Literature and Fiction · Hardback

Where the Clouds Begin

Norwegian title: Der skyene begynner

Rannveig Fern Leite Molven

A loving apocalypse Rannveig Leite Molven debuted in 2012 with the novel Ordet for hva jeg er nå finnes ikke. “This little book is flawless,” Ellen Sofie Lauritzen wrote in Dagbladet. This linguistic confidence also shines through in her new novel, Der skyene begynner, a post-apocalyptic story about how a young mother and her daughter try to cope with everyday life in the aftermath of what we assume is a natural disaster. A world in freefall and people drifting apart are depicted using suggestive, dream-like language. But it is not dark and brutal – quite the opposite. They are depicted with loving intimacy.

‘Rannveig Leite Molven has previously had the novel Ordet for hva jeg er nå finnes ikke published, and her style is her very own: a recording and poetic prose that primarily consists of intimate, gradual observations that are pursued until they change in nature and are lost to a new observation. Good sentences arise from this; it is especially nice to read the longer trains of thought, which are up to a page long, such as this excerpt: “… the birds that scream sree, sree, everything glides one over the other, the sounds and the greens, the light grass, the darker bushes, the flowers, the blue sky over the farms, his salty smell, everything is fluid, enveloping us like a soft cocoon …”.’KLASSEKAMPEN‘Molven has created a minimalistic universe where the plot circles a mother and her daughter, Mink. It gradually becomes clear that there has been a catastrophe, more and more people leave town, only the child and her mother remain. Molven is confident in her writing style, the poetic form creates a drive in the text, which is only 160 pages long. I like how the crisis itself isn’t directly addressed. In this way, it becomes a lovely poetic book that also has several levels to it. Rather than a description of a climactic crisis, I choose to read it as an allegory for the symbiotic and complicated relationship that may exist between a mother and daughter. This can also be experienced as a crisis.’BERGENS TIDENDE