CITY IN THE WORLD

Author: Per Anders Fogelström
Year: 1968
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

The story about the ultimate metamorphosis of Stockholm, from an impoverished hamlet to a prosperous, albeit small metropolis, reaches its completion in the fifth and final instalment of Per Anders Fogelström’s classic “City”-pentalogy: “Stad i världen” (“City in the World”). During the preceding books, Fogelström has chronicled how the dilapidated huts that once housed the many denizens of the Swedish capital’s working class were dismantled and triumphantly replaced by stately edifices featuring such blessings of modernity as running water, central heating, and electricity. In the final volume, the population has begun to reap the fruits of public education, job security, and democratic rights. The gulf between the grim struggles of Henning Nilsson, who first migrated into the city in the mid-19th century in “Mina drömmars stad” (see review from August 2024), and the comfortable lives of his descendants a century later could scarcely be deeper.

Fogelström does not end there, however. He is not blind to the new era and the challenges that await the generation that will populate post-war Stockholm. While their grandparents marvel at the privileges that grace their lives, the youngsters, largely oblivious of the hardships endured by their predecessors, stand impatient on their inherited pedestal, making new demands and aiming for loftier horizons, much to the amazement, and sometimes disapproval, of their elders.    

The final abandonment of the old era is symbolised by the death of Emelie Nilsson, Henning’s and Lotten’s daughter, and the backbone of the series. Emelie was a heroine of such monumental proportions that the final success of Henning’s entire lineage depended on her. Cruelly orphaned as a teenager, she was tethered to her destiny by the last words of her dying mother, Lotten: “Take care of your brother”; words that would etch themselves into the core of her heart and define her entire life. Yet Emelie’s care would extend far beyond her brother; she embraced family, neighbours, and friends with a magnanimity so profound that she became the invisible architect of their development. The progenitor of none, but a mother to all.

Among Fogelström’s characters, one that intrigues more than others in “Stad i världen” is the virtually inconsequential side character Olle Holm. Olle is the archetype of the indignant working-class conservative. He is an honest and hard-working man who is barely scraping by financially but proud to be independent and to appear strong-willed and single-minded. He has little regard for the hardships of others and regularly sets himself as a model for all humanity to emulate. To him, social security is squander, because if he can work to support himself, so can everybody else. He sees no point in aligning the traffic circulation to the right-hand-traffic of the rest of Europe, because he never has reason to drive in Denmark or Germany so why should anybody else, etc. Olle clings fiercely to the myth of his solitary success, scorning the sacrifices of generations past. To him, those who falter below him are lazy, those who ascend above him are crooked. In this character, Fogelström captures the timeless paradox of the man who turns his back on solidarity, seduced by the emotional allure of rugged individualism, even as he unwittingly basks in the warmth of collective labour and sacrifice. A figure whose bitterness and pride foreshadow the discontent that, in later decades, would make part of the working-class shift their allegiance from social democracy to the darker allure of nationalist populism.

The final judgment of Fogelström’s magnum opus can be nothing less than unqualified acclaim as it has indubitably earned its place in the Swedish canon. With the artistry of a master, Fogelström ushers the reader through the ebb and flood of history, never stooping to pedantry or encumbering his prose with technicalities and infodumps. Each historical event weaves seamlessly into the storyline interlocking with the fates of his characters, their actions, thoughts, and feelings. Though every protagonist is born from the author’s imagination, they breathe with the unmistakable vitality of flesh-and-blood Stockholmers of bygone eras. There are no villains in Fogelström’s Stockholm, merely real people who seek their own way of negotiating the vicissitudes of fate. Some prevail. Others succumb. Yet everyone feels achingly tangible, authentic, vibrant, and profoundly human. This, perhaps, is Fogelström’s greatest triumph: not merely to recount the story of a city, but to evoke its soul, embodied in the lives of its people.

 

THE KINGDOM AT THE END OF THE ROAD

Author: Jan Guillou
Year: 2000
Publisher: Piratförlaget
Language: Swedish

The crusades have reached their sad end, leaving the crusaders battered by humiliation, fatigue, and, in the luckiest cases, merely the indignity of survival, as they make their way home to their predominantly European homesteads. Among these weary souls is Arn Magnusson, or, as his fellow Templars knew him, Arn de Gothia; a knight whose life was spared and pockets lined with gold by the magnanimous Sultan Saladin, the conqueror of Jerusalem and paragon of nobility. Surrounded by an entourage of engineers, horsekeepers, physicians, blacksmiths and other denizens of the Middle East, he returns to the land of his fathers in the far north from whence he had departed to serve the Church in its holy quest over twenty years prior. When we encounter him again, it is within the pages of “Riket vid vägens slut (“The Kingdom at the End of the Road”), the third and final part of Jan Guillou's trilogy.

Arn returns to a kingdom united under his childhood friend, King Magnus Eriksson. Yet even as the land stands nominally united, the shadow of discord looms large as a rival dynasty, bolstered by the support of Denmark's monarch, plots its dissolution. Observing the fragile balance, Arn realises that his mastery of swordplay and horsemanship are insufficient to ensure peace in the land and the unchallenged influence for his family. To the consternation of his kin, he puts in motion a peace project of unparallelled ambition based on engineering, trade, and a crushing war machine.

The Arn of the final volume is a figure reshaped and remoulded, bearing little resemblance to the devout and unassuming knight we got to know in the first two books. Gone are the piety and modesty that once defined him. In their stead, we find a man of pride and arrogance. He wears the family crest or the Templar’s cape, symbols once held sacred, alternately as required to promote his personal agenda. He insists on bearing his sword into church, disregarding the reprehension of other parishioners. He is indifferent toward his brother. He taunts his adversaries.

It is tempting to excuse such a transformation as the natural result of a life scarred by trauma and the memories of mayhem and devastation. A man who has seen the worst of humanity and the full scale of its incompetence, corruption, and folly, might well return to the simplicity of his backwater origins cynical and arrogant. Yet such character development demands exploration, an inquiry into the slow erosion of virtue and the creeping dominance of bitterness in the once innocent heart. Alas, Guillou provides none of that. The shift in Arn’s character feels less like the organic development of a man’s soul and more like the result of a writer who has grown tired of his soft-spoken and timid hero and without much ceremony rewrites him as a bad-boy. The result is a screeching dissonance: the Arn Magnusson who departs the Holy Land at the end of “Tempelriddaren” (see review from September 2024) is not the Arn Magnusson who strides into West Gothland in “Riket vid vägens slut”.

Although “Riket vid vägens slut” is less encumbered by heroism and bravado than the first and particularly the second book, there is no shortage of boyish fantasies about a superhero who in this case actually happens to wear a cape. Nowhere is this more evident than in the lengthy account of a bachelor-party, a sequence so satiated with machismo that one suspects it sprang directly from the author's own unresolved issues with adolescence.

And yet, as with most books, hidden in the clutter of verbiage, whether artfully crafted or carelessly strewn, there are some nuggets worthy of contemplation. Toward the end of the novel, Arn Magnusson reflects over his time as a knight templar and about the devastating defeat that the crusaders suffered at the hands of Sultan Saladin. He seeks some divined message in the humiliation, a lesson that God intended for him and the other survivors. And he does this with the most supremely brainwashed mind.

Here stands a warrior, a sword consecrated by holy water and pledged to the service of God by his side. A man who for twenty laborious years has risked life and limb to guard the resting place of the one he considers to be the Son of God. He has knelt in prayer, imploring God’s help in his quest to reclaim the Holy land, all the while being keenly aware how his foes, no less fervently, pray to their God for the same favour. And yet, in the face of unequivocal defeat, he ponders not whether his cause was just or his belief misguided, but instead what subtle knowledge God intends him to discern. This scene provides us with a stark meditation on the nature of fanaticism. It is a lesson, possibly inadvertently, about the maddening resilience of single-mindedness and the inherent futility of reasoning with those who cannot, or will not, entertain doubt.

Having ploughed through Jan Guillou’s entire trilogy, the lasting impression is mixed. Jan Guillou certainly is no Sir Walter Scott. Nor is he a Ken Follett or even a Frans G Bengtsson. He is definitely a far cry from Umberto Eco and the intellectual labyrinths emanating from the Italian’s prolific pen. Yet, it is not in the art of storytelling that Jan Guillou falters. His shortcomings lie instead in the fragments of the tale he chooses to dwell upon. Guillou deserves recognition for his bold excursion into the pre-Gustav Vasa era, a period which most Swedes know scarcely anything about. I also enjoy the well-researched albeit artistically tailored description of the medieval environment, the historical figures, places, and the political games. Yet, the characters he breathes into being remain stubbornly two-dimensional and would belong on the panels of a comic book rather than the pages of serious literature, and the story line is sometimes far too juvenile to befit a 55-year-old writer, or indeed, his 48-year-old reader.  

IN A CITY TRANSFORMED

Author: Per Anders Fogelström
Year: 1966
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

Interbellum Europe saw two major ideologies, divided by banner but united by tyranny and disregard for lives, grow into the powers that would less than two decades later once again draw calamity over the continent. Meanwhile, in the north, people were busy forging the social democracy that after the war would form the bedrock for peace and prosperity in the Scandinavian region. Having gladly unshackled itself from the thankless chore of governing the uncultured mountain brutes that are its westerly neighbours and who more than a century later, much like earthworms and small rodents, still make their living from burrowing for sustenance in the dirt, Sweden was in the midst of transforming its society into the highly productive, innovative, and technologically advanced economy that is its hallmark to this day. From this audacious experiment rose a society where the fruits of the labour of the many would not rot in the troves of the few.

Per Anders Fogelström once more invites us to step through the looking-glass of time to Stockholm, forever metamorphosing, forever restless, in the fourth volume of his City novels, “I en förvandlad stad” (“In a City Transformed”). With his unparallelled knowledge and attention to detail, he brings the old streets, many of which no longer exist, buildings, trams, and historical and fictitious persons to life in a time machine crafted not from cogs and gears, but from the alchemy of words.

Indeed, Fogelström’s narrative and the rise of social democracy are deeply intertwined. The sudden creation of the penniless proletariat on the back of the rapid industrialisation of the 19^th century, was poised to create a backlash. While the farmhands and crofters had been scattered and divided, bound to the vast lands that they had been put to cultivate, the urban workers were packed together by necessity. Before long they had organised themselves, despite the furious opposition from the capital-owners. This moulting process was both driven (Strindberg, Moberg, Martinsson) and chronicled (Fogelström) by the written word.

A simple juxtaposition reveals the distinct voices of these monumental Swedish writers, each a prism refracting the light of their age into singular spectra.

Strindberg, ever the provocateur, wields his pen like a rapier, slicing through the pretensions of power with an elegant arrogance. His caricatures, sharp and unrepentant, gleefully expose the follies of the patriarchy, the institution of marriage, the clergy, press, and academia alike. It is mockery elevated to an art form, a carnival of irreverence.

Moberg, by contrast, discards the flourish for the hammer. His prose is an uncompromising onslaught, a furious indictment of the structural cruelties that condemned the many to lives of indignity and despair. In his unvarnished rage, one feels the raw pulse of revolution, the breath of a Sweden that might, in another turn of fate, have traded compromise for catastrophe.

And then, there is Fogelström. Gentler, wistful, and imbued with a love that softens the harshness of his truths, his accounts of the working class are not merely chronicles of misery but testaments to their resilience, their quiet nobility, and their unyielding humanity. His is the voice of remembrance, painting the struggle not in anger but in tender hues, a poignant reminder that even in the depths of suffering, dignity can endure.

While Fogelström has received criticism for being too rosy in his depictions of the struggles of the proletariat, his contribution lies in revealing a simple truth: despite differences in financial means, all people, rich and poor, are fundamentally the same. The character of August embodies this philosophy. Through August, Fogelström dismantles the myth that wealth pertains to individual of certain pedigree, and demonstrates how those born poor, if given the right prerequisites, can be just as successful as those born rich, or even more so, and that modest origins do not necessarily jeopardise an acquired social standing. August, in many ways, epitomises the core values of liberalism: the triumph of individual merit over inherited privilege.  

Another observation of some interest, though perhaps of limited consequence, is Fogelström’s curious treatment of art and its devotees. In the book series thus far, two characters have dedicated themselves completely to art: Olof the painter and Stig the musician. Both men frail and sickly they seem destined for tragedy. Then there is Jenny, Olof’s widow, who occupies a different artistic sphere. An actress, she appears predominantly in vaudevilles, her success being in entertainment rather than art. Contrary to Olof and Stig, she is portrayed as robust, vigorous, and easy-going. Whether Fogelström by drawing this contrast between true art and commercial art intends to comment on the artists’ place in society, I leave to the discerning reader’s judgment.

“I en förvandlad stad” concludes with the Nazi capitulation of 1945 and the drop of the curtain on an era that will forever remain an indelible stain on the conscience of humanity. Fogelström meditates on the evil and destruction that mankind is capable of, and what is more more, on the indifference that we as a collective are capable of, whether it be in the role of obedient soldiers or passive onlookers. Stockholm, together with the rest of the world, stands on the doorstep to a new age.

METRO 2035

Author: Dmitry Glukhovsky
Year: 2018 (2015)
Publisher: Ersatz
Language: Swedish (Translator Ola Wallin) 

And so, the time has come to bring yet another book series for the year to a close; Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro-trilogy. The heroes of the first book “Metro 2033” (see review of Jun 2024) and “Metro 2034” (See review of August 2024) come together in the third and final volume, aptly named “Metro 2035”.

The story unfolds two years after the events of 2033 that had made Artyom Chorny an unlikely and involuntary hero. Two years later, he has sacrificed most of his hero status as well as his marriage, on the altar of his fixation with the idea that there may be survivors in places other than the Moscow metro. As an authorised ‘stalker’, that peculiar breed of soldier who braves the poisoned surface in search of relics and resources, he periodically ventures into the contaminated outdoors carrying his shortwave communication radio to try to pick up signals from the hypothetical pockets of other survivors, and to send messages of his own. Day after day, he sends his missives into the void, and day after day, he is met with the void’s majestic indifference. No signal answered, but then again, hope, like a stubborn weed, is resilient to reason. When one of the main characters from “Metro 2034” looks him up at his home station, Artyom’s life changes completely.

In this volume, Glukhovsky settles the final score with his creation. It is brutal, not merely in terms of violence, but also in terms of honesty and the most unsparing truth. He tears the curtain from the façade that sustains those huddled in the tunnels and reveals the unfathomable and ugly machinery of power whose gears grind relentlessly upon the backs of humanity. While Artyom’s exploits bring him closer to the truth, he finds that the price of revelation is nothing less than his sanity and that of his companions. In an almost melodramatic way, Glukhovsky lays bare the futility in humanity’s battle over ideologies and social trifles. He mocks the shallowness of fascism by demonstrating how easy it is for a fascist regime to shift the population’s hatred from one arbitrary target to the next. He ridicules mankind’s incurable irrationality and disdain for knowledge and reasoned thought. When shown a truth that would topple their cherished certainties, they flee from it as from the plague. When pressed to rise against their own suffering, they clutch their chains all the tighter. It is a ruthless indictment, a portrait of humanity painted with scathing accuracy and a certain tragic affection.

In short, Dmitry Glukhovsky sketches a most unflattering portrait of a species that will willingly choose destruction over construction and despair over hope. Artyom learns that people would rather cling to a familiar lie than extend a trembling hand toward an unsettling truth. For them, comfort lies not in enlightenment, but in the quiet, stubborn shadows of their accustomed illusions.

“Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance proudly beneath their trappings.” Etienne de la Boétie.

Taking a step back, one might observe that “Metro 2035” constitutes the philosophical battleground between Niccolo Machiavelli’s Prince and Etienne de la Boétie’s insubordinate subject. The ultimate ruler of the Metro-world, portrayed as some sort of solitary Bilderberg Group, is a decisively Machiavellian persona, operating through a carefully curated mixture of violence and the illusion of protection. Artyom, by contrast, emerges as the lone voice of candour, the innocent child daring to cry that the emperor is, in fact, naked.

Unfortunately, Glukhovsky’s analysis is neither novel nor particularly deep. To a reader with an advanced intellectual capacity, the book may serve as a reminder that the political landscape is more complex and the power structures of society more convoluted than meets the eye, but for such readers there is better literature to reach for. To the lesser thinker, the book may appear to confirm several existing conspiracy theories and lead to an even looser grip of reality.

Though, the Metro-series is written as a trilogy where both the setting in the Moscow metro system and the characters are recurring and refer to events in previous volumes, each book strikes a distinctly different note. In this final instalment, the political intrigue, which lent “Metro 2033” such gravity yet was conspicuously absent from “Metro 2034”, returns in full force. However, the murky, menacing threat of nameless mutants and shadowy beasts, which haunted the earlier volumes, has receded into the background, leaving the eerie atmosphere markedly diminished. This third instalment is possibly the most action-packed of the three, but that does not necessarily make it the best.

Before I embarked on this journey into the underground, a good friend of mine advised me to read the first book but forfeit the remaining two. I cannot say I did not enjoy Metro 2035, but still I sometimes think that maybe I should have listened.

REMEMBER THE CITY

Author: Per Anders Fogelström
Year: 1964
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

The new century dawned amid the throbbing disquiet that one and a half decade later would hurl Europe into an event that came to define the entire epoch; a world war.  By now, labour unions had crystallized into forces of considerable import, demanding, and enforcing the much-desired principle of eight hours for work, eight for rest, and eight for leisure. Astonishingly, even some employers, guided perhaps by a flicker of enlightenment or, more likely, by a calculated desire to retain skilled labour, began to see in humane conditions a way of ensuring the continuous and efficient production line. After all, as abundant as unskilled labour was, the growing complexity of the production industry began to require workers of some aptitude.

Even so, strikes and conflict abounded, marking the twilight of the untethered capitalism that had proven as unsustainable as it was insatiable. In its place, a confident labour movement emerged, which to this day purports to guard the rights and dignity of those who trade their skill and sweat for sustenance.

Against this backdrop unfolds the third volume of Per Anders Fogelström's five-part epic, “Minns du den stad” (“Remember the City”), charting Stockholm’s metamorphosis from a backward outpost in the northern provinces of Europe to the hotbed for culture, commerce, and governance in Scandinavia which it would become. Here, Emelie Nilsson, daughter of the late Henning Nilsson, emerges as the pivotal character. Her loyalty, steadfastness, wisdom, and kindness earn her a place in the literary pantheon of paragons, on par with the likes of Jean Valjean (see review from September 2022) and Atticus Finch. Through her modest but indomitable spirit, she becomes the unseen architect of the fortune of others, saving her young nephew from domestic abuse and almost certain death, shielding her brother’s honour, and stirring the young women around her to take the reins of their own lives. Even amid the brewing animosity between capitalists and labourers, where the risk of a violent revolution looms ominously, Emelie wins the trust of her coworkers and employers alike.

Despite the tensions and the enormous upheaval that Stockholm, and indeed the rest of the western world endures, the atmosphere of Fogelström’s universe remains warm, contemplative, and benign. The struggles are, of course, keenly bitter and enmity irreconcilable. Some individuals prey upon the vulnerable, leaving some destitute souls to collapse under the weight of oppression, sometimes inflicting harm on others as they fall. Yet, for all its suffering, hatred, and injustice, Fogelström's world is never desolate. His characters know what is right and wrong and their choices, even when they are harmful or destructive, are rarely governed by malice, but rather by inadequacy and fear.

More than anything else, Fogelström seeks to unveil for us the resilience and tenacity of Stockholm’s underprivileged classes. These workers of the city’s underbelly refuse to give in; neither to despair nor to hunger. And also, as embodied by figures such as Gunnar and Tummen, they refuse to surrender to bitterness or brutality. The socialist revolution in Sweden, was a revolution of dignity and perseverance.

“She who is poor, must be very strong. The grit to toil at length, refusing to give in.”*

The identity of poverty permeates every thread of relationship in “Minns du den stad”, casting its shadow and light upon each encounter and interaction. Fogelström invites his characters to ponder upon their own existence and their station in society. They measure themselves against one another, positioning themselves with regard to one another. They define, compartmentalise, and label themselves and people in their community.  In both their rejection and acceptance of the humiliations they endure, they carve out a remarkable spectrum of perspectives, each unique and defiantly individual. In different ways, they embrace and reject various aspects of their material want to form unique insights into how a population that is united by their squalor, can remain so diverse. No poverty can rob them of their human dignity. 

* My own translation from the Swedish original.

IN THE SPRING OF LIFE

Author: Agnes von Krusenstjerna
Year: 2010 (1938)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers förlag
Language: Swedish

By the time we reach the fourth volume of Agnes von Krusenstjerna's Pauper Nobility-series, titled “I livets vår (“In the Spring of Life”), the distressing maltreatment endured by the unfortunate protagonist, Viveka von Lagercrona, has wrought its predictable effects, rendering her a young lady whose sensibilities have been warped into a state of such disorder that one might scarcely hope to see in her the bloom of a well-functioning social being.

We are reunited with her in the spring of her adulthood, at a moment when her brother and nemesis Antonius, along with two of their companions, Ava de Gam-Palin and Adolf von Gottlibson, are on their way to enjoy a period of rest and recuperation at the estate of Ava’s parents. Ava is secretly in love with Antonius, while Adolf and Viveka engage in a cautious, though mutual, exploration of their feelings. Complicating this fragile patchwork of emotional bonds is the peculiar nature of the friendship between Antonius and Adolf; a connection marked by such closeness that one cannot help but wonder if it transcends the boundaries of ordinary male companionship. Though never explicitly stated, the suggestion that their friendship might surpass the strictly platonic was shocking at the time of this novel’s publication.

I suggested in my review of the preceding volume (see review from July 2024), that, owing to the persistent psychological abuse which characterised much of Viveka’s childhood, her faculties, both social and mental, might be deemed in some degree impaired. As the narrative progresses in this fourth book, we observe the pernicious effects of such abuse. Our heroine appears petrified, bereft of any capacity to act on behalf of herself. She remains a passive observer in the course of her own life, as though every decision and action taken upon her person is but the will of others, to which she submits without question, without interest, and indeed, without resistance. So it is, that the most significant moments of her existence are shaped by the choices of those around her, whether it be her engagement to Adolf or her attendance at the deathbed of her dreaded aunt, Eveline MacDougall.

The nature of Pauper Nobility must be understood against the backdrop of Krusenstjerna’s earlier and most contentious work, the Miss von Phalen-series, which depicted female behaviour that a century ago was considered highly improper, but nowadays would in many societies be regarded as a display of feminine empowerment and emancipation, and therefore not only accepted but moreover encouraged. In a letter to her editor, Krusenstjerna gave assurances that her next endeavour would be of a more neat and tidy disposition, promising to avoid any further perturbations to the delicate sensibilities of the public. It is apparent that the controversy which followed the release of her previous series had left a mark both on her and on her publisher.

In my updated edition of the Pauper Nobility-tetralogy, each volume is accompanied by a commentary from the editor, complete with excerpts from the esteemed literary critics of Sweden and Swedophone Finland at the time of publication. It becomes evident that the cultural elite of the period, who had expressed considerable disapproval towards the Miss von Phalen-saga, found much to admire in the more polished, some would say bland, composition of Pauper Nobility. There appears to have been a general consensus that Krusenstjerna was a brilliant writer, unrivalled in her ability to explore the intricacies of the female experience within the upper classes. Criticism seemed mild and was typically confined to very specific observations of limited gravity. Her command of language and style was rarely questioned and her abilities as a wordsmith were virtually unchallenged.

SPOILER ALERT

And so, “I livets vår” marks the fourth and final volume of the series. Or does it? In the opening scene of the first book (see review from March 2024), we are introduced to Viveka von Lagercrona as an elderly lady, receiving a visitor who stirs in her memories of her childhood. We also become acquainted with her elder brother, the feverishly sensitive Antonius, who threatens to sever all ties with her should she proceed with a marriage he does not condone. Curiously, Krusenstjerna never seems to return to these themes in the fourth volume. Moreover, this edition, in addition to the excerpts from the contemporary press, offers a wealth of bonus material such early drafts and letters in which Krusenstjerna discusses her work. Everything is expertly commented on by the editor. From these documents, we learn that Krusenstjerna had already made significant headway toward a fifth volume at the time of “I livets vår”’s publication. Sadly, she passed away in 1940, at the age of 46, without finishing her work.

In conclusion, Pauper Nobility was an unusual and more personal read to me than most other works of fiction. The character of Sebastian, with his determined efforts to assert himself while daring to transgress the rigid boundaries of his social class, resonated with certain aspects of my own experience, though in a manner less overt. Equally moving, though profoundly painful, was Douglas’ costly defiance of his father’s cherished ambitions for him, and the old colonel’s bitter struggle to reconcile himself to his son’s perceived inadequacies in the career so carefully chosen for him. The selfishness of Antonius, so shallow in its egotism, finds a reflection in his equally self-absorbed mother, Sophia, whose indifference and vanity are as vexatious as they are enervating. Viveka, finally, is the hapless and defeated victim of this all, helplessly crushed under the weight of the collective trauma of her family, to a point where it drove me to physical unease.

It is unlikely that I will read any more works of Krusenstjerna but I am glad I read this. It was a reading experience like no other, and one, I only need once in my life. But need it, I did.   

CHILDREN OF THEIR CITY

Author: Per Anders Fogelström
Year: 1962
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

The second book in Per Anders Fogelström’s epic tale about the people of Stockholm, “Barn av sin stad” (“Children of Their City”) shifts its focus to the children of Henning Nilsson, the protagonist of the first volume of this timeless saga (see my review from August 2024). After his untimely death, a cruelty all too often meted out by fate to the people of the 19^th century, his widow Lotten steps in to shoulder his mantle, taking upon herself the heavy burden of keeping the household clean, clothes mended, and food served while also working long hours as a washerwoman, like her mother before her, eternally bending beneath the dirt of others.  

The city, once a pastoral farmland gracing the slopes of the Brunkeberg ridge, is slowly changing as new buildings sprout from the soil claiming dominion over territory not long ago commanded by the plough. Yet, it is not merely the landscape that shifts. Society itself is caught in the winds of change. The many large and small industries and production facilities, as well as the booming trade with buyers and sellers from near and far, attract masses of unskilled labour who pour into the city in search of a brighter destiny, much like Henning had done 20 years prior to the events in this book.  The city, in all its glory and allure, remains cold and relentless to the newcomers as well as their offspring. Housing is scarce and expensive, work is hard, wages are kept low by the constant inflow of labour. The dreams held by men and women such as Henning and Lotten are quickly shattered by the reality of the city as it appears to exchange their rustic chains for urban shackles, equally crushing but far more insidious. No wonder then that the trade unions, that only began to form in the first novel, by the last decades of the 19^th century begin to gain momentum as they challenge the suffocating weight of an industrial beast that, until now, had cared little for the crushed souls left in its wake.

“The want grew and fed the hatred”

For Henning’s now fatherless family, the poverty is of a different kind than it was for him when he first arrived to Stockholm in the 1860s. Their hardship, though still palpable, is softened by the warmth of companionship. Unlike Henning, who had entered the city as a stranger, forced to forge his own fragile connections, his widow Lotten and their children have each other, as well as a network of friends and acquaintances she and Henning had painstakingly woven over the years. Moreover, they possess something Henning could scarcely have dreamt of in his early days: a house, their own home, modest yet solid, a refuge in a city of shifting fortunes. While Henning had once rented a mattress on the floor of a violent and unpredictable coalman, his family now have the means to offer a room as landlords to others less fortunate. One of their tenants is Bärta, who by lack of character rather than premeditated malice, will in time prove to have a profound impact on the family.

One cannot help but be dazzled by Fogelström’s exquisite command of the history, politics, and geography of 19^th century Stockholm. He masterfully incorporates global, national, and local events into his narrative. At times, these events exercise great influence on his characters’ development; at others, the glide by in the background like clouds in the sky, visible but inconsequential. Reading Fogelström is like being transported back in time. Every alley is historically correct, every event perfectly fitted into the story. As a reader, I trust Fogelström to get every shadow right and the weather report on any particular day to be accurate.

Consequently, Fogelström’s account of the wretchedness that stalks the impoverished is imbued with a chilling authenticity. The prostitution, the crime, and the violence; these are not the aberrations of a select few, but the inevitable companions of destitution in any community. In present-day Sweden, where organised crime casts its bleak shadow ever further over the underprivileged segments of society, typically populated by first- and second-generation immigrants, and gradually spreading its tentacles into every corner of civil society, it is all too convenient for some to attribute this ruin to migration. I would urge anyone who clings to this childish illusion to read "Barn av sin stad" as a necessary corrective. There, within its pages, one will find that the thieves, the rapists, the con artists, and even the murderers are not foreign to this soil. They are blonde, Swedish, and irredeemably poor. Poverty, it seems, is an alchemist that turns human beings into the basest versions of themselves, regardless of their origin. And though the narrative offers moments where happiness dares to flicker and respite from the relentless drudgery briefly graces these lives, it is never long before the misery of want reappears, omnipresent, a constant reminder of the abyss that lies beneath.

“To smile is to open ajar for a moment the hardened shell of everyday existence – and is there anything but tears inside?”  

All quotes are my own translations from the Swedish original and are not from the printed translation by Jennifer Brown Bäverstam.