The Seventh Child Sparknotes

“I wanted to write the story of seven children that had been in the orphanage, in the ‘baby room’ at exactly the same time,” Erik Valeur, the author of Det Syvende Barn, told Nordic Style Magazine in an interview. This popular Scandinavian novel was translated to English as The Seventh Child, which can best be described as a fusion of the author’s old non-fictional inditing and his amateur fictional writing. This mystery thriller revolves around an obscure, but once thriving, reporter who investigates a mysterious package he received, which contained a picture of seven orphans from the famous Kongslund orphanage, along with other items. The reporter is adamant on uncovering the identities of the seven orphans- now grown up- in the picture. The author’s pellucid prose makes it apparent in the beginning of the novel that the reporter may uncover political scandals on his …show more content…
Having won several awards, the book is considered to be a great work of literature from Denmark. I anticipated this to be a very gripping, unputdownable novel, but sadly, it did not live up to my expectations. The author had a great story- this book should have been a success- but he did not have enough dexterity or experience with fictional writing to make the book live up to its synopsis. Helle mentioned in her review of The Seventh Child that, “Somewhere within it all I’m fairly sure there is a decent plot, though the sheer excess of words left me floundering for some reason to continue this torturous event.” I partially agree with her, although those would not be my choice of words. This book was going uphill when I started reading it but the wordiness, repetitiveness, and fluff overpowered the positive elements of the book. Erik Valeur would have produced better work if he had not made these rookie mistakes. This story had great potential but it fell behind because of Valeur’s lack of experience with