FICTION

THE DANGEROUS AGE: Letters and Fragments from a Woman’s Diary by Karin Michaelis (Northwestern University Press: $25.95, cloth, $10.95, paper; 215 pp.). It hardly seems possible that a literary work could sell more than a million copies, be translated into 12 languages, find its way to the screen three times, yet subsequently all but vanish. That, however, has been the fate of Karin Michaelis’ “The Dangerous Age,” a novella first published in Danish in 1910. It chronicles Elsie Lindtner’s emotional turmoil at the onset of mid-life--the “dangerous age” at which a woman suddenly finds her social worth has fallen precipitously. Elsie has taken matters into her own hands by divorcing her rich, respectable but unloved husband, resolving abruptly that she must live alone--”get right away from everybody and everything.” She retreats to an island house built for her by a young architect with whom she has fallen in love, and there tries to come to terms with her confused, unhappy existence. “The Dangerous Age” is a small tour de force, memorable mostly for the ruthlessness with which Elsie analyses her choices, including the decision to leave her husband. Even many rooms of one’s own, it seems, may not be enough, and in the end Elsie leaves her island to travel the world unfettered by false hopes.