Girls Against God by Norwegian author Jenny Hval is about a girl’s need for bonding. The main character feels a lot of hatred and is endowed with a very rich fantasy.
Location: set in Oslo
Girls Against God Synopsis
Girls against God is a novel about magic, writing and art.
The novel starts with the main character’s youth in southern Norway in the 1990s, a part of the country known for its deep religiosity and its white wooden houses. A powerful, primitive feeling starts growing in her: A hatred to God. In this hatred, there is a force which stays with her long after she has left behind the classrooms of her childhood and the dark southern forests.
Later we find ourselves in a future, but still recognizable Oslo: a stinking town full of garbage, where art has become superfluous. Here, a secret network of witches arise, carrying out subversive rituals with complete naturalness. At the same time, the narrator is writing a film script, a magical document which is neither writing nor image.
Girls against God is an uncompromising, reflective, playful and deeply fascinating novel about black metal and white-painted idyll, about underground movements, magic and rebellion. The narrative, the essayistic and the magical is organically woven together into a literary text that both genre-wise and by virtue of its content refuses to be boxed in.
Book review
“Hatred is my imaginary world, my pleasure dome.”
The girl in question hates the south of Norway, especially the southern accent. She hates God and has only one big like: black metal. Sounds like a charming character, right? A bright person whom you love reading about? Why read a book about someone’s hatred? Because the triangle is always expanding and the third point (whatever your fantasy comes up with) makes the others tremble. I can see your confusion…
Girls Against God is a book about bonding. The narrator feels a lot of hatred and is endowed with a very rich fantasy. She sees magic as the same alchemical reaction that transforms hatred to a new or strange form of love. She does feel hope, even though it’s through hatred. This gives you another perspective on what can give someone hope. The girl is looking for others like her – other people that hate – but concludes that she is alone in her hatred. Her loneliness makes her crave for a bond.
Jenny Hval created something that’s different. In Girls Against God she combines the magical and lively fantasies with linguistics and technology. The story is all over the place, as if the author, like the reader, was curious about the ending of the chapters she was working on. It has all the ingredients of a book I should love. The story often brings a smile to my face because I appreciate the parallels drawn.
I did enjoy thinking about some of the connections Jenny Hval presents to us through the thoughts of the girl. At the same time, I didn’t enjoy reading the book as a whole. Except maybe the last part of the book: the ‘Film’ part would have been brilliant as a short story. But before I got there I often wished that the book was finished and that I could start another one. It just was not pleasant to read from front to cover because the story is all over the place. Girls Against God is an interesting book to read, but it is not a book that I would recommend.
I jotted down some unrelated thoughts that I will share with you in the same unstructured manner as the girl does. If this piques your interest, then this book might be for you after all.
- An illusion can be blown to bits by art’s insignificant explosions. After your reality has been ripped to shreds by this blast, there is a long echo. This is the silence that brings opportunity if you can overcome the shock.
- Production is active, reproduction is passive.
- The witch’s den is a breeding ground for feces, blood, and sexual fantasies. The result: an egg.
- Maybe I didn’t enjoy the book enough because I live even further south than South Norway.
- On a more personal note: I find the musings about the silent h rather funny as it brings back memories of my bachelor thesis about the ‘hidden’ h in the Middlewelsh subjunctive.
- Would I rather have an imaginary search engine or a magical computer with the internet resembling the human body?
Translated from Norwegian by Marjam Idriss.
Interested?
Get your copy of Girls Against God from Amazon (available 6 October 2020).
Many thanks to Verso Books and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
