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Strega Is the Revealing Analysis of Womanhood You Need
“We were nine young women doing seasonal work in the mountains, or nine young women put in safekeeping on the backside of the mountain, or nine young women who watched their hands being put to work, watched them lift starched fabrics to their face only to let them fall to the ground, watched them pour strong wine out of large carafes, like the hands of a statue, right into the parched earth, as though to sate it”. – Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm
Set in a deserted hotel in a remote Alpine village, Strega tells the story of a group of adolescent girls learning the harsh (and often disturbing) realities of adulthood. From relentless and meaningless work to the constant threat of humiliation and violence, it portrays the brutal side of womanhood in a poetic and beautiful way.
The Writing of Strega
The writing of Strega is incredibly visual and cinematic. Our narrator, Rafaela, seems almost plagued by intrusive visions when she closes her eyes. “Black fabrics falling through the rain. Dirty water in a pink bathtub. A scene in which I held a grown man’s hands. A scene in which I held my mother’s hands”. While these disparate images make for beautiful writing, these sometimes apparently irrelevant visions seem intrusive, taking one out of the scene. In this way, Strega’s reading experience is oddly experiential. Life itself is, after all, often disjointed and disorienting, stubbornly refusing to follow one neat narrative.
It’s certainly fair to say that Strega values style over plot. Even the supposed hook of the novel, the disappearance of one of the girls, fails to really go anywhere. For some, this can feel frustrating, even a squandering of promise. However, the confidence and self-assuredness of Lykke Holm’s writing manage to assure the reader that they remain in safe hands.
A Remarkably Sensory Read
Strega is also a remarkably sensory read. Lykke Holm calls upon all our senses when evoking disparate scenes, immersing you fully into the rather creepy world. “Three women handing out carnations and leaflets, old buildings and canals, a bottle of perfume smashing against a wall, the smell of ivy spreading through the room.” This world of Strega is rich and lush and abundant but also rotting and foul, with blood, milk, and mould as prevalent motifs.
The Depiction of Womanhood
Within the novel, the author depicts womanhood as horrific, brutal, dangerous, and grotesque but also dull and repetitive. Rafaela and her fellow girls train as maids in a mysterious hotel without guests “for these nights that never happened.” This constant maintenance descends into absurd and pointless monotony. Repetition moves into dissociation: “Morning after morning, a metallic light fell through the room like a butcher’s knife. I stood and watched it happen.” Lykke Holm also depicts this dreary rhythm with anaphora, with phrases like “we were to … we were to …” repeated ad nauseam.
Domesticity and work also contribute to Rafaela’s loss of identity. “In the mirror, I saw a uniformed and anonymous person, face empty and uninteresting. This was a great relief. I didn’t have to show them my true face. It was enough to show them the uniform’s face, a face for a decent life, an orderly life.” In fact, Rafaela doesn’t just have to perform for the world as a maid, but as a woman.“I felt ugly and like a failure. Tried to understand how I was supposed to endure this long life, where one was to arrange oneself into a woman each morning.”
Feminicide in Strega
While the author doesn’t deal with the disappearance of Cassie explicitly within the novel, it does open the floor for a wider exploration of the theme of violence against women. The girls seem to view the horror with an odd sense of inevitability. The murderer isn’t seen so much as a person as a concept. “I squeezed my eyes shut, and the murderer appeared in my mind. It turned out his face was the face of all men. In his features was every single one.”
Femicide seems a natural conclusion in a society that so openly detests women. “There was a murderer waiting for us all.” Patriarchal violence is stitched throughout the novel, becoming so normal that it even seems a little mundane.
“I knew a woman’s life could at any point be turned into a crime scene. I had yet to understand that I was already living inside the crime scene, that the crime scene was not the bed but the body, that the crime had already taken place.”
You can pick up your copy of Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm at Waterstones.
