RESIN

Shipwrecked dreams and the pain of loss are central themes in Ane Riel’s second novel, RESIN. Although it may sound bleak, which it certainly is, the story is interspersed with so much humor and vitality, that it is truly a little mixed bag of cross-genre gems. At the end of the book, one is both enriched, moved and amused, having been led through a whole gamut of emotions, and if one had known beforehand, just how increasingly unnerving it would become, one wouldn’t pick it up in the late hours of the night. Ane Riel manages, in other words, to strike a chord with her readers. Her language is pure and sharp in a crooked sort of way, her characters ambiguous and colorful, while the story is captivating, the tone melancholic, melodious and masterfully strange, and in the end she bundles everything into a little universe of its own, where there are no definitive answers or conclusions, but where interpretations and the very backbone of one’s point of view is challenged. […] RESIN is about how a sensitive individual like Jens is overcome by the grief of losing someone, and how he takes it out on his own family and his own life, to avoid further pain. But it is also about how love can allow and tolerate too much, and how the outside world cares little more for those who stand out – other than using them as fuel for a little cheap gossip. However, at the same time, there is no finger wagging or moralising reprimands in Ane Riel’s novel. Her text is open to interpretation, both because those who live lives stuck within their own heads, aren’t always the strangest among us, but also because Liv’s naive and logical approach to the world puts both big and small issues on the table and challenges the reader, so that he or she reconsiders normality as they know it. RESIN is a tremendous little novel.