Once upon a time, not that long ago, a child came crawling out of the woods, poor thing. Climbing out from the ditch, it began to wander the graveled road. It was a sad sight to behold.
The child was scruffy and ugly. Its hair was tangled. The forehead contorted. A frightened look could be seen on its face, eyes darting above crusty nostrils. The lips were stiff and blue and the neck far too thin. A long cloth or tattered vest wrapped around its torso, and under it two skinny legs protruded, knees wider than both calves and thighs. The child wore no shoes. Its oversized feet resembled wet wool socks. From time to time, the knuckles of one hand would scrape the ground. And close to its ribs, the thin, hunched figure clutched a tattered folder, or perhaps an envelope, like an animal come out of the forest bearing a message.
The lonely foster boy Oskar works at Aud and Olav Blum’s mill for board and lodging. One day he discovers a child in the forest, an untamed cub, whom he captures and takes home. The child suffers from stunted growth and is almost completely mute, but under Oskar’s care, it begins to grow at breakneck speed.
Matias Faldbakken’s sixth novel, Poor Thing, is both a love fable and a coming-of-age story. It is written with great imagination, linguistic excess, and a distinctive mixture of passion and irony. The narrative alternates freely between realistic novel traditions, satire, romance, and folk tales, and several historical eras are in flux at the same time.
Poor Thing is an original, entertaining, and captivating novel about exclusion, loneliness, desire, and care. And all the while, the story poses the question: What is a trauma?
