Krane's Café

Krane's Café: An Interior with Figures | Cora Sandel

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A scandal unfolds over two days, as witnessed by the patrons and staff in a cafe in a small Norwegian town populated by narrow-minded conservatives. Humour, lively dialogue, a farcical rotation of customers through the revolving cafe door, and biting social commentary add up to a very fine novel. The obstacles women face in achieving creative fulfillment are of special concern for the author. Translation by Elizabeth Rokkan.

merelybookish Interesting! I didn't know there were other novels by her (behind Alberta trilogy) in translation. 11mo

Lindy @merelybookish This one was published after the Alberta trilogy. It‘s got a different tone: more farcical. 11mo

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Lindy

Krane's Café: An Interior with Figures | Cora Sandel

I enjoyed this novel so much that I found a 1951 film adaptation and watched it. In Norwegian. No subtitles. That didn‘t stop me! @AnneCecilie have you read this and/or seen the film?

Ruthiella Could you follow enough having read the book? Or do you understand Norwegian? 11mo

Lindy @Ruthiella The only words I could understand were names, greetings and thank yous. I could follow because of having read the novel and found the differences between the book and film quite interesting. 11mo

AnneCecilie I haven‘t, I hadn‘t even heard of it. I own her Alberte trilogy. After seeing your reviews I always think I should get to them, but then something new and shiny shows up and I forget. But I am impressed that to you managed to follow the film with no subtitles. 11mo

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Lindy @AnneCecilie There‘s a farcical aspect that helps make it easy to follow, plus I had just finished reading the book, so I was familiar with the storyline. If you are putting off the Alberta trilogy because of length, you might be persuaded to pick up Krane‘s Konditori because it‘s short & funny, even while dealing with serious topics like mental health and social censure. Apparently Fabricius (Sandel) said it‘s her personal favourite. 11mo

AnneCecilie To be honest I was s member of a subscription service at the beginning of the 2000s and for a few, where you got a classic every other month. The Alberte trilogy was one of the books and I never thought much about until I saw your reviews and I went to check my shelves for it and it was there. Now, I‘m a little worried about the language. It‘s written in 1920s, right? Norway became an independent nation in 1905 after almost 100yrs in union with 11mo

AnneCecilie Sweden and 400yrs in a union with Denmark before that. Right after independence the language was highly influenced by Danish which was written by the higher classes and Norwegian has changed quite a lot since then and we don‘t normally modernize the language of our classics. So I‘m afraid it will be quite old fashioned Norwegian. 11mo

Lindy @AnneCecilie That‘s so interesting about the shifts in Norwegian language in the relatively recent past. I guess you could open one of Cora Sandel‘s books that you own and test read a few paragraphs. 11mo

Lindy @AnneCecilie The three volumes of the Alberta trilogy were originally published between 1926 and 1939. Krane‘s Cafe came out in 1946. 11mo

AnneCecilie I had to check, since I had already been thinking about, and it‘s old Norwegian. But one of the books is set in Paris, or do I misremember? 11mo

Lindy @AnneCecilie Alberta and Freedom is set entirely in Paris. She is practically penniless, fiercely determined to live life on her own terms. Then, in Alberta Alone, the first part of the novel is set in Brittany and the second part in rural Norway. 11mo

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