funny. And while thoughtful, it is also lively. If you read only one Danish novel this year, The Land of Short Sentences should be it.