SOLDIER WITH A BROKEN GUN

Author: Vilhelm Moberg
Year: 1998 (1944)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

Vilhelm Moberg without a doubt counts among the most important figures in Swedish literature. Few writers either before or after him have described the hardships of the regular rural Swede in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and the dream of a better life in America as detailed as he has. His magnum opus, The Emigrants-tetralogy, has become an integral part of Swedish national identity and an urgent reminder that Swedes were also refugees from poverty and famine at one point in time not too long ago. To the Swedish population, this period is known as “Fattigsverige”; i.e. “Sweden, the impoverished”. His careful research, based to a large extent on the many years he spent in the US living among descendants of the Swedish diaspora, sets him apart from other writers concerning themselves with this era in Swedish-American history.

His interest in poverty and migration was surely triggered by the fate of his own family. Like so many other Scandinavians from the poorest segments of society, much of Moberg’s family also migrated to the New World at the turn of the century, including several of his siblings.

At the same time, a growing and increasingly assertive socialist movement was sweeping across Europe. Sweden was no exception and Moberg soon signed up as a party member for the Social Democrats. He spent a considerable portion of his adult years debating for the rights of the under-privileged classes, and from the 1920s and onwards against Nazism and Communism.

All these things; poverty, inequality, the dream about America, writing, socialism, and the fight for a better and fairer tomorrow, come together in what is possibly the closest Moberg ever came to an autobiography: “Soldat med brutet gevär” (not available in English but the title could be translated as “The Soldier With a Broken Gun”). Moberg himself said of it “this is not an autobiography, but this novel, more than any other, is based on material from my own experience.”

The protagonist and Moberg’s alter ego, Valter Sträng, is born as the youngest son to a soldier. Growing up in a society where militarism, alcoholism, want, and political abuse were ubiquitous, at an early age he recognises that the main framework of the Swedish community, based on Lutheranism, allegiance to the King, work ethics, and alcohol are all chains applied to the under-privileged classes by the ruling elite in order to keep the former docile and useful. This puts him at odds with his father (the soldier) and many of his friends, classmates, and colleagues. Much of the storyline is aligned with what we know about Moberg’s own life and even though Valter Sträng finds himself in some situations which may not have been precise representations of Moberg’s specific experiences, the truth is in the message Moberg tries to convey. The writer lets us know how he would have acted had he been faced with some of the challenges he puts before Valter Sträng. And on a whole it is credible.

In many respects, “Soldat med brutet gevär” is a Bildungsroman that captures the transition of a peasant boy from the childhood years in the soldier’s cabin to the threshold of literary fame and the ascension into the cultural and political elites. Bit by bit, Valter Sträng explores the complexity of a society in upheaval and tries to legitimise his path through life. Moberg links his political maturity to his biological aging as if to say that becoming an adult is tantamount to taking a stand. A young Valter Sträng repeatedly laments the fact that his family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers remain oblivious to the social injustice around them and the structural prison created for them by the affluent classes. And yet, a watershed moment for him is when one of his political adversaries calls out his own ignorance. Knowledge, honesty, equality, and activism define Valter Sträng in a way I do not doubt Vilhelm Moberg wanted to be defined himself.    

Besides the biographical virtues of this novel, as always with Moberg, his deep understanding of the class struggle in the 19^th and 20^th centuries as well as his proficient and precise way of putting it into words in a way that almost a century later we can still relate to, makes him the timeless novelist and essayist that he is. His use of the Swedish language, in particular when he twists it to capture the full flavour of various Smolandian dialects and sociolects, provides a peephole into how southern Swedish dialects may have sounded in the past and a study of what role language has as a social class indicator. Valter Sträng’s dialogue as a child and adolescent is written in the Smolandian dialect. As he grows up and discovers socialism, his language changes and Moberg gives him a voice that rivals that of the rich and educated. When he enrols at a formal education institution and begins to socialise with scholars, the transition of his speech is completed. The effect is exacerbated whenever Valter Sträng meets his mother or other characters from his past, whose language remains provincial, something which Valter Sträng never comments or ponders upon.

An element in the novel that I could do without is the superfluous accounts of Valter Sträng’s sex life. His love interests are usually of little consequence for his development and although explaining the main character’s rather detached and unemotional relationship to the opposite sex may serve an autobiographical purpose, the sequences dedicated to his endeavours and ensuing doubt are at times almost cringe-worthy.

The novel is at its best when it focuses on the political awakening of the young boy and his political maturation process. This is where Vilhelm Moberg rightly becomes a giant among giants.