Who is Nurse Solveig, the Dancing Surgeon from A Leg to Stand On and what is their importance? A_Leg_to_Stand_On English & Literature "Nurse Solveig

Solveig is the beautiful but stiff and formal nurse who is assigned to the author when he first arrives at the hospital in Odda. She is cold, authoritative, distant, and unsympathetic. Also at Odda, the author is visited by a surgeon who literally dances into his room, "flexing and extending each leg ... like a ballet dancer", showing the author a long surgical scar on his leg, and explaining that he had been injured in a skiing accident. He is, in short, demonstrating for the author the possibility that he can heal completely.