 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a divorce
A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen The play was written in 1879, but in many ways it wouldn't have seemed out of place a century later. Torvald and Nora have a seemingly happy marriage, though it's a bit of a teeth-grinder how his "praise" of her is so condescending. He can't say enough about how child-like she is. In fact, Nora is a shrewd businesswoman. When Torvald was ill a few years earlier, he refused to borrow money for an extended stay in a warmer climate, even though his life might be at stake. Nora borrowed the money, pretending it came from her dying father, and has been paying it back with small savings from the housekeeping money, and secretly hiring herself out for jobs such as copying documents. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that with a setup like that, the truth inevitably comes out. It's a revelation to Torvald that he doesn't know her. And a bigger revelation to Nora that she doesn't know herself, and that they don't have a chance at a marriage until she does. As with Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the slamming of a door is a sound that changes everything.
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