The "Will and Testament" of the Norwegian writer Vigdis Jort is the story of a family that shares the property left over from her father (the main character of the novel almost completely copies Jort herself and her relationship with her family).
Vigdis Hjorth (born 1959) is a Norwegian novelist. She grew up in Oslo, and has studied philosophy, literature and political science.
After the death of the old father, his four adults and already middle-aged children - three sisters and a brother - gather after many years of separation to discuss the will and share the inheritance. The most difficult thing is with the two country houses: the father bequeathed them to his two younger daughters, obviously depriving the older son and daughter. At first glance, the decision looks justified and logical: the older children have long severed all contacts with their families, while the younger ones constantly supported their parents, spent vacations with them and generally lived a common life. However, what at first seems to be a routine intra-family squabble over property soon becomes overgrown with dramatic details and soars to transcendental tragic heights.
We see everything that happens in the novel through the eyes of the eldest of the sisters, theater critic, playwright and writer Bergllot. She has three grown children, a bunch of grandchildren and a reliable understanding boyfriend, but under this deceptively prosperous shell hides a black bubbling abyss. And, of course, the reasons that turned Bergllot into the hardest neurotic and alcoholic originate in the events of her childhood. And a fair division of the paternal inheritance for the heroine is important not in itself, but as recognition by other relatives of the uniqueness and, most importantly, the reality of the trauma she experienced.
If in the retelling of almost the main Norwegian bestseller of recent years "Legacy" Vigdis Jort looks like another example of the venerable genre of trauma porn, then in practice it is rather a gloomy mental labyrinth along which the tormented consciousness of the main character is stochastically rushing about. She then lovingly picks out old sores, then sincerely tries to reconcile with her family, who are not able to empathize with her misfortune due to the lack of similar experience, then she falls into a rage over trifles, then she drinks, then she complains to friends and children, then she again falls into a pool of memories. Unlike many other similar books, The Legacy does not aestheticize trauma, does not comfort the reader with a positive outcome, and certainly does not offer practical cures. On the contrary, the task of Yort, apparently, is exactly the opposite - to show: some wounds cannot be healed by either kindness, or care, or love, they will forever remain ugly and painful caverns, poorly compatible with normal life.
An unexpected collision is also associated with "The Legacy" of Vigdis Yort, breaking through the wall of cultural detachment and directly crossing literature with life. After the release of the novel, a huge scandal erupted in Norway: many of the details described in it coincided with the real facts of the writer’s biography, so that "Inheritance" was actually read as a confession of Yort herself and at the same time an accusation against her relatives. The writer declined to comment, but a year later Vigdis's younger sister Helga came out with her own version of events: she also released a novel on the same topic, but written from different positions and indirectly rehabilitating the family of the protagonist of “Inheritance”. This old-fashioned literary duel between the two sisters, among other things, correlates very well with the ending of Vigdis Yort's novel. On the issue of trauma today there can no longer be one simple and clear opinion - no, it must be considered in the literal sense of the word comprehensively, and each next round of comprehension leads to a new retraumatization, making the process truly endless - and endlessly painful. In other words, for the heroine of "Inheritance" and for those who, like her, are trying to talk about their experiences, in the current circumstances, it seems, in fact, there is no way out of the labyrinth, nor even hope for it.
This article was sponsored by Bart Lipiec
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