What Time Is It?
- Alan Bray
- Apr 3
- 4 min read
This just in—The Wax Child did not make the cut for the International Booker Prize short list. Oh, oh, the wax child isn’t going to like that.
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn is a story set in historic time—early 17th century Denmark. However, there is no statement of this in the beginning of the text. Of course, due to a phenomenon we have previously noted, the reader who comes to this book no doubt has some preconceptions that may include the story’s historic setting. Indeed, the Amazon page for the book leads off by saying, “In seventeenth-century Denmark…” thereby providing information that Ms. Ravn herself provides at the book's end in a sort of author’s notes section. In the New Directions edition of the book (the only English translation I’m aware of) the cover gives no clue as to the time of the story, (it does foretell the storie's end) nor does the back. But the inner sleeve does; in fact it appears to be the source for the Amazon page write up. However, Amazon does not categorize The Wax Child as an historic novel. It marks it as Literature, Genre Fiction, Horror, and Occult and Supernatural. These distinctions are important, as someone searching Amazon for let’s say, novels in the Horror category, would come upon The Wax Child and might therefore buy it. I must say, I think these categories are terribly misleading and could lead to rage and despondency. Even refunds.
I like that there’s no statement up front explaining the time period. The reader is left to discover this in an open way.
In any case, The Wax Child is a story that occurs in historic time but doesn’t make a fuss about it. In the text, how is this communicated to the reader?
In the second paragraph, we do have the wax child saying, “There were carriages and horses and soldiers.” This might cue the attentive reader that we are in a pre-gasoline engine world. Maybe. There is mention of the “town’s religious processions.” Could be dated. Then, the wax child mentions lying for a long time in the earth and seeing, “steam locomotives, the smallest particle split and exploded.”
‘Kay, again, the attentive reader might note these references are to modern times and/or references to the passage of great amounts of time.
What is not mentioned is as important as what is. The characters in the story do not use cell phones or computers. They do not drive cars or go grocery shopping at Whole Foods.
It is not till page sixteen that the King of Denmark, Christian IV, is named as a contemporary in the story, and to the student of history, this places the story in time. Christian IV was king of Denmark and Norway from 1588 to 1648. A long reign, no?
All right, you say, but aren’t there less explicit cues in the text about time?
The language that the wax child uses, the style of its speech carries meaning, letting the reader know this is not a contemporary story.
Again, here’s the first paragraph: “I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and fingernail parings from the person who is to suffer. I was born by my mistress for forty weeks under her right arm as if I was a proper child and my wax was softened by her warmth. After this time, she took me to a pastor; it was night, the church was dark and still, and he christened me, the wax child. I was an instrument. This was at Nakkebolle Manor, in southern Funen. My wax mouth cannot be opened.”
This does not have a contemporary feel. There are no contractions—although this could be due to translation, but I don’t think so. Actually, the use of contractions has been around for a long time—certainly before the 1600s. However, their lack tends to give speech a formal and archaic tone. The use of the word “mistress” is anachronistic and refers more to earlier centuries when people relied on hierarchical distinctions to carry meaning.
As mentioned, it is at the end of the book that Olga Raven directly addresses the reader about the time of the story in a section entitled: Note. Here the author explains she drew on Nordic folklore as well as letters and court documents to write the novel. She states clearly that the events in the story really occurred between 1596 and 1621. Then comes an acknowledgments section where the author thanks various people for their help.
So, is The Wax Child a novel or not? At the end, we learn that the events really happened but of course, much of the text consists of the testimony of the wax child who is apparently the creation of the author. It is, as I’ve said, a literary device to tell a tale in a creative way. There is no need to create a “real” human witness and justify how she/he could be omnipresent. So, a fiction based on an account of real events and people. The way the story is punctuated is in story fashion, with a beginning, middle and end. A precipitating event—Christenze’s being exposed to the community as a witch—leads to progressive complications that conclude in her tragic death. The book asks a question: will Christenze be spared death as sentence for her behavior? The question could be answered yes, no, or I don’t know, but it is no. Is this because Ms. Ravn was trying to stick close to a real story? I don’t know, my friends, I don’t know. She did stick to it in fine fashion.
Till next time.
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