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.