FAHRENHEIT 451

Author: Ray Bradbury
Year: 1991 (1953)
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Language: English

Imagine a world ablaze with flickering screens either plastered onto the walls around you wherever you turn your head or in every man’s, woman’s, and child’s clinched fists. Imagine the barrage of banal messages spewed onto satiated eyes and ears, overwhelming them with manufactured desires and spurious identities. Imagine a society where contemplation and knowledge are scoffed at and the written word is relegated to the fringes of the public sphere while the mainstream agenda is determined by the illiterate and the benighted who by the sheer force of numbers successfully equate opinions with facts in the public discourse on the state of affairs.

Are you imagining a future dystopia?

Or are you picturing the world of today?

To Ray Bradbury this was the future he envisaged in his iconic novel “Fahrenheit 451”. In an unspecified post-world-war America, the protagonist Guy Montag works as a fireman. His job is to burn books. Whenever, the alarm sounds, he and his colleagues at the fire department scramble into their vehicles, called salamanders, and, armed with flame-throwers and kerosene, rush to the place where books have been sighted to purge the community of yet another secret stack of the threat to humanity which is literature. He enjoys his work, is on good terms with his colleagues and manager, and after his shift, with the gratifying sense of having done a good job, he returns home to his wife Mildred in their modest but comfortable house, equipped, like all other houses, with huge screens on the parlour walls which broadcast a carefully crafted mix of news, propaganda, and easily digested entertainment around the clock.

Life is easy, predictable, and delightfully pointless. Until the day Guy runs into their new neighbour, the teenage girl Clarisse McClellan. She is bizarre and she does bizarre things and talks about bizarre topics. Like walking for pleasure, for example. Loitering outdoors is against the law. Or thinking. What is the point of that? And most bizarre of it all, she tells Guy that in the old days, of which a teenager could know next to nothing, firemen were supposed to extinguish fires, not to start them.

The meeting with Clarissa opens Guy’s eyes and, in various forms, he begins to ponder upon the world. Like tasting the rain. Or taking an interest in what it is he is burning on the job every day. And why.

Futuristic dystopias are usually supposed to serve as warnings. They take aim at a certain phenomenon that the writer observes in society and extrapolate from there into the grotesque in order to unveil the peril that the phenomenon is posing to humanity. George Orwell focused on the control of language and history (see review of “Ninety Eighty-Four” from July 2021), Karin Boye on the consequences of the ultimate invasion of privacy (see review of “Kallocain” from June 2021), Margaret Atwood on Evangelical fundamentalism and misogyny (see review of “The Handmaid’s Tale” from November 2020).

Bradbury chooses to challenge the assault on knowledge, culture, and information. And he does it in a most powerful way by pitting two of the most critical inventions in the history of our species against each other: writing and fire. In a highly technological world with floor-to-ceiling tv screens, earbuds, mechanical hounds, advanced vehicles, communication devices, and ultimately the atomic bomb, Bradbury singles out the use of the most primitive technology available to humankind as the final solution to the main enemy of the state. The kind of technology that at 451 degrees Fahrenheit permanently destroys books.

In lieu of books, the government floods the population with the instant gratification of information snippets that are tailored to the recipient in order to create an echo-chamber of reaffirmation and pacification.

“Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!”

This is the second genius of Bradbury’s dystopia. The ultimate perfection is complete emptiness. The immaculate void. Utter nothingness. Mildred lives her life through the images on the screens and the messages in her earbud, which she wears even in her sleep. But when she is asked what programme she has watched or who the characters are that she is listening to, she cannot answer. They have form but no content. They do not fill her void; they perpetuate it.

This is how the government maintains order and compliance while simultaneously reproducing the illusion of freedom, happiness, and perfection. This is also why books become so dangerous. In a smooth world, they seek out and highlight the pores, the imperfections, the abrasions. That is what Bradbury considers quality writing.

“The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. That is my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”

It is often said that it is irrelevant what you read as long as you read. Bradbury seems to disagree. Quality matters. Literature that does not challenge you, does not develop you.  

Of the dystopias I have read so far, “Fahrenheit 451” is undoubtedly among the better. It is very well written and thought through. For the warning signals that Bradbury picked up on in 1953, 70 years later have evolved to a blaring horn. No books are burned in Europe yet, but banning books is rapidly becoming a thing in the United States. School boards, church groups, and concerned parents go out of their way to dictate what others are supposed to read and existing literary works are bowdlerised by their publishers to cater to the fragile minds of the few.

This, in the end, drives home the third and final genius of “Fahrenheit 451”. It does not even have to be a leviathan that burns the books. It may very well suffice they plant a seed, sit back, and watch us do it ourselves. After all, there is more than one way to burn a book.

ON TYRANNY

Author: Timothy Snyder
Year: 2018 (2017)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish (translator Margareta Eklöf)

Some people, particularly intellectually active and capable ones, happen upon a moment in life where they experience something that can be compared to a second awakening. A few may even have several such experiences. For Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and specialist in European 20^th century authoritarian extreme right and extreme left regimes, one such epiphany seems to have been when his own country defaulted on its democratic credibility and elected Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton for president in November 2016.

One year after the elections, Snyder published what would become an almost iconic pamphlet “Om tyranni – tjugo lärdomar från tjugonde århundradet” (“On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”). To a professional historian, none of what is happening today can seem particularly innovative or novel. We have seen it all before. Drawing on his vast knowledge and applying his sharp and unmistakeable pedagogical prowess, Snyder lays bare the imminent danger that our liberal society is facing from the neo-fascists in our days. He puts his finger on red flags and indicators, big and small warning signals to look for, and how to spot the threat behind the thin veil of civility and faux democracy in which the far right routinely tries to shroud its sinister intentions.

The good news is that besides recognising the threat, we also have some clues as to what we can do about it. What is unique about Snyder’s book, is that it does not only show us the danger and the connection to past events, but more importantly gives practical advice on how to counteract the developments and effectively stop the train from going off the cliff.

Each of the lessons is only a few pages long with a short and poignant introduction, a brief exposition, and a crisp conclusion often with a concrete call for action. It is solid, clear, unambiguous, and probably the most practically and directly applicable instruction on how to engage in opposition to totalitarianism that I have ever come across.

Although the book is intended for a US audience in response to the election of Donald Trump, virtually every lesson in it should resonate with a European reader. Snyder, after all, draws his knowledge from research on European authoritarianism which until recently, has enjoyed but modest support in the US.

I will not account for all the rules in this review but although they are all to some extent relevant, a few deserve particular attention.

·        (1) DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE

Virtually every authoritarian regime comes to power without violence. People are adaptable and subservient, and autocrats often bet on it and win. In order to keep out of trouble and stay off the radar, lots of good people will try to anticipate what the ruler wants and obey in advance. The autocrat does not even have to apply oppressive measures to oppress the people (cf. my review of “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” by Étienne de la Boétie from July 2021).

·         (2) DEFEND AN INSTITUTION

Institutions are not indestructible. In fact, they are no stronger than the people that manage them. They need to be defended from the moment they are first under assault. If they are allowed to stand undefended, they will crumble faster than we can imagine. Snyder encourages each and everyone of us to pick any institution (a news outlet, a court of law, a ministry, a trade union) and make it our mission to defend it. 

·        (5) RECALL PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

Does your government ask you to act in violation of the oath you took? Resist! Do they implement laws that will force physicians to break medical confidentiality to expose undocumented migrant? Refuse! Do they want teachers to report 7-year-olds to the police for fighting on the playground? Disobey! Do they require that judges pass sentences without proper trials with public defenders present? Decline! But whatever you do, do not resign. You will be easily replaced. Just stick to protocol and be the safety brake that your country needs in that moment.

·        (6) BE KIND TO OUR LANGUAGE

Avoid using newspeak (cf my review of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell from July 2021). Do you find that people around you all of a sudden call things by a different name than they used to? Pause and try to figure out what changed? Language develops over time and in a normal world there is nothing menacing about it. Just stay alert. Also, stay off the internet and read books. The internet is changing rapidly. Books are consistent (most of the time). Let books be your anchor to the use of language.

·        (9) BELIEVE IN TRUTH

Do not try to be clever. What appears to be true, usually is. Questioning established knowledge by sheepishly citing discredited sources and conspiracy theories does not make you smart. It makes you an idiot. Autocratic propaganda rarely aims to make you believe anything in particular. On the contrary, it is designed to make you disbelieve everything. If there is no truth, there can also be no untruth. Do not allow them to turn you into their instrument of oppression. Yes, scientists are wrong sometimes. So are journalists, politicians, and experts of all kinds. But neither you nor your sources are likely to be qualified to call out their mistakes in any meaningful way. You are probably great at your job. Let everybody else do theirs.

·        (13) PRACTICE CORPOREAL POLITICS

Those who want to rule unopposed will want you to be passive. They want you to stay indoors. They want you to focus on other things and let the world pass by without asking questions and without making trouble. Manifest your dissidence early, before they grow powerful enough to punish you for it. Also, do not let power pit you against other groups or categories in your society. In the 1960s, the Communist regime in Poland struck down a student revolt with the help of the workers. In the 1970s, the workers were similarly crushed by the help of the intellectuals. Not until the labour union Solidarnosc managed to organise workers and intellectuals in unified protests could the dictatorship be toppled.

·        (18) BE CALM WHEN THE UNTHINKABLE ARRIVES

Populists are actively seeking excuses to do away with obstacles on their road to their unlimited power. It they cannot find suitable excuses, sooner or later they will create them. Study carefully how your government reacts to extraordinary events like e.g. a terrorist attack, what words they use, what actions they call for. Do they try to influence the investigators, prosecutors and judges to deliver “swift justice”? Do they remove some of your liberties in the interest of your “security”? Do they accuse any particular group or category of people in your community calling for collective punishment? Is the law, although not rewritten or changed, suddenly interpreted in a completely different way than it used to be? Do not be a sheep!

The running theme throughout most of the lessons in “Om tyranni” seems to be honesty and dignity. To protect our lifestyle and our freedom we must at all times trust the best in us. Logic over panic. Dignity over humiliation. Cooperation over egotism. Respect over hatred. Facts over opinions. Action over cowardice.

In other words… we are doomed.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH

Author: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Year: 1970 (1962)
Publisher: Wahlström & Widstrand
Language: Swedish (translator Hans Björkegren)

"Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concetrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution." These are the words of Vladimir Lenin in the testament he dictated fter a series of strokes had forced him to step down from the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and which would ultimately lead to his death.

Turns out he qas not entierly wrong. During his reigh between 1922 and 1953, Joseph Stalin proved to be disastrous leader. The Soviet economy was shattered, famine plaged an empire that had some of the world's most fertile soil and finest conditions for food production, social progress all but stopped, communities were devastated, millions of people deported, tortured, and murdered. 

One of the many tools of oppression developed bu Stalon was the Gulag system; a network of 53 labour camps at its peak. It is estimated that a total of 18 million people passed through the system before it was abolished shortly after Stalin's death. Over 1.5 million of them died as prisoners. 

"En dag i Ivan Denisovitjs liv" ("A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich") by Alexander Solzhenitsyn does exactly what it says on the tin. It describes one day in the life of the fictitious Gulag-prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, from the moment he wakes up in the morning to the minute he falls asleep in the evening. Through his eyes, we get to experience in detail every second of his day. The waiting, the feeding, the freezing, the longing, the toiling, and throughout it all the mental abuse and methodical denial of privacy and identity. 

The last point, of courfse, was at the core of the Gulag system and was supposed to bring free thinkers back in line. The methods were barbarous, dehumanising, and crude. Prisoners were exposed to constant pressyre, uncertainty, physical distress, and humilition. All major identity markers were targeted. Manliness, fatherhood, class, rank, religious beliefes, and memories were all subject to attacks by the government. Even the very name of the prisoner became a battleground. 

But where there is pressure there is also counter-pressure. Submission needs to be enforced. There will always be resistance. Power, as Michel Foucault among others has shown, is a relationship. The opressor and the oppressed need to engage with each other. Power required agency from the Master as well as the slave. 

"[A] power relationship can onluy be articulated on the basis of two elements which are each indispensable if it is really to be a power relationship: that 'the other' (the one over whom power is exercised) be thoroughly recognized and maintained to the very end as a person who acts", Foucault writes in Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. In my own research, I have shown how this power relationshiop translates into identity, both individual and collective and for both the dominant and the submissive part. 

Solzhenitsyn captures these meagre but decisive areanas for power struggle in a masterful way. Having spent eight years in Gulag himself, he knows what he is talking about.

It is no coincidence that one of the main storylines follows Shukhov's unit as it is ordered to repair a wall around a defunct power station. While they work in temperatures that make the mortar freze on the trowel if the mason does not work fast enough. Shukhov, the prisoner, feels oddly energised while the government-run power station remains impotent behind the newly erected wall.

Furthermore, Shukhov, having been assigned the number S-854 by the administrators, even eight years into his prison sentence reacts to how a Ukrainian prison mate addresses him. 

"Pavlo looked up. 'So they didn't put you in the guardhouse, Ivan Denisovich? All right?' he asked with a marked Ukrainian accent, rolling out the name and patronymic in the way West Ukrainians did even in prison"*

In the same vein, the prisoners typically refer to the co-convict Buinovsky as "The captain", on account of his rank before he was sent to camp.

Resistance comes in many other forms, too. Some of the prisoners receive packages from the outside. They may contain clothes, smoking utensils, or food. The guards routinely open the packages and help themselves to much of the goods and leave only residues for the intended recipient. It is generally accepted among the prisoners that this is the only way to obtain at least some crumbles from home, be it a biscuit, a bit a of a sausage, or a letter. Things like jerseys or slippers never reached their destination. Shukhov, however, asked his family to stop sending gifts. He would rather be without anything himself than feed the guards. This becomes part of the power struggle where the guards are also aware that if they loot too much from the deliveries, the inflow may stop altogether. 

Still another type of resistance is all the sneaking and hiding of food, items, and tools, that the prisoners engage in to mock the rules and gain a small advantage. 

Yet the most sublime form of defiance that Solzhenitsyn explores in "En dag i Ivan Denisovitjs liv" is adaptation as a way of coming to terms with one's fate. 

"Why do you want freedom? In freedom your last grain of faith will be choked with weeds. You should rejoice that you!re[sic!] in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul"*

"Shukhov gazed at the ceiling in silence. Now he didn't know either whether he wanted freedom or not. At first he'd longed for it. Every night he'd counted the days of his stretch--how many had passed, how many were coming. And then he'd grown boted with counting-"*

Shukhov's prison-mate Alyosha flees into his Bible and his Baptist faith. Another detainee, the well-off and educated Tsezar, arranges for some privileges by means of carefully distributing gifts from the packages he receives from the other side of the wall. 

And when all is said and done, when the makeshift wall has been built around the power station in the freezing cold, the watery soup eaten in the noisy canteen, the last humiliating inspection performed, and the final insult yelled, Shukhov lays his head down on his pillow and concludes that his day has been to his satisfaction. 

This proves to be the ultimate resistance against Joseph Stalin's abuse of power. Shuknov could not be broken. He survived. And so, in the end Lenin was also not entireluy right: Comrade Stalin's authority was not unlimited after all. 

*Quotes are from the E. P. Dutton 1963 edition. Translator Ralph Parker

CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN

Author: Sayaka Murata
Year: 2020 (2016)
Publisher: Lind & Co
Language: Swedish (translator Vibeke Emond)

Reading some writers is like spending time in an ancient royal treasury in London or Vienna. laden with riches from floor to ceiling. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Thomas Mann, and Henryk Sienkiewicz come to mind as writers who will overwhelm their readers in a wealth of philosophical depth dressed in exquisite language and breath-taking style. Among contemporary writers Doris Lessing, Arundathi Roy, and Salman Rushdie could be mentioned.

Other writers are like that perfectly cut solitary diamond that stands in splendid isolation above all others sending its brilliance through countless facets in all directions and angles, demanding complete attention from the mesmerised onlooker. Nicolai Gogol, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Olga Tokarczuk are some writers that arguably would represent these sharp beacons in literature.

Yet from time to time, a writer settles for being the barely noticeable grain of sand inside the clam. The clam being you, the reader. The grain of sand that once being planted will over time grow into an ideal sphere of mother-of-pearl, expanding layer after layer as time passes, accumulating value by each thought being added, each perspective explored, each reflection pondered upon. In all its unassuming modesty. “Hur mår fröken Furukura” (“Convenience Store Woman”) by the Japanese writer Sayaka Murata appears to be precisely this sort of book and just maybe it is the rarest type of literature.

The plot is simple enough. Keiko Furukura is a thirty-six years old Japanese woman who has worked in a convenience store on an hourly basis for eighteen years. Colleagues have come and gone, bosses replaced each other numerous times, products been launched and cancelled, but Furukura has remained. This has caused some concern in her social life. No one is expected to work in a convenience store in Japan for this long. As a temporary solution to put oneself through college; sure. As an extra income for bored housewives for a year or two; no problem! But as a career? Unacceptable. Incomprehensible! Preposterous! On top of this, Furukura has never been in a romantic relationship which furthermore exacerbates her family’s and friends’ consternation.

From the offset, we learn through flashbacks from her childhood that Furukura has had a unique way to perceive the world around her and that her view has not always been aligned with the mainstream interpretation of social and natural phenomena in her community. Her occasionally radical actions as a young girl, based on literal rather than figurative compliance with instructions or incentives, repeatedly got her in trouble. As a consequence, Furukura began to observe people in her vicinity and mimic their responses to various situations. She even adjusted her choice of attire, her motion patterns, her speech and voice, and her opinions according to her observations. All was done in a dispassionate and objective manner without any show of emotion from Furukura’s side, apart from an occasional expression of disbelief or curiosity. Over the years, she manages to pass for somewhat normal. Had it not been for her career and her lack of interest in men.

It probably lies close at hand to diagnose Furukura somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum of high-functioning autism but for the purpose of the novel, this is largely irrelevant. Murata never mentions a diagnosis although Furukura’s family entertains the idea of their beloved Keiko being in need of therapy. Much more interesting are the things we can learn about our society through the eyes of someone who observes it from the outside and tries to adapt without really understanding. Contrary to an anthropologist, Furukura never attempts to explain or make sense of society. She is quite content merely finding a way to fit in and feel safe. Taking up the job in the convenience store was part of this quest to begin with, eighteen years prior to the events in the novel. Even so, we can learn a lot about ourselves by witnessing the world through the lens of her eyes. It is by this process, the nudge by the text that inspires the reader to apply his or her own power of observation to the story, that the grain becomes a pearl. Murata does not explain the world to us through Furukura. She does not interpret it or sift through it. She simply shows it to us through a different window.

A few words on the translation of the title. After some research, I seem to understand that the Japanese original title is in fact gender neutral and perhaps best translated as “Convenience Store Person” rather than “Woman”. Furukura’s gender certainly plays no meaningful role in the book. AT least not to her. The Swedish translation (which means “How is Miss Furukura doing?”) somehow misses the mark, too. Furukura is never referred to as Miss Furukura in the book; most of the time people just call her Furukura and only her family calls her by her first name. It seems to me that Murata went through some trouble to make her protagonist’s gender identity purposefully vague. And yet, both the English and Swedish translations blast it onto the respective cover.

SPOILER ALERT

All of Furukura’s carefully crafted persona is put to the test when the obnoxiously arrogant Shiraha is hired to the convenience store team. He is lazy, rude, unseemly, and daft. It soon transpires that his intended purpose of joining the team is to find a suitable wife. Not among his co-workers, mind you. That would be beneath Shiraha. He has his heart set on any random, affluent, and well-educated female customer of suiting age. Truth be told, he isn’t much interested in family life. All he claims to want is to get his own family, particularly his sister-in-law, off his back so that he can focus on starting his business.

When Shiraha and Furukura begin to talk, they come to realise that by moving in together, they can solve both their problems. The result of what seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement and the effect it has on Furukura’s social life is the key takeaway from this book. Although, Furukura becomes miserable and thrown off, and makes no secret of it, her closest friends and family are overjoyed by the change in her life. Even when they see that Shiraha is an exceptionally poor choice of partner, they can still relate to Furukura through her misery which turns out to be her definitive entry ticket to full social acceptance. Better a miserable friend they can relate to than a content friend they cannot understand.

This, in the end, brings the story back to the assumption of Furukura’s diagnosis. Her atypical behaviour would generally be considered a result of her failure to connect emotionally to other people, as is part of the diagnosis for autism. And yet, looking at it from the other angle; isn’t her family’s and friends’ failure to connect with Furukura equally damning? And if so, on what grounds do we call out only one of the angles as a disability?

Sayaka Murata has written an adorable piece of fiction with a refreshing warmth and sense of humour. It is a simple and straightforward book about identity, acceptance, and harmony, all of which are important issues, but in no way do they overwhelm or crush the reader. I closed the book after the final page invigorated and energised with a final thought lingering in my mind: “Make Furukura the manager of the convenience store already!”

 

 

 

THE RED ROOM

Author: August Strindberg
Year: 1981 (1879)
Publisher: Norstedts
Language: Swedish

From Portugal in the Southwest to Russia in the Northeast, from Pessoa to Pushkin, every country in Europe and probably most other countries as well, has its national literary treasure that is a monumental figure in its own country but little-known outside of its borders (I touched upon this in my review of Pushkin on this blog in August 2021).

For Sweden, this literary giant is August Strindberg. Insofar as Strindberg is spoken of at all internationally, a conversation for the most part confined to the walls of academia, he is first and foremost associated with his stage plays; most notably Miss Julie but also Master Olof, The Father, The Ghost Sonata, and A Dream Play. To Swedes, on the other hand, he is just as famous if not more, for his novels The People of Hemsö, The Son of a Servant, and more than any other “Röda rummet” (“The Red Room”). 

“Röda rummet” is generally considered to be the first modern novel in Swedish literature and its arrival in 1879 stirred up a storm in the Swedish cultural establishment at the time. Strindberg’s choice of topic, his relentless criticism of the media, academia, and art world, and his concrete, straightforward, and unapologetic use of the language, were all new to the populus litteratus holmiensis at the time. The book quickly became hotly contested and feverishly debated.  

Strindberg knew exactly what he was doing and how to evoke this effect. He had closely followed the developments of French literature the years before, striking up what could almost be called a friendship with Émile Zola, who in 1868 had earned great fame with his highly provocative novel “Thérése Raquin”, which Strindberg surely must have come across, and had already started to publish his magnum opus; “The Rougon-Macquart” saga. Strindberg was determined to become the foremost naturalist writer in Scandinavia modelled on Zola. “Röda rummet” effectively earned him this title.

The novel is set in mid-19^th century Stockholm where Arvid Falk, a newly examined civil servant, having grown disillusioned by the inefficiency and self-aggrandisement of the bureaucratic caste to which he belongs, decides to sacrifice his education, social standing, and steady income in favour of becoming a journalist in pursuit of truth, beauty, and social equality. He quickly descends into the impecunious circles of Stockholm where he meets a catalogue of odd characters, almost exclusively male, who for a moment in time share their destinies with him. Through his interaction with them, he comes to realise that the people at the bottom of society, among whom he was hoping to find the genuineness he thought lacking in the administrative classes, are just as corrupt, scheming, and malicious as they are on any other step of the social ladder. His boundless disappointment is the pivotal climax of this novel. There is no salvation for him to be found. One of Strindberg’s most famous quotes “Det är synd om människorna” (”How pitiable people are”) could easily summarise this novel, as well.

It is commonly accepted that Arvid Falk is based on August Strindberg himself. Not in the autobiographical sense , but many of Strindberg’s observations, opinions, and values are brought forth by the actions and statements of this character. It is reasonable to assume that most if not all of the remaining characters are similarly modelled on real people whom Strindberg knew.

To me, the sculptor turned philosopher Olle Montanus stands out as the most memorable one. Strindberg makes a point of a man originating from the most modest of backgrounds with the most basic of educations who is, at the same time, the brightest and most perceptive of the characters that Arvid Falk encounters. Olle Montanus’ infamous lecture titled “On Sweden” given to a self-proclaimed but utterly confused workers’ union is a classic in itself and allows Strindberg to unleash a fierce assault on the Swedish self-image and bizarre nationalism. Montanus outright calls Sweden a German colony in front of a frantic audience which leaps to the defence of a system that effectively oppresses it.

Interestingly enough, there are only two female characters of interest in this novel and both are portrayed as deceitful, petty, quarrelsome, and conniving. The young wife of Arvid Falk’s dominant brother, is a vain and materialistic but not terribly bright schemer who is good at picking her husbands pockets for money but bad at spending it in a way that would afford her any substantial improvement to her social position. The other one, Agnes, is a fugacious phenomenon in most men’s lives but despite sacrificing her honour, she gets very little but scorn and misery in return. In the end, from the good-natured Arvid Falk, himself.    

Each of the plots that Strindberg chose for Röda rummet, is intended to highlight a specific slice of society that the author wishes to criticise. The press is one of Strindberg’s most obvious targets as he destroys the leading Swedish newspapers of the time accusing them of being dishonest and self-serving.

“- Have you no morals, Ygberg?
- No! Whenever a fool has an idea—it comes to the same thing whether it is original or not—he calls it his conviction, clings to it and boasts of it, not because it is a conviction, but because it is his conviction.”

By referring to the newspapers using clever but decipherable monikers as disguise, Strindberg accuses the press not only of corruption and personal agendas but also of collusion and plot to safeguard their mutual areas of influence and power. The public argument between liberal and conservative news outlets, that ostensibly resembles a struggle between ideologies, in essence turns out to be a joint power vertical where the agents reinforce each other in a relationship akin to symbiosis.

Strindberg also fires off broadsides against the financial and insurance industry. The rise and fall of the insurance company Triton, in which Arvid Falk’s overbearing brother is one of the investors, is a scorching critique of the lawlessness typical for the financial sector at the time. The account of the wide variety of small niche-banks, many of which at the time had the right to print their own banknotes, further underpins the state of chaos that prevailed. In an absolutely hilarious episode, one of Arvid Falk’s acquaintances shows up on his doorstep distributing outrageous loans left, right, and centre.

"- How much do you want? I can let you have it.
- Are you serious? asked Falk, and his face cleared.
- Serious? Hm! How much? The figure! The amount!
- I could do with, say, sixty crowns.
- Good Lord, how modest you are, remarked Borg, and turned to Levin.
- Yes, it is very little, said the latter. Take as much as you can get Falk while the purse is open.
- I'd rather not! Sixty crowns is all I want, and I can't afford to take up a bigger loan. But how is it to be paid back?
- Twelve crowns every sixth month, twenty-four crowns per annum, in two instalments, said Levin promptly and firmly.
- Those are easy terms, replied Falk. Where do you get money on those terms?
- From the Wheelwrights' Bank. Give me paper and a pen, Levin!

Quick as lightning Levin produced a promissory note, a pen, and a pocket inkstand. The note had already been filled up by the others. When Falk saw the figure eight hundred he hesitated for a moment.

- Eight hundred crowns? he asked.
- You can have more if you are not satisfied.
- No, I won't; it's all the same who takes the money as long as it is paid up all right. But can you raise money on a bill of this sort, without security?
- Without security? You are forgetting that we are guaranteeing it, replied Levin, with contemptuous familiarity.  

/…/

- But seriously, said Falk, what happens if one can't pay on the day when the money falls due?
- One takes up a fresh loan at the Tailors' Bank, for instance, replied Borg.
- Why don't you go to the Imperial Bank? questioned Falk.
- Because it's rotten! answered Borg.
- Can you make head or tail out of all this? said Sellén to Olle.
- I don't understand a word of it, answered the latter.”

August Strindberg’s legacy in Swedish literature cannot be overestimated. This is partly due to the eristic and ignescent public figure that he was in his day. While most writers and thinkers gradually develop their philosophy, Strindberg’s thinking and attention fluctuated wildly over his lifetime. He constantly found new battlegrounds and new viewpoints that repeatedly hurled him into ever new conflicts and controversies. His constant clashes with the cultural elite, which made it impossible for him to ever have a seat at the Swedish Academy let alone be considered for the Nobel Prize, and his persistent onslaught on the bourgeoisie, the church, and King Oskar II generated a persona that was vacillatingly considered a threat to civilisation and a hero of the people depending on community.

Yet looking beyond this, on literary merits alone, Strindberg remains a leviathan who influenced many great writers who came in his wake, the same way Emile Zola once influenced him. His analysis of power and ability to put his finger on the key elements of the power struggle in society as well as his courage to voice these opinions were trailblazing at the time. Jorge Luis Borges called him “my god, alongside Nietzsche”, Thomas Mann said that “Strindberg’s influence, moral and artistic, can only be compared with that of Tolstoy”, and Maxim Gorky often cited Strindberg as one of his sources of inspiration. But maybe Franz Kafka put it the best in a diary entry in 1915, three years after Strindberg’s death.

“My condition is better since I read Strindberg. I am reading him not to read him, but to be able to lie on his chest. He holds me like a child on his left arm. I am sitting there as a man on a statue. Ten times, I am in danger of falling down but on the eleventh attempt I sit steadily. I am secure, and I have a great view.”    

 

All translations of "Röda rummet" to English by Ellie Schleussner, Howard Latimer Ltd, Kingsway (1913). Translation of Kafka’s diary from lecture given by professor Björn Meidal in Stockholm 2012. All other translations are my own.  

OUTLOOKS

Author: Christian Munthe
Year: 2022
Publisher: Alhambra
Language: Swedish

The novel is like a long journey by car or a train through a foreign country. Through the window, you watch the scenery as you make your way toward the goal of your voyage. You see the landscape as it changes. Villages come and go, rolling hills become mountains and then valleys, cities and forests alternate before your eyes. You absorb the impressions and through them learn about the environment, the architecture, the nature, the history, and the life of the people who live in these lands. You allow the impressions to flood you like the waves of an ocean flushes a beach.

Suddenly, you see something that catches your eye. Maybe it is something you do not understand. Maybe something of particular beauty or value. It could be something you have seen in a picture but never visited live. You stop your car, you get out, and you spend some time focusing on this one particular thing, whether it be a landmark, a historical place, a cave, a sunset, or a herd of sheep grazing on a hillside. You take your time to savour this particular phenomenon. This brief stop, by contrast to the moving car, is a short story. An opportunity to drill into one single issue or topic, or to evoke one particular thought or emotion.

This is precisely how I read Christian Munthe’s collection of eight short stories in a volume titled “Utsikter” (not available in English but the title could be translated as “Views” or “Sights” but also “Outlooks” or “Forecasts”) which in various ways address the nature of humanity in a rapidly changing and mechanised and digitised world.

The first story, “Strandfynd” (“Flotsam”), is a tale about a small coastal community and the drastic consequences of a bubble bursting when a person who thinks he is keeping a secret about his private life is made aware that he is the only one who actually considers it a secret.

“Överlevarna” (“The Survivors”) is a study of the metamorphosis of ethnic and national identity across generations on the backdrop of a Jewish family that left Poland during the Nazi occupation, and how such an identity can come about by destiny as much as by choice.

 “Sanningens pris (“The Price of Truth”) is a futuristic account of a world order where not only science and research are subject to global market mechanisms but truth itself is determined by supply and demand.

The fourth text is “Högt över ytan” (“High Above the Surface”) which is told in the shadow of the widely overlooked shipwreck of M/S Jan Heweliusz in 1993, dwarfed by the loss of M/S Estonia a year and a half later.

In “Videomöten” (“Video conferences”), which is the shortest of the stories in this collection, Munthe investigates the nature of communication and how poor-quality online meetings using tools such as Teams or Zoom, can serve to keep a relationship alive but also how they reshape it and become an integrated part of the relationship rather than just a vehicle for it.

“Medborgare Roskow” (“Citizen Roskow”) tells the story of the totalitarian apparatus and how power can be exercised by the use of narratives rather than people, and the dangers of turning rights into privileges.

The seventh and longest text has also lent its name to the entire collection, “Utsikter”. Again, Munthe takes us into the future, this time to dwell on the concepts of time, distance, and responsibility as the main character is leading a group of scientists with the mission to find a way to travel between solar systems and establish human (or pseudo-human) colonies.

The final part of the book is “Vålnaden i Nanzen-Ji” (“The Phantom in Nanzen-Ji”) which pits a family man against the memory of his abusive father, the influence of weakness and pettiness across generations, and the undetermined relation between forgiveness and liberation.

Reading these stories, it is clear to me that they have been written by someone who is used to writing, but even more to reading. Not only because Munthe is a professor of philosophy and is more than familiar with the philosophical and sociological thinkers of past and present, but even more so because the thoughts contained in the stories, and the way they are being tested and presented show a comprehensive familiarity with world literature. The issues raised herein, seem to have been on the author’s mind for some time before he finally decided to put them in words in the form of fictional stories.

Even though, I read them all with great interest (with a slight reservation to the eponymous “Utsikter” which I found somewhat messy and disorganised), I will contain myself to commenting on only two of them here.

“Sanningens pris” is in my view a highly perceptive and intriguing story. The main character, Oskar Kamp, is the Head of Market Monitoring at the relatively recently inaugurated Knowledge Liability Office (“Kunskapsgälden” in Swedish) in charge of monitoring and reporting deviations in the trading patterns of science, research, and truth. The point of the exchange traded truth is to allow the invisible hand of the global market to determine what is true and what is false. It is a dystopian world where investor sentiment, rather than facts and public interest, dictates not only what academic endeavours to finance and what research projects to pursue, which to some extent is the case in our society already, but moreover it determines what is and is not true. It is a chilling proposition, but it does not end there.

One of the disciplines that has an index on Oskar Kamp’s monitor is economic science which is considered basic research. This means that the truth-assumption of the science that constitutes the platform for the Knowledge Liability Office is itself subject to the market forces monitored by the same. This problem resembles Russell’s paradox in set theory where the set of truths in this case include the truth that depends on and evaluates truth itself.

“Medborgare Roskow” is at its core a power analysis. There is the clearly visible power structure that divides the population up in denizens and citizens where the former have some basic rights and privileges but are excluded form higher offices, freedom of movement, and higher education whereas the latter constitute a small elite to which all doors are open. Officially, there is nothing stopping any person from becoming a citizen, if they can pass a rigorous test. But there is also an invisible power structure which is the privilege of the ruling party alone and above which no denizen or citizen stands.

Munthe’s power analysis seems to hark back to the Marxist thought on class struggle but as I read it, this is merely a mirage. The division between the citizen elites and the denizen masses is actually an artificial ruse intended to give society a veneer of class difference, but as Robert Roskow will find out, true power is vested elsewhere. Whoever controls the definitions, controls the people. Citizens and denizens, although having different roles and privileges, are equally oppressed, albeit not equally abused, by the system and its enforcers. In that sense, the story becomes a critique of the failed implementation of Marxism in the 20^th century (cf. my review of the Communist Manifesto from August 2021). In a Swedish context, it can serve as a visualisation of the right-wing parties’ adamant claim that there are true and less true Swedes, but they have a hard time defining what they mean by it. How would they propose to test the difference between a Swedish citizen and an alien denizen without being openly racist?

One of the drawbacks with the short story format is that characters are not really supposed to develop. There just isn’t room for it. Instead, their personalities and backgrounds are there to test them in a particular situation or conundrum. Munthe does a solid job sketching his characters. To me, Oskar Kamp is much akin to Leo Kall and Winston Smith as the one cog in the oppression machinery that begins to wobble. Robert Roskow is the expired part that is replaced by version 2.0. Both are rays of humanity in the darkness of a faceless machinery.

Without a doubt, “Utsikter” is a delightful read with each of the stories offering just the right amount of food for thought to keep your mind busy during the day without freaking you out. I warmly recommend it to anyone who appreciates having their circles moved a bit from time to time. Although this was the writer’s first attempt at belletristic writing, I surely hope it will not be his last; whether the next publication be a long journey, or a curious stop along the way.    

 

 

12 RULES FOR LIFE: AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS

Author: Jordan B. Peterson
Year: 2018
Publisher: Allen Lane
Language: English

Jordan Peterson rose to fame largely thanks to his smash hit “12 Rules for Life” in 2018 and has since then taken a place among the most notable popular thinkers and educators of today alongside Richard Dawkins, Slavoj Zizek, Sam Harris, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb to mention a few. His right-wing, conservative, Christian perspective on culture and the human psyche fills a void in the non-academic discourse that, whether you agree with him or not, is a valid viewpoint in Western society. His academical credentials (PhD in Psychology from McGill, teaching positions at Harvard and Toronto, long practical experience from clinical psychology and therapy) are impeccable and he gave lectures, participated in debates, and featured on talk-shows and panels around the world long before he became a superstar.

“12 Rules for Life” is exactly what it says on the cover. Peterson lists twelve rules and elaborates on how following them may lead a person to a better and more harmonious life. The rules are

1.      Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Peterson’s point of departure is similar to Hobbes’ as described in “Leviathan” (see review from April 2022), that chaos is a state of nature and the driving force for each individual human is to dominate other humans. Peterson here argues that if you act like a winner, you will be perceived as a winner, and ultimately become a winner.

2.      Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Peterson notes that people are more likely to pamper their loved ones (or even pets) than themselves and encourages his readers to pay as much attention to themselves and their needs as they do to others.

3.      Make friends with people who want the best for you. Friendship, to Peterson, is a reciprocal arrangement. There has to be value in friendship for both parties engaged in it. If you realise nothing good for yourself is coming out of your relationship, or if you would not recommend one of your friends to your sister or your father, then you may be better off not entertaining friendship with that person.

4.      Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. Life choices are games of success and failure. Our selective mind compares us unfairly because the standards it chooses for our comparison are arbitrary. Peterson argues that we see what we expect to see so our experience of success or failure can be managed by adjusting our expectations.

5.      Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. Children are monsters. And if they are allowed to remain monsters into adulthood, it can only end in calamity. Peterson tells his readers to take responsibility for assimilating their children into society in a way that will make other people like them. A person that is appreciated by others has a better chance of getting ahead in life. And it is the parents’ responsibility to make this happen.

6.      Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. Being prepared is a virtue. The only thing that you can truly influence is your own life and your own house. You have full power to prepare your house for a flood or a storm, in a way that you do not have to prepare your neighbourhood, or town or country. Peterson wants us to dig where we stand.

7.      Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). Work and sacrifice are delayed gratification. By sacrificing something small today, we may gain something significant tomorrow. This insight, according to Peterson, is characteristic for humans and makes us superior to other creatures. He wants us to invest in our future, instead of hunting for instant pleasure.

8.      Tell the truth – or, at least don’t lie. Peterson argues that people lie when reality becomes too hard to handle. Lies are a tool to warp reality. However, if reality becomes warped, we ourselves risk getting lost in a mirage. We lose sight of what is real. Therefore, lies eventually come to hurt ourselves in the end.

9.      Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. People seem to be gripped by fear of having to change their minds. Conversations usually turn into power struggles. Peterson claims, that the search for knowledge is the highest form of wisdom. By this rule, he wants our dialogues to be centred on knowledge, and not on ourselves.

10.   Be precise in your speech. The world is simple when it behaves. That is why people navigate via categories. It makes the world predictable. Simple minds require simple rules. A person who does not know him- or herself, can find comfort in ignorance. Self-discovery, however, is empowerment. The more we know, and the better we know it, the more precise we can express ourselves, and the better we can formulate our goals, our critique, and our demands.

11.   Do not bother children when they are skateboarding. People are not risk-minimisers; they are risk-optimisers, says Peterson. Exploring the limits of danger, fear, and one’s own capacity builds confidence and self-awareness. Boys and girls play different games because they have different predispositions. Male aggression is natural, not cultural. That is why one should allow boys to be boys and girls to be girls. Both in school and elsewhere.

12.   Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. Suffering is the baseline of life, says Peterson. Every major religion is based on the assumption of suffering. By finding moments in life where suffering can be temporarily suspended, we keep ourselves from perishing or going mad. Peterson advises his readers to pay attention to every little ray of light in their lives, even if that ray is just petting a random cat. Dogs are fine, too.

Many of these rules seem rather straightforward and uncontroversial at first glance. I can certainly subscribe to the advice that we need to take care of ourselves and engage in relationships that are mutually beneficial or to take the time to smell the roses (or pet cats) every now and then. Still, I would like to make one or two remarks.

First, it is imperative that the reader understands that the rules in this book are not universal but rather intimately associated with the Western, or I should say even Northern American, culture. Even though Peterson’s worldview is rooted in his base postulate that life equals suffering, which he shares with many major religions including Buddhism, his antidote to chaos is narrowly focused on people like himself. His frequent referrals to Scripture (most notably the story of Cain and Abel in the Genesis) and his own upbringing in Fairview, Alberta, as a proxy for society as he perceives it, make an unmistakeable statement about his intended audience.

Second, Peterson is quick to make claims in a way that suggests that his conclusions are the only possible ones from the evidence at hand. But that is not always so. Even if we may agree with him, intellectual honesty demands that we remain open to alternative interpretations of the facts. Peterson proposes a simplified universe and tolerates no disputes. To a lesser mind, his assertiveness may sound powerful, but to an educated reader, this constitutes a weakness in Peterson’s argument.

Third, Peterson assumes that each individual person is an independent agent and that there is no option for collective action. Society, in Peterson’s eyes, is a Leviathan or a law of nature that cannot be changed or influenced, since all intervention by any human being must be done on an individual level. Every rule in his book is rooted in this assumption.

Apart from these three general observations, some of the individual rules require particular unpacking. As this book has been twisted and turned by readers far more competent than I in both philosophy and psychology, I will not claim to make a comprehensive analysis of the Peterson-doctrine, but I will allow myself to highlight a few of the many thoughts and arguments that caught my attention.

Rule 4. Jordan Peterson seems to align himself with the neoclassical dogma of the rational man that governs modern economics. “If you hadn’t decided that what you are doing right now was better than the alternatives, you wouldn’t be doing it.” This seems like a very bold statement for a psychologist to build a rule of life upon. There are countless of reasons why people knowingly commit acts that they are fully aware are not optimal for them. This happens due to an array of reasons such as laziness, fear, hatred, malevolence, self-harm, mental illness, or (as Peterson points out himself in Rule 7) as a pursuit of instant gratification rather than long-term benefits. Actions are not always based on decisions. On the contrary, we are just as busy deciding subconsciously what not to do as we are deciding what to actually do. The bulk of human actions are driven by instinct and emotions, and very little is subject to conscious and rational deliberation. As Peterson says himself in Rule 9, “[p]eople think they think but it’s not true.”

Rule 5. In this rule Peterson, again, makes some sweeping claims. He suggests that humans (Homo sapiens) are naturally violent, and presents as evidence the violent predisposition of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as our species’ closest relatives, claiming that evolution maintained aggression in our branch of the evolutionary tree of primates. What he fails to address is that another branch of Pan, equally closely related to humans, the Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are significantly more docile than chimpanzees and possess little of the aggressive instincts of their slightly larger cousins. This doesn’t mean that Peterson’s claim about human aggression is false, but his evidence is by any standard inadequate.

Rule 11. This is probably the most problematic of the twelve rules and the one where Peterson does away with all scientific or pseudo-scientific decorum and indulges fully in his personal opinions and preferences. He goes on a completely unsubstantiated rant on how the educational system, from primary school all the way through higher education, favours girls/women and how post-modernism was created as a way to oppress men by calling out the myth of the patriarchy as the root cause for every female failure or short-coming. To his credit, he admits that culture (I prefer the term “society” or “social norms”/“social expectations” but I will humour Peterson in this regard) is an oppressive structure and his thought on the balance between oppression and opportunity that culture provides is valid for the type of popular science that this book is supposed to be. But he then dismisses the claim of the patriarchy as “perverse” without offering much more than anecdotal evidence that sounds more like coming from an anonymous twitter-troll than a world-renowned professor of psychology. As an example, he submits that “[t]he Swedes, /…/, push equality to its limits” without explaining what the limits of equality might be. Can men and women be too equal?

To conclude, there is abundant evidence that what we are witnessing now, and which is causing the right-wing backlash in many communities, is the final hour of the White, Christian male hegemony. Peterson himself, is a prominent warrior in defence of a world-order that is being challenged by non-Whites, women, and gender fluidity. It is a valid, albeit problematic position to desire the perpetuation of the old world order, but it does not do anybody any favours to deny its premise or misrepresent the ideas that challenge it.

“12 Rules for Life” is a textbook on how to preserve current power structures and how each and every one of us can and should assimilate ourselves and our offspring into the matrix without questioning it or trying to influence it. “If the world you are seeing is not the world you want, /…/ it’s time to examine your values.” A recurring theme in Peterson is just this. Life is suffering. Don’t try to change it. Learn to live with it. The only thing you can change is yourself, the world is unchangeable. Don’t even try. This message is hammered in through every single one of the rules.

If you agree with this doctrine, then this book will certainly give you massive support and I do not doubt that it will offer useful advice on how to make space for yourself in the purgatory that is life and make your time on earth less torturous. If on the other hand you believe that the world can be changed and should be changed, and that cooperation and collective action are a thing, Peterson has very little to say that will convince you.

Having said all that, I want to make perfectly clear that I hugely enjoyed reading “12 Rules for Life”. I would not have chosen it myself but received it as a gift from a friend whose opinions and taste in literature I highly value. This encounter gave me the opportunity to reflect upon my own hierarchy of values and my arguments in support of my standpoints on various issues. Moreover, it offered me a window into the mind of a competent conservative thinker which gave me insights I would otherwise not have been able to gain in my everyday environment. In the spirit of Peterson’s Rule 9, I would therefore like to add one additional rule.

Rule 13. Read books that you receive as a gift and that you wouldn’t have picked yourself.