Tine Høeg , Misha Hoekstra (trans) – New Passengers

I’m a firm believer of the axiom ‘less is more’ and New Passengers is proof of that. Despite the fact that this is a slim novel and is written in a readable style and can be tackled in one sitting, it contains enough complexity for the reader to ponder over.

The main premise is simple : a teacher meets a married man on a train and they start an affair. This is just a superficial summary as Høeg goes much deeper. Throughout the book we hear the inner thoughts of the woman : her feelings about this relationship, how it affects her workplace, she counts the times she sees the man naked, her feelings when she knows her connection to the man’s wife, her fear of being discovered.

Later as cracks finally show, the narrator commits some further actions which affect her badly.

The writing itself is not dissimilar to a poems. A few lines a page and yet these lines convey so much emotion and deep thinking that it is a wonder how so little on a page can contain so much clout.

Due to New Passengers style we readers have a role within book as we are passengers ourselves. We are sitting back and observing in a voyeuristic manner all the problems the main protagonist is going through. Not only that, we are hopping into her psyche and watching all the comings and goings. We travel with this woman to school, home, everywhere and yet we cannot do anything but set back and watch the whole thing.

Intelligent, powerful and poignant, New Passengers is an excellent portrayal of the psychological problems that can beset people in certain situations, here is a look into the human mind which no psychology textbook would even dare to go.

Many thanks to Lolli Editions for providing a copy of New Passengers

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