Ze schrijft vooral korte zinnen; ze wil niet behagen en bedrieglijk eenvoudig, radicaal. ( )

I just read this after "Sweet days of discipline", one of the first works of Swiss Jaeggy (° 1940), who writes in Italian. That surely was a reading experience that puts you out of balance. Because Jaeggy uses a very chilly style, with short, chilly sentences that mainly express distance but at the same time are full of intensity. "Sweet Days of Discpline" dates from 1989, this "Proleterka" from 2001, and you can immediately notice that Jaeggy has refined her style even more, and the level of disorder is possibly even more striking.
There are also great similarities between the two books in terms of content: the absent mother (she’s in Argentine), the distant and very passive father, and the young girl who wants to taste life, but cannot break out of the cocoon of emotions she has been put in from early on. The scene in Proleterka is not a boarding school in Switzerland, but a Yugoslav cruise ship on the Mediterranean, where the girl can exceptionally spend 14 days with her father. But the atmosphere is just as intense and oppressive as in the Swiss school. All the characters around her seem to be waiting out life, in many cases even opting for death. And even though the story telling protagonist tries to get a taste of life, the distance to other people remains, it’s impossible to get some warmth and be close to someone else. Once again there is a huge haze of sadness and gloom about this story. "Proleterka" is cleverly written, but it’s a chilling reading experience. (I read this in the original Italian, I don't know whether the translations breathe the same atmosphere) ( )