Review of MAGMA by Thóra Hjōrleifsdóttir

 4 Stars

This is a short novel but it’s an intense read.  It describes how easily an abusive partner can take advantage of a vulnerable victim. 

Lilja is a 20-year-old university student in Reykjavík.  She becomes involved with a slightly older graduate student, and eventually the two move in together.  Theirs is an unhealthy relationship as the unnamed man slowly but repeatedly challenges and then violates her boundaries.  Gradually she increasingly substitutes her abuser’s opinions for her own so she disappears:  “He’s peeled me like an onion.  Surrounded by the leavings of my own sallow skin, I’ve dwindled to nothing, and my eyes smart.”

The book consists of brief vignettes; few chapters are longer than a page.  Lilja is the narrator and what she writes reads like diary entries. 

Lilja is young and romantically inexperienced.  Her first sexual relationship was traumatic, an experience that left her terribly insecure and therefore makes her susceptible to the attentions of a handsome, intelligent charmer. 

Though he may be handsome and intelligent, he has few positive traits.   He is a total narcissist who believes others should fulfill his desires and he should never have to do anything he doesn’t want to do.  Lilja has poor self-esteem whereas her abuser has a superiority complex, believing he is better than everyone else.  His upbringing may have something to do with his attitude:  his mother comes to clean and do his laundry. 

He is also a master manipulator; he works slowly and quietly but persuasively.  He is attentive at times but will also belittle her to diminish further her feelings of self-worth.  He always compares her to a previous girlfriend and makes comments like, “’You’re really fine, but if you were a bit more of a fighter and bothered to exercise, you’d be a perfect ten.’”  He often treats her with indifference so she tries harder to please him.  He gets upset when he hears she had previous sexual relationships but he sleeps with multiple women, thereby implying that she must do as he wishes or he’ll leave her.  He coerces her to stop smoking by threatening “for every cigarette [she smokes] . . . he’s going to fuck eight women.”  He isolates her from her family and friends, who could serve as a support system for her, by complaining that she doesn’t spend enough time with him. 

Because Lilja desperately wants love, she becomes emotionally dependent on him.  She believes women must make sacrifices for love so she does, though her mental and physical distress when she agrees to some of his demands is obvious.  She makes excuses for him and even blames herself:  for instance, if she’d been with him one evening, he’d not have slept with another woman.   The reader keeps hoping that she’ll leave him.  Lilja admits, “The very best thing for me would be to end it with him” but her willpower lasts “For about fifteen minutes.” 

The ending can be interpreted as hopeful and I’d like to see it as such, but I fear that she is not strong enough to see her way out of the darkness. 

This book can be read in one sitting, but it is an uncomfortable, unsettling read.  Nonetheless, I recommend it for its authentic portrayal of a toxic relationship.