Nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Award 2003

A society in dissolution

BY JÓGVAN ISAKSEN

Kelly Berthelsen
The Innermost Chamber of the Soul
Atuagkat Publishers. GR

This year’s literary prize candidate from Greenland is a very angry book where, with few exceptions – the object of all its 28 “fragments” is to portray a betrayed and cynical society. The author, Kelly Berthelsen, has aired her indignation in the press, too, about the condition of her native country, where neither civil servants nor politicians seem to care about anything other than feathering their own nests. No one seems to be interested in tackling the problems by their roots, or in coming up with truly relevant Greenlandic solutions for Greenland, and in the meantime their society limps feebly onwards, maimed by proposals designed to solve problems in an alien society thousand of miles away.
“The Innermost Chamber of the Soul” begins with the story of an adult incest victim who wants to revenge himself on his abuser but ends up, in all his half-hearted weakness, merely playing a practical joke on him. Doubt and lack of determination abound in these short stories, while the essays are often savagely realistic political portrayals. Not a single civil servant or politician is left with a shred of honour intact when, having carefully circumvented all their problems, they pass on to their farewell dinners with this salute to the public: “Someone will come up with some food and drink for the party. Once you’ve been to one party, it’s always nice to go on partying”.
Still in transition from an old hunting to a modern fishing society, contemporary Greenland allows the majority of its population to sink or swim in the crossfire of cannabis, alcohol and violence – with the children as the greatest losers. And yet, in occasional glimpses, other options may be discerned besides degeneracy and impecunious wretchedness. The man who, despite his alcoholic condition, is still capable of providing a proper and, in the circumstances, decent upbringing for his daughter. Addiction and irresponsibility don’t necessarily always go together.

The book doesn’t put the blame on the Danes for all the poverty and misery. In fact they are generally absent from the stories, although in one instance the narrator does charge the rest of the world to respect the fact that “we live off the whales and seals you feel so sorry for”. And, in the same text, it says that it is just too much that “people from other countries live it up in our midst with celebrations for their forefathers in our country! “
Here, just like everywhere else, solutions and hope are to be found among the common people. And when, with abundant humour, Kelly Berthelsen tells us the story of a thirsty Greenlandic exorcist who goes up to one of N.A.S.A.’s spaceships on the moon to see if he can’t get a drop of coffee out of them, then the reader knows that the possibilities are legion.
With its descriptions and critique of developments in Greenland there is definitely a place for a book like this – but as a work of literature it lacks coherence. The fragments bristle in every direction like the spikes on a porcupine (and almost all of them hurt!), but taken together they hardly amount to a composite whole.

Translated by Jacob Edmonds