Long Island Books: "The Danish Girl"

"The Danish Girl"

David Ebershoff

Viking, $24.95

"The Danish Girl" is David Ebershoff's first novel. It is a beautifully crafted book filled with subtle nuances of language and structure. The author has taken the bare-bones facts of an actual life, that of the Danish painter and transsexual Einar Wegener, and imaginatively fleshed them out to give the reader a story that is both true and fictitious.

The opening lines of the book give the story to come: "His wife knew first. 'Do me a small favor?' Greta called from the bedroom that first afternoon. 'Just help me with something for a little bit.' 'Of course,' Einar said, his eyes on the canvas. 'Anything at all.' "

The favor that Greta, a portrait painter, asks of her husband, Einar, is to put on the stockings and yellow pewter-buckled shoes that her client Anna has been wearing for her sitting. Anna cannot come and her portrait lacks legs.

He Likes It

The reader senses that Einar's reluctance to do this "small favor" has nothing to do with interrupting his own work, or discomfort with the idea of putting on women's clothes, but rather that he likes the request and the shoes, which he had recently noticed in a department store window, too much. So much it frightens him.

Once Einar is settled in the stockings and shoes, Greta decides she really must have him in the dress also; she needs the hemline.

Mr. Ebershoff is a master at description and the reader can easily imagine Einar's feelings. Cocooned in sensuous, lightweight women's clothes, he has an epiphany of delight and revelation.

Suggestive Smells

The author introduces his leitmotif, his own Proustian madeleine - smell. It is a sense that will give lushness to many of the book's scenes and create patterns of repetition and echo that give the work a remarkable rhythm and pulse.

There is a scent of herring, a sexually suggestive smell, in the air and Einar's thoughts are correspondingly sexual and sensual as he feels himself begin to briefly slip into a woman's body.

When Anna shows up unexpectedly the two women laugh at Einar dressed as a woman. Greta eases the tension by suggesting, "Why don't we call you Lili?" With that short sentence begins a game that will become more serious, transformative, and potentially destructive than any of them could have imagined.

Two Selves

Greta is a California girl, an artist and young widow who came to Denmark to study painting and re-create her life. Einar was her art teacher and the two young people found an immediate affinity in their art and love of painting.

From the beginning Greta recognized that Einar was an "unusual" man. She loved his beauty and did not miss the manly qualities he lacked.

Of Einar we are told little, except that he has but one theme in his painting - the Jutland bog where he was born and raised. As Einar takes on his Lili self more and more frequently the character of this dual person develops and psychological tension mounts in the ambivalence of two people in one body.

Life As Lili

The moment Einar slips a camisole or a dress over his head Lili begins "filling him up," a sensation he feels descends an "inner tunnel" to his real self.

The author's descriptions of these transformative moments are sensuous and often erotic, giving the reader a portrait of a woman who is strong, capricious, flirtatious, and fascinated with clothes, which become the "agents provocateurs" for the "filling up."

Lili is interested in sex, in how women make love, in their anatomy, in their habits and domesticities. She goes to a brothel where she can be a voyeur and imaginatively discover a world she has never known. She spends hours at a library studying male and female anatomy, becoming convinced that she is truly a woman with actual female parts inside her.

A New Mate

Greta is supportive and careful of her husband's newly acquired persona. She does not mind losing him if she can keep Lili. In his descriptions of the changing relationship between Greta and Einar, Mr. Ebershoff shows a strong grasp of his characters - they develop in ways that are consistent with what we so far know of them and at the same time seem to follow a "destiny" that has been laid out for them.

There is something heroic about the way they both cope with the situation facing them. As Lili rather than Einar begins to show up for dinner, appears at unexpected moments, and finally comes to the marriage bed, Greta's devotion remains unflinching and constant.

She never feels revulsion for the soft, feminine hip at her side, but does worry about how she will manage to keep Lili now that Einar is going.

Artistic Changes

Einar's is not the only transformation taking place, nor is the book about physical change alone. Creative and artistic change plays a large role in defining the characters of Greta and Einar/Lili.

Greta had been the unsuccessful artist, Einar the successful one. With the emergence of Lili, Greta finds a new subject. Lili in all her moods and new guise of womanhood is an irresistible inspiration and Greta's paintings begin to sell well for the first time.

Einar, on the other hand, finds he can no longer paint his ubiquitous bog and limits himself to filling in the scenic background of Greta's Lili paintings when she is overwhelmed with work. The birth of Lili is both a death and animation of the artistic energies of these closely linked artists.

Small Mysteries

All of these changes force the reader to consider the connection between sex and artistic inspiration, self-fulfillment, and the ability to create. There are no simple equations to the question.

Mr. Ebershoff shows intuitive insight into the small mysteries that make a woman different from a man. His descriptions are perceptive and sensual as he describes Lili blossoming into a woman.

Smell becomes increasingly important, capturing associations, recall, and the feeling of the moment. There are usually sexual overtones to the smells the author interjects into his narrative: aftershave lotion, salt, sweat, clay, rubber, lavender, and lime. They add greatly in giving dimension to the moments described.

Draconian "Cures"

Einar has strange bleeding spells and hemorrhaging during the night and Greta convinces him they must seek medical advice. In their search for the right doctor they get misdiagnoses and draconian suggestions.

A doctor in Copenhagen declares Einar not sane, a danger to society, and suggests that Greta put locks on her wardrobe. A Parisian doctor swears a lobotomy will bring peace to Einar's mind and body.

Rejecting these choices, they decide on a surgeon in Dresden who promises to make Lili anatomically female. Einar/Lili chooses to make the trip from Paris alone and Greta, remaining steadfast in her loyalty, tells him, "I think you're the bravest man I know."

White Eyelet

During the train ride to Dresden, Einar reminisces over his life in a series of poignant vignettes that includes one of the loveliest images of the book, his first remembered memory. It is of sunlight shining through the eyelet of his grandmother's summer solstice dress, making him feel that "the white eyelet of summer would surround him forever."

Greta's last painting of Lili would show her in a dress with an eyelet hem. This is one of the repetitions that Mr. Ebershoff uses in a sonata-like way, each repeat reinforcing the previous motif, strengthening the line of the work and creating patterns and emphases that add greatly to the impact of his writing.

The last line of the book describes a kite snapping its line and flying free, crossing the Elbe, the river whose name Lili has chosen as her new last name. Does this represent the freedom she has always wanted to be herself?

The reader must answer that question for him or herself. It is a lovely metaphor to end an impressive and interesting first novel.

David Ebershoff is a part-time Bridgehampton resident.

Anne Hazard Aldrich, who has a house in East Hampton, reviews regularly for The Star.