[REVIEW] The Wax Child, by Olga Ravn; translated from Danish by Martin Aitke
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn is an exercise of style and form, packaged in a story of witches, village rivalry and folklore. Sadly, nothing in this novel was able to drive the plot home, nor the writing. The "Wax Child" incessant monologue is straining and repetitive, and truly naive in taste. It appears like the impression that a non-reader has of intellectual and elevated writing rather than talent and effort. Allow me to present some examples. Let me start from the opening chapter: No one listens to a thing I say. Although I speak all the time. I am a lump of beeswax shaped in the image of a newborn child. I am no more than what may melt and stiffen again in the night. No one comes to me here. I lie and speak with my eyes. My family no longer exists, or rather: my kind of family, a very large one, no longer exists. And still I speak. A steady stream of words that slip from me without cessation, and I too am inclined to think it is often an embarrassment. But I cannot stop ...
