Reviews about Merete Pryds Helle
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On
But the earth will stand for ever
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While you read, you have a strange sensation of
moving through water, to use one of the conceptions conveyed by the book.
Everything is clear and perceptible; so simple and yet so terribly involved.
All the elements flow together: art, science and mythology – while people seem
separated and doomed to reach out to one another in vain, even to the end of
time.
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Berlingske Tidende, Lars Handesten
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On
Fishing in the River of Life
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Merete Pryds Helle
does not shy from using a selection of different styles in her weighty novel:
the simple narrative, the detailed description (thoroughly researched!), and
the heavy-loaded metaphor. Past forms of consciousness are outlined in contrast
with those of the present. Realism exists alongside fantastic fabrications.
This novel is, just like her previous work, consciously imprecise both in
language and genre.
“Fish in the River of Life” is her most
ambitious book so far and, without doubt, her best. The reader cannot help
being infused by the suspense and allowing the labyrinthine tales to ensnare –
the novel possesses the sort of epic magnetism that characterises the high art
of storytelling, and which eludes analysis.
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Politiken, Niels Brunse
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On
The Sunny Side
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“The Sunny Side” brings together themes and
forms from the whole body of the writer’s work. There are harsh upbringings,
strange transformations and a number of clues, familiar from the early work of
Pryds Helle. There is the extensive culture-historical extract, which is found
in “Fish in the River of Life”. What is new is the simple and almost
fluorescent form of novel writing, where a sense of cosmos and banal everyday
life are woven together through prose diction that is both straightforward and
peculiar. Merete Pryds Helle is, and will remain, something special among the
younger generation of Danish writers, even though she lives in Italy.
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Jyllandsposten, Jon Helt Haarder
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