lønningspils

Review By Gregory Conway.

Nothing Happened by Ebba Haslund.
Trans. Barbara Wilson.
Seal Press.

100/100

****

As nordic literature in translation continues to flourish and grow, it is also important to remember and highlight people who were doing this work decades ago; a fun story to think of is set in 1969 as a young American headed out to Århus, Denmark as an exchange student. Unable to find anyone to speak English with consistently, she sets off on learning Danish and falls in love with the books of literature in Denmark. Upon returning to America, she really wants to talk with her English-speaking friends about the books she’s fallen in love with on her trip. She decides to translate this book called “Det Tidlige Forår” just to share it with her friends. One day in the near future she’s at a party and gets to talking with a publisher who eventually asks to see the translation.

The publisher was Barbara Wilson, co-founder of Seattle’s Seal Press, who is also the translator of Nothing Happened by Ebba Haslund. The young translator who had a translation of a book kicking around at the right moment? That was Tiina Nunnally, with the first English translation of Tove Ditlevsen. Along with Tove and Ebba, we also see Gerd Brendenberg and Cora Sandel being translated by Seal Press during this time. This golden era of translated literature is something really worth celebrating.

****

“It’s wrong to be ashamed of yourself. Presumptuous and stupid. I’ve made myself sick with shame, because I could feel so strongly about another woman. I should instead feel shame for the years since then, when I felt nothing. What does it matter who you love?

Isn’t it the feeling that means something? A child can cry itself sick over a dead bird. And as an adult squeeze out two tears for a dead person. Which sorrow is more genuine?“

****

Ebba Haslund’s book Nothing Happened came out in 1948, she was 31. As the timeline suggests we are looking at a book heavily influenced and placed within the years following Germany’s occupation of Norway and the atrocities of WWII.

Our narrator, Edle Hendriksen, is walking down the street when she runs into an old friend and starts to reminisce back on her past, on her school days, now that eight years and a war have passed. Her close relationships with Gro and Bente at the University of Oslo and their origins form the majority of the novel, though we start by learning their fates. Edle is now working as a high school teacher and is haunted by her inability to act in resistance to occupation and also act on her own sapphic feelings of love. Bente is referred to consistently in the novel to Nora, from A Doll’s House, someone who rejects the expectations of a woman in 1940s Norway and has fought against tradition to build a life of autonomy, you would have to open a Dag Solstad novel to find more consistent references to Ibsen. Gro, the love which Edle was never able to act upon, we are told resisted and fought against occupation and sadly died of tuberculosis in a German concentration camp.

Armed with the final picture, we then follow a complex story of how all the girls meet and interact in a slim 133 pages which could go toe-to-toe with any novel on the intricacies of female friendship or the campus novel. I will not go into all the details of the plot, but will point out two gems that they do read White Nights by Dostoevsky just like they are 2026 TikTokkers and slightly make fun of a guy who cries while reading Verlaine poems.

****

When revisiting the novel prior to its publication in English, Haslund shared that her doctoral research into Rainer Maria Rilke’s work heavily influenced the novel, saying “Rilke and my own experience had taught me that to love is what changes one’s life and makes one’s heart widen, more so than being loved”. (Quote from her 1989 memoir, which I sourced from Per Esben Svelstad’s excellent book on Same-Sex Desire in Nordic Literature). On p.49 of Nothing Happened, Edle even describes Gro by saying she “permeates the whole spring-’wie Wein ausgegossen’ as Rilke says in the Book of Hours”.

****

The book ends with Edle realizing she has wasted her years since school, thus during the occupation – Nothing Happened. She vows to be true to herself and attempt to find love. One of the greatest novels of lesbian desire ends, entirely chaste and celibate. Historically it is a key moment in the literature of Norway, we see a sapphic character end a novel with hope and brighter future to come, it did not end soaked in shame and hopelessness in the way lesbian novels of the past had done.

Though these themes of German Occupation and unrequited lesbian love can seem incredibly specific, one of the main takeaways I had from the novel was how shockingly universal it was. This novel felt hypermodern, the discussions and activities and feelings of these college students have been felt by everyone. It also shockingly feels like it could be written today, the language and translation is incredibly sharp. This is one of the greatest achievements in nordic literature.

****

There are a couple copies kicking around online on eBay and [redacted].