[ Buchtipp von Den danske Bibliotek ] Helle Helle has done it again! Masterful, minimalistic, straightforward prose concerning a woman's encounter with friendly strangers who come from so far out in the sticks even the crows won't fly in. ‘Okay, but what's the book about?’ An uncomfortable question to be asked after reading one of Helle Helle's novels, which are characterized by how nothing much seems to happen. And, for the most part, what does happen goes on between the lines, in the dependent clauses, and in the significant, well-placed full stops. Should one, nevertheless, attempt to answer the dreaded question, it could be said that Down to the Dogs deals with a woman with no small resemblance to Helle Helle herself. The novel's narrator, a forty-two-year-old author who has left her husband (a skin specialist), sits at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere and ‘looks for a good place to cry’. She is stranded in every sense of the word, at a low point in her life. She is picked up by a trusting couple, John and Putte, both of them whiplash victims, who lodge her first on their corner sofa, and later in their everyday life. John and Putte live the sort of quiet life where the highlight of a day might be a trip to the petrol station for custard flans and lottery tickets. The two are described brilliantly and so lovingly that it is impossible not to like them. Anyone who is the least bit familiar with life in the Danish countryside will recognize them. Take this passage for instance: ‘It's Putte ... she has been to Jensen's Steakhouse with Eskild. They thought they needed a little something. She had the soft ice buffet for dessert, she can barely stand.’ ‘Bente’, the name Putte gives to the narrator, slowly begins to find herself during her stay with these friendly strangers. She helps with small daily chores, such as taking care of the dogs the novel's title refers to. She thus fulfills a purpose, something she seems to have lacked in her life. At the end of the novel, Putte receives a telephone call from the skin specialist husband, who asks about his wife. In one lovely, ambiguous question to ‘Bente’, all the invisible threads spun out between the lines throughout the novel are gathered: ‘Are you there?’ The answer to this existential question won't be revealed here. But do yourself a favour, enjoy the journey, ‘down to the dogs’, and get the answer.

[ Info ] Helle, Helle: Ned til hundene. (original language: Dansk) Samlaren, København , 2008 . ISBN: 9788763808545.