Lesesirkel: "I begynnelsen var mødrene" av Kjersti Ericsson
A reading circle on memories of mothers and childhood
Would you like someone to talk to about the books you read?
Deichman holds monthly reading circles. Everyone reads the same book, then we meet to discuss it. Drop by during staffed hours to borrow a copy.
As the year draws to a close, we often find comfort in nostalgia’s bittersweet warmth at Christmas. This book can be read as a tribute to post-war mothers, with a tender, sorrowful undertone.
"I begynnelsen var mødrene" (2024) is a memoir-novel by Kjersti Ericsson. It turns its gaze towards childhood, bringing into view a portrait of the 1950s, seen through the mothers.
Mothers were great and powerful figures in their daughters’ lives; they «created and guarded the world». When the daughters wanted something, it was their mothers, not God, they had to pray to. But mothers could also be made to feel small: by arrogant clerks in public offices, school authorities, condescending saleswomen in fine shops in the city centre, and their own fear that their «class smell» would reveal that they lived "along the municipal night-soil collectors’ fortnightly route".
The era, its surroundings and social currents are brought to life through the small dramas and daily tasks of everyday life, and through the relationship between the housewife generation in Norwegian history and the daughter generation, which would eventually become both rebellious and boundary-breaking.
