Anxious People

“There are days when I can’t help thinking you never really came back from that bridge, love. That you’re still trying to save that man on the railing, even though it’s as impossible now as it was back then.”

This quote comes from Jack’s mother and reveals the root of his anxieties. He couldn’t stop the man on the bridge from dying by suicide, and ever since that moment, he has carried the burden of that guilt. That guilt led him to become a police officer, but it also stopped him from truly connecting with the people around him. He’s so driven to save people that he’s neglected his relationships and is lonely as a result.

“During some weeks in winter in the central part of Scandinavia the sky doesn’t seem to bother even attempting to impress us, it greets us with the color of newspaper in a puddle.”

The narrator describes the setting and further reveals their opinionated narrative style. The narrator often pauses the narrative to interject their personal opinions and philosophies into the story, with the narrator becoming a central character in the novel.

“Then one day all of a sudden nothing was secure anymore. It was called a crisis in the financial markets, a bank crash, even though the only ones who crash are people.”

Much of the anxiety in the novel stems from financial insecurity. The man on the bridge died by suicide because he lost everything during the bank crash and had nothing left to give his family. The bank robber attempts to rob a bank because she lost everything in a divorce and fears losing her daughters. These financial burdens lead the characters to take drastic actions that would have been unthinkable under normal circumstances.

“There are simply some things that all normal people understand that you must never under any circumstances do. You mustn’t tell lies, you mustn’t steal, you mustn’t kill, and you mustn’t throw stones at birds. We all agree on that.”

The narrator introduces this idea of universal truths that are commonly understood. However, the narrator complicates these truths by providing examples that push against these understood norms, developing the theme of Challenging Preconceptions. The narrator says, for example, that killing is wrong but that it would be permissible if someone had killed Hitler. The narrator demonstrates how even commonly understood ideas and truths can be interpreted differently in extenuating circumstances. These examples underscore that the bank robber is a normal person who took a drastic action because they were pushed beyond their ordinary limits.

“They’re not the captives here. I am.”

As the bank robber holds the people hostage in the apartment, she realizes that she’s imprisoned by her circumstances. She needed money and concocted a plan to steal the funds from the bank, thinking that she would eventually pay it back, but the plan didn’t work out. As the cops wait for her outside the apartment, she realizes that she will either go to prison or be shot; her choices have led to her captivity. However, that very captivity elicits sympathy from those she has supposedly taken captive, illustrating the dynamics between “Stockholm Syndrome,” Captivity, and Empathy.

“I’d say that a panic attack is when psychological pain becomes so strong that it manifests itself physically.”

Much of the novel deals with each character’s personal and collective anxieties. Nadia tries to define anxiety according to how it manifests through a panic attack. Her definition is clinical, and it makes Zara angry. Zara hoped that Nadia would define a panic attack on a personal level, according to how a panic attack manifests for her personally, but Nadia initially tries to avoid being too personal around Zara—both because she wants to maintain a professional distance and as a defense mechanism.

“The psychologist herself always felt that the woman was gazing off toward the horizon in a way that can only have two explanations: longing or fear.”

The painting in the psychologist’s office reflects her struggle between longing and fear. When she was standing on the bridge as a young girl contemplating suicide, a simultaneous longing to die and a fear of death paralyzed Nadia. This inability to act ultimately saved her life, but it’s a feeling she often revisits to renew her sense of direction and purpose in life.

“People in your socio-economic bracket. It’s interesting seeing how you live. How you manage to bear it.”

Zara is a complicated character whose hatred for those from a lower socioeconomic bracket than herself is a façade that hides her guilt. Zara feels responsible for the man on the bridge’s suicide because she didn’t give him a loan when he begged for one. Rather than turn this guilt toward helping others, the guilt has hardened her against feeling compassion for humanity. She keeps herself at a distance from everyone she meets and constantly contemplates suicide because she can’t live with the guilt of the man’s death.

“Because practically everyone distinguishes between good and bad, so if we breach our own moral code, we have to come up with an excuse for ourselves. I think that’s known as neutralizing techniques in criminology.”

Nadia explains to Zara that everyone needs to justify their morally questionable actions to cope with the bad things they’ve done. This provides a larger commentary that underpins the narrative. The narrator continually explains that robbing a bank or holding people hostage is collectively considered wrong, but they complicate this idea by showing relatable reasons for why the bank robber took such drastic actions.

“We’re just strangers passing each other, your anxieties briefly brushing against mine as the fibers of our coats touch momentarily on a crowded sidewalk somewhere. We never really know what we do to each other, for each other.”

The narrator directly addresses the audience and creates a common ground by explaining the nature of shared anxiety. Throughout the novel the narrator supports the idea that the remedy for anxiety is to share it with others; the more people realize that others share the same anxieties, the more those anxieties are lifted.

“There’s a particular type of shark that dies if it stops moving. […] That’s how our marriage has ended up.”

Anna-Lena explains to Jack that her marriage to Roger has transformed into a state of constant movement. When they were younger, she was busy with her career and he was busy with raising the children. Now that they’re older, retired, and their children are grown, they’ve struggled to find ways to keep moving forward together to avoid the death of their relationship.

“Parenthood can lead to a sequence of years when the children’s feelings suck all the oxygen out of a family, and that can be so emotionally intense that some adults go for years without having an opportunity to tell anyone their own feelings.”

Many of the characters are dealing with the complexities and aftermath of parenthood. Anna-Lena and Roger’s children are grown, and their absence in the home has created a void that they attempt to fill with apartment renovations. Julia and Ro are expecting their first child, and their anxieties surrounding their inadequacies are causing a fissure in their marriage. The bank robber’s fear of losing her daughters leads her to rob a bank and inadvertently hold people hostage. These emotionally intense scenarios create tensions for each character that result in drastic measures—both personally and relationally.

“Because the people we argue with hardest of all are not the ones who are completely different from us, but the ones who are almost no different at all.”

Many of the couples in the novel are constantly arguing; some of these arguments lead to the couples’ relationships ending, while other arguments strengthen their connection. Jack believes that the difference in outcomes boils down to commitment. He thinks that younger generations’ relationships are doomed because they have too many relationship choices online, which weakens their commitments. He thinks that two people could be soul mates but miss out on the beauty of the connection because they’re too busy looking for someone even more compatible.

“This is a story about a bridge, and idiots, and a hostage drama, and an apartment viewing. But it’s also a love story. Several, in fact.”

The narrator constantly redefines the larger purpose of the narrative. The hostage drama may be the catalyst that brings the characters together, but their individual anxieties create the story. Each characters’ anxiety is either fueled by love or fear, and sometimes a combination of both.

“All that awaited her were a thousand sunrises where life is a beautiful prison.”

Estelle’s husband died, and she feels alone in the world. Due to her age and isolation, she feels simultaneously imprisoned by her body and apartment. She constantly thinks back to her memories with her husband, but this nostalgia makes her current feelings of captivity all the more devastating.

“Bridges exist to bring people closer together, he said.”

Bridges play an important symbolic role for the characters in the novel. A bridge in the town is the spot where a desperate man died by suicide, Nadia attempted to die by suicide, and Zara watched Nadia’s rescue. The bridge is a place where the man and Nadia came to escape, and it is a place that haunts Zara. However, according to Roger, bridges are also about connection. This idea is exemplified when Jack and Nadia come together at the end of the novel because of their shared experience at the bridge. The narrator implies that there’s a potential for romance between Jack and Nadia, a potential to alleviate their loneliness.

“That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s.”

This quote explains Estelle’s love of literature and former love for her likeminded neighbor. She believes that literature allows people to express their otherwise inexpressible feelings, and she often uses quotes from books to give voice to her emotions.

“That light we see burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

Estelle quotes a line from a book here to vocalize her feelings about the moment—both Roger and Lennart have volunteered to answer the door in the bank robber’s place. Everyone has grown fond of the bank robber, and they want to help her escape. Estelle recognizes that their common goodwill toward the bank robber is like a light in an otherwise dark world. Difficult circumstances have led the bank robber into her impossible situation, but Estelle is aware that kindness can rescue people from their otherwise imprisoning circumstances.

“Sometimes two strangers only need one thing in common to find each other sympathetic.”

The narrator makes a general statement that accounts for the unlikely friendships that form between the diverse strangers in the apartment. Although they come from very different walks of life and have opposing opinions, they feel united due to their common experience of being held hostage. In this environment, even Zara, who typically keeps a judgmental distance from others, softens toward Lennart.

“There’s something romantic about the thought of all the apartments that aren’t for sale.”

Apartments are a symbolic space for many of the characters in the novel. The bank robber attempts to rob a bank to secure the funds to keep her apartment, which means keeping custody of her daughters. Estelle lost her husband, and the thought of losing her apartment exaggerates that loss. Anna-Lena and Roger continually seek out new apartments to renovate to avoid staleness in their marriage. For Lennart, apartments that are for sale represent failed relationships, but he maintains a hopeful romanticism in knowing that most apartments aren’t for sale.

“Most people aren’t greedy […] they’re just looking for something to cling on to. Something to fight for. They want somewhere to live, somewhere to raise their children, live their lives.”

This moment marks a change in Zara. Throughout most of the novel she’s been pessimistic and judgmental toward others. However, after being held hostage and meeting Lennart, she has a subtle change of heart. This quote reveals the beginnings of a newfound empathy for Zara. She was never directly kind to the bank robber, but the hostage experience has made her realize that the bank robber didn’t attempt to rob a bank because she was greedy; rather, she did it to keep custody of her daughters.

“Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’”

Nadia explains that anxiety and the symptoms that follow are still taboo in society. She believes people would rather hear that a person is hungover than anxious because people don’t know what to do with anxiety. She thinks that this anxiety that people keep hidden inside results in desperate loneliness and that the remedy is to talk about those anxious feelings with others.

“You can’t carry the guilt and the shame and the unbearable silence on your own, and you shouldn’t have to, that’s why Nadia goes to the summer camp each year.”

The narrator explains how Nadia copes with her anxieties. She was once so consumed by her anxiety that she almost died by suicide to escape it, feeling like no one else could understand it. However, she’s now learned that she’s not alone in her anxiety—others feel anxiety too.