This Should End with My Death
This love needs to be amputated, executed, buried deep underground. The author meets a man. He is married. First, it is about lust, then love. They keep meeting in secret, months turning to years, and making the impossible even worse. This Should End with My Death is a brutally clear and heartbreaking short novel depicting an author who is cutting herself from forbidden love by writing. All the way to the point where there’s no lust to live, neither yet lust to die. Only the words remain, and it’s worth being honest, whatever the cost. Reading This Should End with My Death hurts. But there is also dark humour in undoing clichés that suddenly turn into true experiences.
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Reviews
"It is wonderful and really fascinating how Taivassalo can present this swirl of thoughts so clearly. How she makes it sound tenderly poetic and wise, using such simple statements. How she weaves those dark landscapes of a tortured soul, where repetitions will eventually, hopefully, give birth to the quivering truth. How the desperate main character slowly becomes more and more aware of her inner strength and chooses herself at the end. This is a gorgeous little novel, original in style and presented in a voice that is at the same time fragile and strong. It would be a pity if it wasn´t more widely read."
"Literature is meant to help us look at the familiar with fresh eyes. And in some ways, Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo really succeeds at doing so. Together the lyrical language and inward focus create a dark and claustrophobic universe which, however, does not lack glimpses of humour."
"Hannele Taivassalo has written a strong fiery story about love: about the desire, the passion and the infinity but at the same time about the pain, the forbidden and the possibility of cross-borders lurks in the background. Where to draw your line if you feel limitless? [...] Taivassalo repeatedly manages to describe the anguish of unrequited love with tender precision, so powerful that I almost have to hold my breath. [...]The novel’s strength is the striking and bare language. The plot is stripped down with few dialogues. The story is built around the narrator’s eventful inner life."
"The language of the new novel trembles poetically..."
"A kind of mourning song and a farewell to a love that must die in order for life to continue, and order to be restored."
"A masterpiece in few words."
