Near Distance - Hanna Stoltenberg

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Near Distance

by
Hanna Stoltenberg

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Near Distance
Author:	Hanna Stoltenberg
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2019 (Eng. 2023)
Length:	145 pages
Original in:	Norwegian
Availability:	Near Distance - US
	Near Distance - UK
	Near Distance - Canada

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Norwegian title: Nada
Translated by Wendy H. Gabrielsen

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Our Assessment:

B+ : strong character- and relationship portrait

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
The Guardian	.	27/9/2023	John Self
TLS	.	2/2/2024	J.E.Hanson

From the Reviews:

"This tense novel of loneliness and dissatisfaction made me laugh a lot -- to begin with. (...) Stoltenberg’s elegant prose makes each scene (...) so engaging that it gives plot a bad name." - John Self, The Guardian

"What impresses most is the ease with which the author is able to create an atmosphere of deep discomfort. The story is filled with oddly unsettling scenes, pregnant with meaning and half-buried emotion. In Stoltenberg’s hands everyday situations become nightmarish. (...) Stoltenberg’s prose is coldly descriptive, almost grating in its simplicity, but full of deft, terse observations, skillfully preserved in Wendy H. Gabrielsen’s translation." - Johanne Elster Hanson, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

Near Distance centers on fifty-three-year-old Karin, a manager of a jewellery shop. She had gotten pregnant when she was a student, and tried to embrace domestic life with daughter Helene and Helene's father, Erik -- "She was told that life would be different, and that was all she wanted" -- but it doesn't take full hold. She and Erik separate; they share custody for a while, but eventually Helene prefers to stay with her father -- and Karin doesn't seem to mind; she drifts along, in more or less casual relationships -- we eventually learn: "She moved in with various men, but it never lasted long: five years with an unassuming social worker was the longest". Still, decades on, she's not openly bitter or dissatisfied: "Maybe she was stupid to have dropped out of university, pregnant with Helene, yet she's fine with where she ended up".
A brief introductory scene already reveals a great deal about both Karin and her relationship with her daughter, describing how they used to share a smoke:

If Helene asked a question, Karin would sometimes answer honestly about how things were, which she rarely did otherwise. When Helen gave up smoking, she didn't say anything at all. One day she just shook her head when Karin made the sign with her fingers, and after that Karin stopped asking.

Focused on a few days in Karin's life, Near Distance flashes back to earlier events as well, slowly rounding out the portrait of Karin. Her own parents separated when she was around ten or eleven -- and her own daughter was twelve when she said she preferred living full-time with her father. Karin has never enjoyed -- or seemed capable of -- much family stability. Typically, too, in the present:

She wants to have a good relationship with Helene, she really does, but it's as if they can't agree on what a good relationship means.

       But Helene suddenly reaches out here, asking her mother to join her on a weekend-getaway to London: "She doesn't want to experience anything new, she says; that's what she wants to get away from. London is the most neutral place she can think of".
       Helene has two young children now, too, but her husband has been having an affair -- part of what draws Helene to London, despite what she claimed, as is the presence of old friends from when she studied in England.
       Not all that much happens on their trip -- they go shopping; they go out with Helene's old friends -- but the unspoken and, especially, un-dealt-with remains heavy in the air. Helene is working through some things, but struggles in how to come to grips with them; her mother's presence is, in some respects, helpful but -- as has apparently been the case throughout Karin's life -- Karin more or less simply goes along with things, and thus can't really provide strong, meaningful support.
       A nice scene has Helene confront Karin, a bit:

'I've never ssaid a word about any of it.' Her bottom lip is quivering, but her eyes are dull and unfocused. It's as though her face is processing two different experiences at once. 'I know you were young, but I was just a little girl.'
'Oh.' Karin is silent for a few seconds. 'Is that what you're thinking about ?' She doesn't know exactly what Helene is referring to, just that she has several accusations in mind. Actually, she's relieved. 'But you turned out fine, didn't you ?' she says.

Near Distance offers a strong character- and relationship-portrait, with Stoltenberg adroitly conveying, in language and in how she presents the story, Karin and, especially, her difficulties in allowing for and sustaining human connection, trying on some level, but struggling to get beyond that. The scenes from a life add up, in this compact novel, to a complete and yet all-too-human, unfulfilled life.

- M.A.Orthofer, 4 February 2025

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Links:

Near Distance:

Weatherglass Books publicity page
Biblioasis publicity page
Gyldendal publicity page
Books from Norway information page

Reviews:

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Scandinavian literature

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About the Author:

Norwegian author Hanna Stoltenberg was born in 1989.

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