The Danish Girl

I wanted to like this book; the reviews looked great, and I enjoyed The 19th Wife so I know Ebershoff is a talented, intelligent writer. But I found this one a chore to get through. Here’s why:

I just didn’t buy the characters. Surely the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery would be someone who was brave, strong-willed, and probably a colourful personality. Lili struck me as the sort of person who simply accepts whatever life brings, without resistance; childlike and timid. Greta, as a physically striking and very wealthy American, also seemed like a square peg in a round hole. She swings back and forth between being hesitant to even speak to her husband, and playing the role of controlling mother to him. I struggled to get a sense of who she really was. I don’t know what the original people (who inspired this novel) were like, but I imagine them to be bolder, louder, and so much more colourful than the subtle shades-of-grey Lili and Greta are drawn with.

I’m not sure where the reader sits with this novel. The writing style is to create small details with the reader linking them together to see the bigger picture. But sometimes we sit close to the characters; and sometimes they are subjects that we’re studying. For example, there’s an unspoken suggestion about where the doctor is taking his donor organs, and it’s shocking; sending the reader’s mind reeling. But the characters are completely aloof from it, which has the effect of pushing the reader back from the story.

And finally, there was no humour in this novel – never a light moment, or little black humour to inspire a grim smile. No moment when the reader could share a smile with any of the characters, or with the author. Personally, I found that made the characters and their story difficult to access.

I hope thats a fair and helpful review. I read a number of reviews before I bought the book, and they were all glowing in their praise so obviously there are a lot of readers out there who will love this story. But it didnt suit me at all, and it was a relief to reach the final page.

It’s an easy read and an interesting story, but Ebershoff’s prose is often overly flowery and clumsy. The characters are oversimplified, as is the study of being transgendered. It does too much to equate homosexuality, transgender, and intersex. The book has way too much fluff. The whole California backstory for Greta was unnecessary. Every person other than a single doctor seems totally unsurprised with what would’ve been somewhat scandalous. I’m sure many people were, but the percentage of people is awfully high. In real life, Greta/Gerda was known to be romantically interested in women as well as men, but this is not included in the book for some reason. I would love to read a non-fiction work about Gerda (Lili’s Danish wife’s real name) and Einar/Lili. This book isn’t particularly well-written or well-researched and another author might do a better job with the story, even as fiction.

I have mixed feelings about The Danish Girl, I love the representation but once you start to get into the novel you find the representation is nothing like it should be. The story and historical setting are well crafted, but the psychology, physiology, and medical treatment around Einar/Lili are grossly fantasized. The author has little understanding of transgender, intersex, sexual orientation, sexual identity and what is means to live the experience any of these.

The first situation describing Einar and womens clothing was romanticised to the point of fetishism. I know Einar is meant to be transgender, but the description felt off not really the type of experience a true transgender woman would have. The continual descriptions of Einar being small, tiny, frail, and acting in a passive way and how Greta was tall and the dominant of the pair painted a picture of them having swapped gender roles in a spiritual sense. I wasnt quite sold on the characterisation especially for the time period. I know this is based loosely on a true story, but it is obvious the subject matter has been romanticized and written from a cis white mans viewpoint.

I get a strong sense like there is a mix of multiple personality disorder, fetishism, and intentional lens from the author that misses the mark on what it means to be a transgendered woman on so many points. The story had me squirming and uncomfortable.

Lili\Einar is intentionally deceptive and selfish with a lot of their actions.

It’s hard to resolve this story with today’s understanding of being transgender and the setting of Coppenhagen, Paris, and Dresden in 1920-30s

It did feel altogether too long Ebershoff frequently meanders with flowery language and asides of landscape, backstory, daydreams, and the like. It does match the dreamlike quality of his beautiful writing, but slows down the pacing of the story incredibly. I can see how this style of writing is best matched for historical fiction though.

The reveal of Lili being intersex confirmed my suspicions given the mostly feminine stature and physical attributes. And the journey of Lilis operations for gender confirmation surgery are gruesome. Though while interesting reading and set a tone for the novel feel like they are poorly researched. Even for the time, medical operations and the healing of the human body afterward do not span the length of time described in the novel.

I feel like this was a hodge-podge of concepts that were not thoroughly researched around identity, mental disorders, and medical knowledge. Though, like the art that Einar and Greta create, The Danish Girl is merely an interpretation on Lilis story. Its is viewed through different lenses of the characters of the book. Like anecdotal histories, it is warped, interpreted and skewed by the narrator.

Ultimately even though this is a fascinating story and character study, it was flourished with a heavy hand and I found myself putting the book down frequently because I was getting a bit tired. I almost wanted the narrative tied a little more to history, to events to ground the story. The characters are really well developed but difficult to relate to and even to love. They are all selfish in their own way and live out of step with the real world. Though in saying that, this creative bubble Greta and Einar lived in was the only environment which could have nurtured Lili in taking her first steps into the world.

I dont really want to recommend this one solely on the amount of factual inconsistencies this read more like a fantasy novel than something based in historical significance. David Ebershoff admits in an interview after the publication of The Danish Girl that the representation of Lilis transgender journey in his novel is not representative of todays transgender population and is purely fictional Im not sure if that is ignorance, damaging, or laziness. Why would you want to create a character based on actual events and not have the core motivation of that character also based on factual elements? Its misrepresentation at its core. I would have preferred an ownvoices authors take on this subject matter.

The Danish Girl
By
David Ebershoff

The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff opens in Copenhagen in 1925 with a wonderful enigmatic four word sentence His wife knew first.
Greta asks her husband Einar to wear silk stockings and feminine shoes to pose for her, so that she can continue painting a portrait in the absence of the female model. This is the first act in both of them beginning the gradual process of acknowledging Einars effeminate tendencies. Once begun his awareness of his feminine side, his longing to be female, accelerates, but not without misgivings and trepidation. Lili, his alter-ego emerges as a real person and increasingly Einar behaves as if they are two separate people.

Einars transformation into Lili, his wife, Gretas amazing love and support and the pioneering work of the surgeon who helped him achieve his desire to have a female form is based on a true story. In The Danish Girl it is told with sensitivity and grace.

The setting, pre-war Copenhagen and later Dresden, is evoked wonderfully. Greta and Einar live in a world of art and culture in the heady days before recession and the bleak war-years. The richness of their lives is beautifully drawn, the characters are very empathetic and the story is moving and bitter-sweet. According to Lilis diaries the surgeon found ovaries in her body when he operated, suggesting that she was actually hermaphrodite.
The novel is based on the diaries of Lili Elbe and newspaper stories about her from the time, when she was, for a while quite famous.
The author makes it clear that he has written a novel and all but the two main characters are fictional, but they are representative of the circles in which they moved and the attitudes they encountered.
The book is now an equally sensitive and visually stunning film. I recommend reading the book first!
Sue Almond
February 2016

The Danish Girl has been acclaimed since it was made into a film starring Eddie Redmayne last year. I managed to grab a copy for the bargain price of 99p on a kindle daily deal and I’m really glad I chose to read it.

Now I’ll be honest, I have very little knowledge of the ins and outs of LGBTIQ rights, choices, lifestyles etc. I have friends who fit into those categories if you’d like to call them that, but that’s exactly why I don’t make it my business to know too much. I think that by categorising we can sometimes stop looking at people as ordinary folk. We start labelling them and putting them into bundles and categories and ticking boxes and that’s where it all starts falling apart. So while I wholeheartedly support the LGBTIQ community what I’m trying to say is that this is the first time I have read something in depth about a transgender person.

This story is first of all beautifully written. There is something in the way that it is written prettily and delicately that personifies the story itself as Lili. The subject is dealt with in a manner which is accepting and honest, that looks at the feelings of all the people who are involved in Lili’s transformation not just herself but Einar’s wife, the couple’s friends and all the people who have loved Lili before and after she became a woman. It taught me a lot about transgender feelings about identifying as someone else and how terrifying this can be for that person who is still unsure who they are. It also taught me about hermaphroditism and what that actually means. I think we’ve all had a view in our heads of what it is and this book shows me that this view was in fact incorrect.

It was an interesting perspective from the 1930s when acceptance was not like it is now (even though it could still be better) and the authors view of the minutiae of day to day life and the oddity of Einar appearing one day and waking up as Lili the next kept it a page turner despite the story being a slow build up.

I can’t say I enjoyed The Danish Girl as much as i developed as a person FROM this book. That my understanding and own personal acceptance were broadened as I rooted for Lili and yet rooted for Greta as well in a world which must have been terribly confusing for her to understand. The Danish Girl is all about acceptance and learning that no matter the challenges you can fight for your right to be who you feel you truly are inside. I’ll be giving the film a watch soon see if it lives up!!
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