Collected Works: A Novel: 'A wry bestseller that reads like the effortlessly chic European cousin of Fleishman is in Trouble' (Telegraph)

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Samlade verk är en koloss till bok sådär rent fysiskt, och även om jag gillade läsningen blev jag aldrig helt och fullt uppslukad, stjärnögd och såld. Det är nog därför jag tänker att den här romanen lika gärna kunde ha varit något kortare och mer lätthanterlig. Gustav, meanwhile, is hurting too. His obsession with Cecilia’s inexplicable disappearance had made his art hagiographic, fixated on her image. When posters for Gustav’s retrospective plaster Cecilia’s face on major billboards across the city, Martin’s daughter Rakel learns a haunting fact that points toward her mother’s whereabouts. She and her brother chase this clue across time, memory, and Europe, to discover why their beloved mother abandoned her family, with the imagined hope that the question of what makes a person can ever be answered. And her face was a stranger’s, as he’d known it would be. She had sharp eyes and determined creases between her nose and her mouth. She was holding a pair of powder-blue suede gloves and carrying a handbag in the crook of her arm, and was probably about to go home to her family in Askim or Billdal where she would sit down with a glass of wine, feel annoyed at her husband clattering in the kitchen—he was always so loud, no matter how she tried to explain that it hurt her ears, that it was painful—and ask her children about school without listening to their answers.

Philosophers, on the other hand, were solitary creatures of the mind, soaring high above the mishmash of family in a celestial craft built of thought alone: by default, a philosopher worked alone. Collected Works is simply an outstanding, remarkable, noteworthy debut – I actually can’t think of more superlatives right now!” The comparatively short novel is in fact the newcomer and literary interloper. By the late 19th century, novels were becoming more accessible and word counts were shrinking to the point where one literary critic in 1898 predicted mournfully “we shall end by reducing our romance to a geometrical diagram”. Collected Works: An amazing novel for a long weekend read – about love, loneliness and literature. (…) The author (…) has created an expansive polyphonous tale celebrating magnificent authors. Sartre, Camus, Selene, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Joyce – masters from different eras are not only mentioned in the novel, their works reference events and ideas that are paramount to the characters in it. (…) The result of a decade’s work, the novel by Lydia Sandgren, is intended to be read mindfully, a read under which it is well worth putting everything else aside, turn off the wi-fi and immerse yourself in the story. The reader will be rewarded with an enthralling mystery and a fantastic story about love, literature, and longing – as an integrated force steering decisions and actions.” Als Cecilia al jong en onverwacht zwanger wordt van Rakel, trouwen Martin en Cecilia en zoekt hij toch een standvastigere inkomstenbron. Daarom krijgt het uitgeversidee van zijn vriend Per uiteindelijk ook meer vorm. De bevalling van Cecilia loopt jammer genoeg moeizaam. Cecilia worstelt met haar verleden en de rugzak die ze mee kreeg, en heeft moeite om de moederrol op te nemen. Toch verblijdt ook hun zoon Elis een paar jaar later het gezin met zijn komst. Na een moeilijke tijd herstelt Cecilia in het buitenhuis van haar ouders terwijl haar moeder Martin bijstaat in de verzorging van de kinderen, Elis is dan ook een huilebalk die hen lang wakker kan houden. Nog een tijd later verdwijnt Cecilia uiteindelijk toch van het toneel, slechts een kort briefje voor Martin zonder afdoende uitleg achterlatend.Collected Works long feels like it must be working up to a clarifying reveal -- presumably involving some resolution with or regarding Cecilia. A din of voices rose towards the domed ceiling of the market hall. Coats were unbuttoned, scarves unwrapped, and gloves held in one hand as customers leaned across counters to talk to cashiers. Martin was waiting for his lamb chops to be cut and wrapped when he caught a glimpse of a woman out of the corner of his eye. She was the right height, and her hair was cut in a curly bob, and for a second he felt like he was falling through the floor. Is that—

His presence was, in all honesty, pointless, and consequently he very nearly didn’t accompany her to that particular open house. But then he did because if he ever did say no, it would likely be the first no of many. The mystery at the heart of the story adds urgency to this warm, engaging, and funny novel about the inebriation of youth and the sobriety of middle age; about lives shaped by art and ideas; about our human flaws and joys. Collected Works is a thoroughly enjoyable book.” A compelling mystery and poignant bildungsroman for readers of Karl Ove Knausgård, Collected Works is a novel about love, power, and art—and what leads us to make the pivotal decisions that change the course of our lives.

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Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. Part bildungsroman, part psychological mystery and part family saga, Collected Works largely delivers on its grand ambition. Sandgren is great on detail (.....) The novel has the feel of one of Gustav’s mag­nificent oils; layer upon layer of careful brush strokes and colour that amount to something close to photorealism. (...) One thing I wouldn’t call this book, though, is propulsive. It proceeds at a leisurely, unhurried -- some might even say self-indulgent -- pace. It’s a novel to savour, not to tear through, and for this reason alone, I can’t honestly say that I loved it. " - Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph Kastellgatan was actually located at the heart of Martin’s walking pattern. He passed Järntorget Square every day. He often walked up Linnégatan or down Övre Husar. Sometimes, he had to get from one of those streets to the other, via Risåsgatan or Majorsgatan, for instance, but no matter what route he chose, he never ended up on Kastellgatan. It had been that way for over a decade, with one glaring exception, that time he accidentally found himself in Cecilia’s old flat. At times I wondered whether Jonathan Franzen had transplanted his relentless but futile quest to write the Great American Novel to Europe instead, but Sandgren has far more about her than Franzen, including a lightness of touch that means you don’t feel the constant presence of the author looking over your shoulder. The book’s length gives the characters and scenes space to breathe until you’re entirely immersed in the world Sandgren creates. Curiously, despite the characters being exactly the kind of people you’d skip parties altogether to avoid, and possibly even move house, this long immersion in their lives means you find yourself caring about what happens to them in a manner reminiscent of the work of Sally Rooney.

One expects the novel to be slowly building to a mighty revelation, whether it’s the return of the prodigal wife and mother, or merely the disclosure of a definitive piece in the riddle of Cecilia’s desertion. But Sandgren doesn’t seem interested in such kinds of fictional artifice. Instead, she embraces the mess, misunderstandings and inscrutabilities that constitute real people living real lives – which makes a lot of sense, since her day job is as a practising psychologist. Every sentence has been constructed with immense care. Every scene has been honed and polished until it sings. There is not a word that hasn’t been carefully considered before its inclusion, then reconsidered with each redrafting. […] It is without doubt one of the most meticulously built works of fiction I’ve read in a long time.” That was many years ago now, during a period when he’d spent a lot of time with a fairly pleasant graphic designer. She kept dragging him to open houses, possibly to demonstrate her independence. “I’ve been thinking about buying a flat,” she’d say, and Martin could never figure out whether she was trying to communicate something else. Either way, there was always something wrong with the flats they went to see. One was on the ground floor, one had a dark-green kitchen. Too expensive, too small, too new. While she talked to estate agents about pipes and balconies, Martin strolled around other people’s homes, staged to make them look like someone-lives-here-but-not-quite, amusing himself by trying to identify the algorithms of the open house. There were always pots of fresh herbs with the price tag still on in the kitchens. Certain kinds of cushions had always been placed just so on the sofas. A tealight always burned on the bathroom sink.A] sweeping and complex drama of family, art, and sacrifice . . . Readers will be captivated.”— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review The Swedish debut author Lydia Sandgren has written a highly recommended novel, which is as smart as a funny and perfect parody on the sagacious. It is impactful, fundamentally captivating and begs to be read.” Collected Works recognises that sometimes, even when a great body of material is available, some things remain unknowable and some people stay silent. An artist or writer’s collected works might appear to amount to a life, but they won’t ever tell the whole story.