Date: 01/11/2026
Book Title: The Wax Child
witches & wax children
I just finished reading my first novel of 2026, yippie! The Wax Child by Olga Ravn is a story of witches, told thorugh the lens of one of their witch-y objects, a wax child, made by the main witch, Christeneze Kruckow. The perspective of the wax child is crucial to the story's unfolding. the wax child, being an organic object, can move freely, hear and see things purely of what i think humans could only render as energy. the story is told through bursts of short chapters, with two sections organizing them. the story weaves in and out of chronology, pulls from past, present, future, pulls from impossible perspectives and truths, and yet.... and i believe the ability to access/experience the impossible is such a crucial point which the story orbits around. the word choice and syntax gives the story a heavy, musky, whispers. The Wax Child is about mothers, lesbians, flesh, and also about none of these things.
This book was a nice amount of creepy, more so uncomfortable. it is a little half-blind folded. perfect for the reader who likes to piece together puzzles themself. this piece is also interested in the lack of endings. this is made clear as a side-note with the wax child's inherent self-- a repurposing, a life (of sorts) after nothing, how things (sounds and snores) become repurposed, regain new meaning-- or rather, exposing the meanings that have always already been there. i felt as though the niceties of society (in universe) were peeled back further and further as the book progressed, it became nonsensical in social-norm ways that speak to the absurdity. there are also wafts of class commentary, though not the forefront of the book (despite Christeneze's nobility being a prime marker of difference-- though of how much difference might further complicate this as a critique). though i love many of the many strange little images, descriptions, and metaphors, my favorite part of the book might be the little chapter pp. 150-151, beginning "Today, which is the fearful Friday, I pronounce woe and damnation upon you all and uoi the town of Aalborg."
I found myself mostly struggling to picture things that were geographical/historical in nature. I would need to read this with a map open on my computer to fully get it, but i resisted in favor of fully immersing myself. I think the book's nature would support this as well. all the pieces of the puzzle are already somewhere in my mind. Though, now, as i write this, i have some other tabs open where i am doing the historical research part of the puzzle myself... It is interesting to see how much of this story is true (like Anne Brille) and what parts are left out, like Christeneze's time educating poor children?? I feel like Ravn chose not to include this because it would paint Christeneze as a mother figure before the story began, rather than unfolding the complicated relationship she has towards mothering, gender, etc. But all of these sources also seem to house some misogyny in them :P no one is woke enough about witches like Ravn is (for whom I am grateful). I read this book in maybe 3 sittings? it is only 170 pages, and each time i felt myself consumed by the gothic, anticipatory prose, as if the end wasn't told to us in the beginning. Truly, a read worth your time. I would love to hear what others thought of the book as well :3
