The Memory of Love

This writing was one of the best that I have read in a long time. The writer actually opened the door and as I stepped in; I became a part of it all… I was there walking beside Marion and became her confident. Her descriptions placed me there among all that was being lived, felt, seen and understood. It was a journey to the future from the impressions of her past and the changes that gently took shape. I didn’t simply see the images and people, I was among them. The pace of the writing was perfection and reminded me of a modern day classic of life, love, what she thought love had been and hope.I received this book via goodreads and shall treasure it for years to come. I ordered another copy for my mom, as I didn’t want to lose this one. I applaud this writer’s ability and have added her to my favorite authors.

It seems that Linda Olsson has a penchant for writing about lonely, wounded people who are otherwise quite dissimilar finding one another. In Astrid and Veronika (a novel I loved), her characters are an elderly recluse, thought by the townsfolk to be a witch, and a 30-year old writer devastated by the death of her finace. In her latest, Marion, a physician in her 50s, has been living as a semi-recluse on the New Zealand coast when an eight-year old boy, Ika, comes into her life. Ika doesn't talk much, makes little eye contact, and hates to be touched; Marion suspects that he may be autistic, and she soon finds evidence that he has been abused as well. Through Ika, Marion slowly comes back in touch with her own inner child and the tragic events and losses of her own past. And through Ike, she earns to let go and love again.Olsson has experimented with structure here in a way that can sometimes be confusing. She leaps unexpectedly from the present to the past, from Ike's story to Marianne's, from Marion at 50 to Marianne at four, at eight, at 30. Her reminiscences often involve a "he" that isn't clearly defined, and even when he is, she speaks of ominous intuitions and forebodings that aren't always clear to the reader. In a way, it parellels the way that the mind works under pressure . . . but, still, it can be frustratingly confusing. This is what holds my overall rating of the novel back a bit.On the whole, The Memory of Love doesn't match up to Astrid and Veronika, which for me was particularly notable for its lovely, spare but precise style that so well matched the novel's landscape. Perhaps it's time for Olsson to move on to other themes. Still, this is an engaging story and worth the reading time.