OUT OF THE BLUE

There’s something lacking in a boy’s perfectly organized, perfectly predictable life. What could it be?

With distinctly metaphorical overtones, this Danish import follows a house’s solitary resident through a daily routine that’s always the same. The boy greets the cactus on the bedside table, tends to the neatly sorted garden, irons a shirt, and does other chores before bidding the cactus good night. One night, though, he dreams of falling into a pile of fur…and the next morning scattered shoes, a tipped-over cactus, and a footprint lead him to the conclusion that there must be A BEAR in the house. And so there is! It turns out to be a playful one, though, and even if the once-orderly house is soon anything but, after a day’s romp the two companions tumble together into bed in joyful, well-earned exhaustion. Even the cactus is suddenly blooming. In pale, finely controlled images in neutral hues with subtle touches of blue and pink, Kjærgaard pairs a light-skinned figure of indeterminate age and a massive, shaggy playmate in spartan but comfortable settings. Bach-Lauritsen brings her spare narrative to an open-ended close (“Suddenly, there it was. Just like that. Out of the blue. But at first it wasn’t there”), without ever specifying what “it” is, which leaves the particular nature and agent of the positive change open to interpretation.

Elliptical but reassuring to reflective readers facing uncomfortable life or family changes.