Beside the River describes a meeting between what is remembered and what is forgotten about a dead mother. A brother and a sister, now themselves old, remember (or forget) in the midst of layers of their lives. Gabriel remembers all that has happened ...
Beside the River describes a meeting between what is remembered and what is forgotten about a dead mother. A brother and a sister, now themselves old, remember (or forget) in the midst of layers of their lives. Gabriel remembers all that has happened. His sister, Laura, is losing her memory. But perhaps the things that you make up can be just as true as what is called reality. It is slightly comical. And tragic. ”We stand beside a river of time that is flowing rapidly past, or we wade through the waterfall, sometimes with our eyes closed,” writes the author in her introduction.
This volume also includes the earlier play Standard Selection. Here, the time perspective is wider, covering thirty years in the life of a family. And this too is about memory: two adult sisters who try to remember what happened when their father left the family when they were children. They remember everything differently. How does one uncover the foundation upon which we build our lives, our identity? Agneta Pleijel shows here that she is one of Sweden’s really important dramatists.