Vibeke Grønfeldt’s books are, at one and the same time, totally universal and utterly unique. As, for instance, in her novel, Det rigtige (The Right Thing) in which Ena Jakobsen, a middle-aged woman, tries always to do the right thing, firmly believing that this is possible. Here, Grønfeldt explores fundamental human dilemmas, applying these to a concrete character and an actual life, then putting the results under the microscope. Some things have to be put to the test and a book is measured by its veracity and its honesty. "In writing," says Grønfeldt, "the driving force comes from the question: Is this true, or is there still something at the back of it that I haven’t grasped?"
But if Vibeke Grønfeldt is preoccupied with the great, elementary issues common to all mankind, the world she portrays is all her own. No other writer in Denmark can describe the Danish countryside and the fringes of suburbia quite the way she does. She is a keen observer of the people and the landscape which she knows as well as she does her own life, and she communicates her perceptions in a language that is heavy with moment: musical, powerful and intimate. One aspect of her work which is often overlooked is her formidable talent for describing the weather. Her writing is saturated with concrete details and observations, but one should never underestimate the care with which each is allotted its place: nothing is accidental, everything is significant.
Vibeke Grønfeldt is no small-town scribbler. She is an ultra-modern writer and the provincial life to which we are introduced in her books is one that has been disrupted and decimated by the advent of modernity. Her novels are peopled by rootless, torn individuals who are incapable of adapting to their situation, and who have lost touch with those things in their past that could provide them with an anchor in life. There is a constant sense, in her books, of an impalpable and very great loss – in the personal history of many of her characters, and also as a wider sounding-board; often, in the latter case, epitomized by the demise of the rural way of life. But the loss is, in itself, greater, more existential, fundamental.
Add to this a pragmatic, not to say down-to-earth, determination to see things for what they really are and portray them as accurately as possible, spiced with a generous dash of gallows-humour and an eye for the grotesque, and you have some idea of the tone of her writing.
Since 1976, Vibeke Grønfeldt has published 15 novels and one collection of short stories. For many years she was regarded as writer with a narrow appeal - receiving splendid reviews but attracting only a handful of readers. Then, in 1998, came her mainstream breakthrough, with the novel I dag (Today).
Against a backdrop of warrant sales, the death of the corner shop, tourism and regional development there unfolds a catalogue of disasters, human ineptitude, betrayal, condemnation, violence and injustice. Against all this people develop their own – often peculiar and, more often than not, futile – strategies.
Other novels address more general issues, such as cloning (Det fantastiske barn (The Fabulous Child) 1982), but it is the broad depictions of communities on the fringe - narrow, ploughed under, misused - that make the strongest impact.
