The novel The Exception was written by Danish novelist Christian Jungersen. It centers around four women who work together at the Danish Center for Genocide Information. Two of the women receive death threats and at first, suspect a Serbian war officer and known torturer. Eventually, though, they start to question their coworkers and, as their fear escalates, they turn on each other. At this stage of total suspicion and paranoia they begin to discover information about one another’s characters and backgrounds that they never knew before.
Soon three of the women join to fiercely victimize the new suspect, the librarian, on whom they’d bullied previous to the death threats.
The main characters are the four women in the office.
Malene, Iben, and Camilla are close friends and work in the office together. Anne-Lise is the librarian who ultimately becomes the target of the women’s irrational suspicion. She visits her doctor with complaints of the tension at her work and her doctor delivers one of the most integral quotes of the book, stating that “Victimization is part of human nature” (Jungersen). This quote emphasizes one of the main themes of the book: the ability of any and every human being to exhibit victimization on another being. Even though these women work for an agency that fights global victimization, they slip into the role naturally when their fear makes them desperate for a scapegoat. The theme of victimization is evident in the Nazi-like threats and the obscure character of Mirko Zigic the Serbian war criminal. The fact that the author perpetuates these behaviors in the one place that shouldn’t host them sustains the theme that oppression is inherent.
Another theme that is reflected in the characters it the viral quality of fear. When the women start to receive death threats their perception of everything changes: “But why should a killer take the trouble to go after her? Iben is so insignificant. Or is she? …If just one of them is ‘irritated’ enough, her fate is probably sealed (Jungersen 14). Iben, who has recently been freed from hostage in Nigeria, finds herself questioning even who she thinks she is in the terrorism game. Her fear makes her feel vulnerable and in the line of fire, which drives her to find a person to target herself so she can vent her feelings. It seems the author wrote this story to point out that this victimization is not reserved to the infamous and larger than life figures we know from history; the innate tendency to victimize in circumstances like these exist in everyone.
Jungersen wants us to examine how we behave in our own lives, to avoid perpetuating the abuse. We live in the same type of society as these women, and we have to fight the battles on a personal level, not just globally. I see this reflected in my life because everyone I know has some type of pain and dysfunction they carry because they’ve felt victimized in the past, whether by strangers, friends, lovers, or even family.
The Exception is an important book because it uses relatable characters and scenes that make us question how we’d react in the same situation. The story Jungersen gives us helps us examine how we contribute to our world and how our actions affect other people.
Works Cited
Jungersen, Christian. The Exception (2006). Weidenfeld & Nicolson: New York. 512 pages.