by Nicole Yurcaba
Given that travel restrictions and lockdowns continue to challenge travelers and leave many reevaluating their vacation, business, and adventure plans, who wouldn’t want a few weeks away in an alpine village hotel? Fortunately, in Mona Hovring’s stunning novel Because Venus Crossed an Alpine Violet on the Day that I was Born (translated by Kari Dickson and Rachel Rankin) readers can do exactly that. During their stay, they’re accompanied by Ella and Martha, two sisters who for their entire lives have been rather inseparable. However, after Martha’s release from sanatorium after mental breakdown, Ella and Martha find themselves at a mountain village hotel, where Ella begins hoping she and Martha can return to their deep childhood connection. Nonetheless, as readers spend cold nights and emotionally chilly dinners with Martha and Ella, readers see two sisters drift apart because, after all, childhood can’t last forever.
The beauty of Hovring’s novel lies mostly in its narrator, Ella. Ella is a mature, philosophical figure who, unlike Martha, isn’t given to romantic, fantastical flights. While Ella believes that the mountain village respite will provide her with more clarity about her own life, what Ella doesn’t recognize about herself is that she possesses a maturity and wisdom beyond her years. It is this self-naivety that makes Ella vulnerable, and, in essence, more relatable to readers. At first, Ella might strike readers as a philosophical goth (and what’s wrong with that?): “My head felt empty. My body was disconnected. It was as though death were trying to take me. Death, with its joyful malice. This was how I daydreamed. This was how I tried to hold on to the world.” At other times, Ella is a Wordsworth-like, Romantic observer:
The snow-covered trees were like free spirits; it was as though they had let go of all their sorrows, all their regret. They let the winter sun flow through them, through everything they were, generously making space for the light. The trees wanted for nothing—all they had to let go of was their delicate pinecones and soft needles.
Moreso Ella is the punk-rock embodiment of a self-assured individual who is totally confident with experimentation. This “spontaneity,” which Ella believes “would annoy Martha,” leads Ella to cut off her hair “not right down to the skull, it wasn’t dramatic, but it was irrational.” Ella expresses “I wanted my hair cut short in order to keep a distance from my sister. I wanted to draw a line. I didn’t want to allow her stubborn dejection to devour me.” It’s Ella’s stalwart resolve, too, that inspires readers.
Nonetheless, Ella’s humanity becomes relatable through her vulnerability, which she isn’t too afraid to share with readers. When Ella finds herself alone in the barber’s shop after having made the decision to cut her hair, Ella bursts into tears, not knowing what is wrong with her. She confesses a deep revelation to readers: “one can fall apart at absolutely anything.” Ella cycles through her vulnerability throughout the book, confessing to readers at one point “Who can ever truly empathize with the pain of another person?” Ella’s character even reminds readers of humility’s value: “Self-righteousness is a colour that nobody suits.” Additionally, she even develops an Epicurean tone as she notes that humans must “protect all our wills” and that individuals “need to deal with our destructive will and our weak will” while reminding readers “It was no simple thing, striving to be a good person.”
One of the key takeaways readers find through Ella’s experiences is a deep reminder about the value of living. As the novel edges towards its conclusion and Ella realizes the bond she once had with Marth is permanently severed, Ella recognizes she must stop living for Martha and must live for herself: “I realized that I had been chasing life all these years, or, more precisely, that life had been running away from me.” Again, her insights remind readers that humility is priceless, as it “would have easily prevented us from ending up in this never-ending and infantile cycle of bickering that has characterized our relationship since the end of our teenage years.” Ella’s self-development peaks as she observes “Childhood is over, adolescence is nearing its end, and this childlike approach to the world is lost.” Nonetheless, Ella is anything but hardhearted, and readers learn that despite Ella’s acceptance of what she can never repair with Martha, she still “missed that time when we, like small blind girls, learned to deal with our lot in life, fumbling for the window latches to let in the crisp night air.” She also acknowledges that if Martha told the story, it would be a very different one.
In Mona Hovring’s Because Venus Crossed an Alpine Violet on the Day that I was Born, readers find a true Wald-Vergissmeinnicht (or, in other words, an alpine Forget Me Not). Ella becomes an Everyperson of sorts, in whom readers will find not only a heroine, but also a confidante. The book transports readers to a quaint, bucolic setting where Ella isn’t the only one who blossoms and finds clarity—readers do, too.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming Black Spring Group in 2022. She teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and works as a career counselor for Blue Ridge Community College.
