The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf by Kathryn Davis · 6 June 2007
When The Girl Who Trod On A Loaf first arrived in the mail, I got a pleasant surprise. Instead of the drab book cover that I was expecting, I received the beautifully illustrated one above (art by Holly Warburton). I'd also received Briar Rose on the same day, and I have to admit, it was the cover that decided which one I'd read first.
The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf is a challenging book about a challenging woman told by the woman haunted by her after death, Frances (Frannie) Thorn.
“In the thirty-fourth year of my life, tragedy having turned my basic languor to indolence, my skepticism to sorrow, I came to be haunted by the ghost of a woman almost twice my age. Helle Ten Brix, composer and murderess, impenitent Helle! . . . Darling sly Helle, seraph and magpie, light of my life and infernal engine of darkness. The truth is I still miss her, even now, long after I have finally laid her ghost to rest.”
The perspective shifts between present day Frannie, telling her own version of the her acquaintance with Helle during the last few years, and the past, in which Frannie tries to recreate the story of Helle's life. Even though Helle has died before the book begins, she is the dominant and domineering character around which the plot revolves. A Danish opera composer by profession, and lesbian by inclination, Helle's story starts in Jutland near the treacherous bogs of that region where she grew up.
Frannie's story starts a few years back, on the evening she met Helle at the local opera house, and began having an affair with Helle's nephew by marriage. Davis connects the two stories through Frannie's recollection of this time period as she tries to piece together Helle's motivations and complete the legacy of her unfinished opera, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf (based loosely on the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen).
Throughout the book, it appears that Frannie is performing an exorcism more than recounting the stories of a lost and beloved friend. She must come to know Helle so that she can release her from the land of the living.
The motiff of the bog plays a key role in the story. Helle was born a child of the bog, and as a young child got lost there, an experience which is profoundly evident in her operatic work. In Helle's masterwork, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, the heroine of the fairytale falls victim to the bog. Throughout the book we notice the characters getting mired in their own metaphorical bogs, sinking below the surface into unexpected roles. Helle asserts that man's natural element is water, not air, and that the bog is a place of worship. Frannie wrestles with this vision the entire book, and ultimately makes her own judgment on it.
Davis' characterizations are fascinating. She creates people who read like fairytale characters, but exist in real life. There's Helle's mother with her effervescent and wild nature and her mercurial father (sometimes described as a doctor, other times as a gamekeeper). Helle's first crush is the quintessential country maiden, plump, pretty, and placid. Her boarding lady is a coquette of advanced years, and her opera mentor is a man who's sworn off sex for art yet keeps a wife at home.
I particularly enjoyed how the book is also a collection of short stories. Each section is dedicated to explaining Helle's history while simultaneously revealing the plot of the opera she was composing at that time. Helle's operas are inspiring yet dark and magical, fairytales in their own right.
The book is also very dense and rife with symbolism. It's easy to become captivated by Davis' rich descriptions and lose track of the thread of the plot. Because of this, I read the book at a slower pace than I usually do, and since it's 400 pages long, it took me longer to complete than I anticipated. Reading the book is like Helle's description of traveling in a bog.
“The sphagnum was moist and translucent, in some places almost clear, in others deep crimson. Springy, it rebounded beneath her boots; you could be tricked into thinking your footing was secure and then, all of a sudden, sink in up to your knees.”
But, if you can persevere through the treachery of the prose, you may just see wild and fantastical creatures and hear stories that you'd never hear otherwise.
This book was reviewed for the 2007 Once Upon a Time Challenge.
Bogs,
Danish Fairytale,
Denmark,
Fairytale,
Fantasy,
Hans Christian Andersen,
Holly Warburton,
Jutland,
Kathryn Davis,
Opera,
The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
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Nymeth · 7 June 2007, 11:34
I’m not familiar with Kathryn Davis, but this sounds pretty interesting.
Will you be reading Briar Rose soon? I’d love to know what you think of it, as it’s one of my favourites!
Kim · 7 June 2007, 12:14
She’s a very robust author. Her first work, Labrador won the Kafka prize. Bookslut has a good interview with her at http://www.bookslut.com/features/2003_11_000969.php that discusses (among other things) how fairytale influences her work. This was the first book I read by Davis, but I’ll be looking for more.
I think I’ll be starting Briar Rose next week. I’m just finishing up my analysis of Anansi Boys but work is crazy right now, so there won’t be much time for reading until the weekend. Boo!
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