
In this intimate diary, a young woman named Thymian Frauke Katharine Gotteball records life in a tidy, seaside town of two thousand souls. The streets are straight, the houses immaculate, and the community lives by unspoken rules that leave little room for deviation. Through her careful observations, the listener hears the quiet rhythm of daily routines that mask deeper currents of loneliness and expectation.
Thymian’s relationship with her mother, a stern pharmacist’s wife, dominates much of her early years. The mother’s constant melancholy and the pressure to conform shape Thymian’s inner world, making even simple games feel like acts of rebellion. As the diary unfolds, she wrestles with the shame attached to her unusual name and the harsh judgments of boys and peers.
The manuscript was never meant as entertainment; it is a raw testimony aimed at exposing the social neglect of women like her. Listeners are invited to glimpse a world where wealth and propriety cannot shield a child from sorrow, and where a single voice strives to illuminate the unseen hardships of the marginalized.
Language
fi
Duration
~9 hours (527K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
Finland: Oy Kuopion Uusi Kirjapaino, 1906.
Credits
Tuula Temonen
Release date
2022-12-30
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1869–1939
Best known for a once-scandalous bestseller, this German novelist and journalist wrote with sharp feeling about women pushed to the edges of society. Her work reached a huge early-20th-century audience and still stands out for its bold social criticism.
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