The Danish Girl – David Ebershoff

Novel Conversation’s Book Club – October 2017 Book – The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff

For our October meeting, our book club group discussed The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff. Wow! What a novel. It was a fascinating discourse into the depths a human being can go to when growing into the person you believe yourself to be. It really spoke to the confusion some people experience when it comes to gender orientation and many of us could simply not imagine how painful and confusing it could be to not know which identity you would wake up to be every morning. It must be heartbreaking. Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion. Everyone’s openness was encouraging.

Here’s a really short recap on some of the characters. I was really impressed with the different interpretations we had of some of the characters and their motives. For instance,

– Regarding Greta, some of us thought she had only the best for both intentions for Lili and Einar. She understood Einar’s dilemma about who he thought he was and she encouraged him to explore those feelings. In doing so, she likely started the demise of their marriage because as Einar began to grow into Lili, he seemed to disconnect from his life as a male, including disassociating with memories and feelings. As Lili, she was able to look at everything in a new light, eager to take on new challenges, hesitant to embark on that journey because it was new. Greta became a sort of caretaker of Lili, like a big sister, until Lili was ready to be on her own. Other members thought that perhaps she asked too much of Einar by encouraging him to take on the role of Lili while Greta created beautiful paintings – he/she became a muse for Greta and Greta was able to sell a lot of those paintings.

– Einar at first seemed reluctant to leave himself behind as Lili’s persona absorbed him. That might have been because he recognized earlier tendencies and confusions from when he was still a young boy and was still trying to understand them. A celebrated painter in his day, Einar painted less and less until he stopped painting altogether – that was when he fully embraced his identity as Lili.

– Lili seemed so young and eager to live. In fact, I think she thought of herself in her early twenties. That probably explained why she was willing to go through the multiple surgeries she endured, including the fifth and final one. She thought if she had the female parts she was supposed to have, she could have children. This surgery to supplant a womb in her eventually caused her death. She was thought to have had under-developed ovaries that were discovered with surgery, hence the unexplained bleeding Einar had during his life.

One of the things that was fascinating was the surgeries the doctors were experimenting with in the 1930’s. It was surprising to learn what they could do at that time. It was also disheartening to learn how unscrupulous some doctors could be, all for the purpose of claiming a “first”, particularly for something so controversial and sensational back then.

During our discussion, there was a lot of back and forth between the real events (this was, in fact, based on a true story) and how the author portrayed and took liberties with some of the events. It definitely created some confusion for some because it wasn’t always clear if certain things had happened or if they were at the behest of the author. Additionally, there was a movie released in 2015 that follows the book fairly closely but even there, there are differences with certain events, including ages of characters.

All in all, it was a fascinating discussion and if you haven’t read the book or watched the movie, please give yourself a treat and do so. You won’t regret it!

Here’s a link to my favorite goodreads website for additional information. See below for additional linkage to a great article on the true story.

 

Here’s more information if you’re up for it. This link will take you to an article that talks about the true story, with some linkage to the film.