THE NARNIA CHRONICLES

Author: C. S. Lewis
Year: 2013 (1950-1956)
Publisher: Bonnier Carlsen
Language: Swedish (translator Birgitta Hammar)

Clive Staples Lewis’s ”Berättelsen om Narnia” (”The Narnia Chronicles”) undoubtedly ranks among the undisputed classics in children literature in general and high fantasy in particular.  Its innovative world-building and wide catalogue of characters have enthused generations of young boys and girls through all kinds of media forms, such as television, radio, the silver screen, and the stage, to say nothing of the books themselves. My own first encounter with Narnia in my childhood was the 1979 animated tv-adaptation by CBS and I was flabbergasted. The mere thought of a child becoming a hero and a king was new to me.

The series consists of seven books published between 1950 and 1956. It tells the story of a world, Narnia, that is in every way superior to ours. Here, the colours are brighter, flavours stronger, fruit juicier, and air fresher. It is populated by talking animals and mythological creatures such as minotaurs, giants, and fauns. Most of the seven books begin with the main human protagonists teleporting from our own world to Narnia, be it by the help of magic rings, a gateway inside a wardrobe, or by being summoned by a higher will. Usually, they arrive at a time of crisis and are destined to help the denizens of Narnia restore order, peace, and prosperity. All the time, they are supervised by the almighty lion Aslan; the creator of worlds.

Although the protagonists change over time, they have some traits in common: they are all children, they are more or less loosely connected to one another in our world by kinship or acquaintance, and they have no super powers. Furthermore, they all improve to become better versions of themselves as a result of their experiences in Narnia.

Lewis did not write the books in the chronological order of events and still today there is a dispute among scholars and fans alike, in what order to read them. Lewis’s own communication during his lifetime gives little guidance and it has turned out that whatever order you place the books, there will be inconsistencies and logical gaps. Lewis, in a letter, confesses that the series was by no means planned and that each novel came to him on its own merits. Consequently, the order in which the books were written does not correspond to the order in which they were published, which in turn does not correspond to the order in which the events in Narnia unfold. My edition is based on the HarperCollins enumeration which orders the entries in the chronological order the events play out.

1.      The Magician’s Nephew; the penultimate book to be written tells the story of how Narnia came to be, and why there is a street light in the middle of the Narnian forest.

2.      The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; the first book to be written and published and introduces the main characters, the children Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy who will become the most legendary kings and queens in the history of Narnia.

3.      The Horse and His Boy; the first entry where humans native to Narnia appear and where the children from our world play a secondary role.

4.      Prince Caspian; 1300 years have passed in Narnia since the rule of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy although only one year has elapsed in Britain. The children are summoned to restore order in their former kingdom and protect the rightful ruler and heir to their throne.  

5.      The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’; Prince Caspian, Edmund, and Lucy along with their unbearable cousin Eustace embark on an epic journey on the high seas far beyond the known waters of Narnia to find the legendary lands of the Lion.

6.      The Silver Chair; Eustace and his friend Jill are saved from some bullies at their school by being whisked away to Narnia and tasked with rescuing a prince who has been taken captive by an evil witch.

7.      The Last Battle; the final demise of Narnia and the end of time in that world and, in a sense, ours.  

Lewis was already an established writer by the time he penned The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and it is therefore surprising how poorly written the books actually are. Particularly The Magician’s Nephew is a disappointment. Whilst it must be conceded that the merit of these tomes as a monumental piece of children fiction is beyond dispute, the same cannot be said of the internal consistency and coherence of the narrative. One example of inconsistent world-building is the depiction of magic and its limitations in Narnia. In some books, magic is portrayed as a powerful force with few limits, capable of achieving almost anything the user desires. In others, however, magic is portrayed as having more limitations and requiring specific knowledge or tools to work. This inconsistency can be jarring and can lead to confusion about the nature and limits of magic in the Narnia universe.

Furthermore, there are inconsistencies in the depiction of the geography and culture of Narnia. In some books, Narnia is portrayed as a small, isolated kingdom, while in others it is depicted as a sprawling empire with a rich and diverse culture. Similarly, the cultures and religions of Narnia are sometimes portrayed in a respectful and nuanced way, while at other times they are reduced to stereotypical caricatures. These inconsistencies can be distracting and can undermine the reader's immersion in the world of Narnia. In fact, Lewis found himself forced to write an entire prequel, The Magician’s Nephew, just to explain why there was a street light in the middle of the Narnian forest in the first place as in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, after this question had been raised by one of his friends.

The writer’s Christian beliefs also shine through even though he himself denied any intentional allegorical similarities between Narnia and Christianity. Nevertheless, it would require a particular quality of blindness not to see the affinity between Aslan the Lion, the creator and redeemer of Narnia and Christ, or for that matter between King Peter the Magnificent and Saint Peter, or indeed Eustace and Edmund and every self-absorbed sinner reborn by the grace of our Saviour. The Christian social fabric is also reproduced by the fixed social classes where kings are kings and servants are servants by a divine decision and cannot be changed. This feudal class system is neither questioned nor challenged in Narnia and even the creatures on the lowest steps of the social ladder are depicted as happy with their fate.

The characters, though charming and endearing in their own right, also suffer from a lack of depth and complexity. Instead of developing his protagonists, it seems Lewis simply exchanged them for new ones from time to time for variation. Their actions are often dictated by plot convenience rather than organic development, leaving the reader with a sense of superficiality and predictability. A particularly distracting example is Susan’s rejection of Narnia, mentioned only in passing in the last book, in favour or fancy clothes, make-up, and boys, which is completely out of character for the sensitive, caring, and soft-spoken girl she had been until then, known to the Narnians as Queen Susan the Gentle, of whom it is not easy to believe possible a transformation to such shallow ignorance and egotism. My guess is that Lewis, watching his niece grow up, wanted to send her the message to remain more like the character Lucy and not fall for materialism and teenage vanity.

For Lewis’s niece, when all is said and done, is the key to “Berättelsen om Narnia”. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was dedicated to her and if there is one unmistakeable element that characterises the entire series it is Lewis’s love for this girl. He sometimes addresses her directly, sometimes through allegory, but always with a moving tenderness and devotion, and it is apparent that the character Lucy, the most Narnian of all the children from our world and Lewis’s niece’s namesake, is modelled on her.

Despite these remarkable weaknesses, I found “Berättelsen om Narnia” increasingly enjoyable as I progressed through the series and toward the end of it, I could barely wait to get into the next adventure. Although, nowadays there is a sea of children’s literature out there that is both more up-to-date and more relevant to a modern audience, I cannot help but wishing the kids of today the same experience I had when I first became acquainted with Aslan, Lucy, Mr Tumnus and the White Witch. Not to mention the sublime flavours of high-quality Turkish delight.

THE OUTSIDER

Author: Albert Camus
Year: 2013 (1942)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish (translator Jan Stolpe)

The universe has neither purpose nor direction. It is as meaningless as it is vast. Consequently, everything in universe must be meaningless, including life. Including mankind. Including you and me. Humans have evolved the intelligence to understand this but also the arrogance to refuse to accept it.

Existentialism, as established by Søren Kierkegaard and later cut and polished to an intellectual diamond by Jean-Paul Sartre among others, purports to provide mankind with the tools to make sense of a world that is in essence pointless. It attempts to assign meaning to the meaningless. The human being is destined to be free, says Sartre, and with this freedom comes the opportunity, or duty even, to assign meaning to his or her own existence.

Sartre’s contemporary Albert Camus, on the other hand, argues that all such efforts must, by design, be futile. If life has no meaning, any endeavour to create one must fail as it will never move beyond the quality of self-delusion. He put his ideas to the test in several short but poignant novels, one of which is “Främlingen” (“The Outsider” or “The Stranger”). 

The main protagonist, Meursault, introduces himself in the opening line by telling the reader about the death of his mother. “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas”. We are faced with a man who is unfazed by the death of his mother. The opening reflection on the telegram that carried to him the news of his mother’s death defies any analysis. It is just there. It is neither important nor unimportant.

This disinterested tone follows Meursault throughout the novel. He shows no interest, no preferences, no passion or opinion either way. He floats through existence wherever fate takes him. He does not weep at his mother’s funeral. When his neighbour asks him to help him cover up his brutal assault on his ex-girlfriend, he casually agrees. When his own love interest, Mary, asks if he loves her and if he would marry her, he answers that he probably doesn’t but would agree to marry her if it would make her happy. He does not care one way or the other.

SPOILER ALERT

In the second part of the book things escalate. In a temporary lapse of reason, Meursault kills a man who had previously confronted his neighbour on account of the ex-girlfriend he abused. Meursault did not have to kill him. Nor did he want to kill him. But he killed him anyway. When he is arrested and asked by the investigators why he had shot the man, he simply answers that the sun was hot that day and that it had tired him.

But the novel goes much deeper than merely showing one man’s indifference to an absurd and trivial existence. Meursault’s trial is most illuminating in its description of a society desperately trying to organise itself around some universal values which are so fragile that the existence of a man like Meursault shakes its foundations. The further the trial proceeds, the more Meursault feels left out as the prosecutor and Meursaults attorney do most of the talking above his head, as if the trial was not about him at all. And maybe it was not. The ultimate piece of evidence that compels the jury to sentence Meursault to death is the testimony that he did not cry on his mother’s funeral, as if to say that the final verdict is for a breach of social code rather than an act of violence. He is sentenced for not participating in the discourse of meaning. In a war-torn world on the brink of revolution, Meursault is sent to death essentially for being too passive.

Albert Camus’ writing is exquisite. Every word pulls its weight. Every thought is crystal clear. Every detail indispensable, no detail omitted. The novel is written in the first person, as Mersault himself is telling us his story. We get the feeling that he wants to confide in us. To get something off his chest. Camus constructs his narrative to explore his protagonist from different angles. His words, his thoughts, his actions, his thoughts about his actions, and his subconscious. The things Meursault wants to tell us about, and things he allows to go unsaid are all carefully chosen.

Meursault’s indifference is beautifully manifested in a scene where Mary visits him in prison after his arrest. He remains on his side of the bars, surrounded by other inmates talking to their visitors with all the noise and chatter that entails. Throughout the scene, Meursault pays as much attention to the other conversations as he is to Mary, as if to show that they are all equally important. Or equally insignificant.

The only time Mersault shows any feelings at all is when on the eve of his execution, he is visited by a priest whom he tosses out of his cell after having vigorously proclaimed his atheism to him. As he nears his death, he finally finds peace in the absurdity of ever being alive. His mother’s death was, in a way, the beginning of his own demise.

Maybe this puts the small but unmissable dent in the absurdism that Camus claims to profess. After all, in his final hours Meursault finds it necessary to tell us about his experience. A few hours before he is to be taken to the guillotine, he decides that he needs to deposit his story with someone; the reader. Is it a way to survive, to live on after he is beheaded? Or is it a futile attempt to assign meaning to an otherwise meaningless death putting an end to a meaningless life?

 

THE BLESSED FAULT

Author: Zofia Kossak
Year: 1989 (1953)
Publisher: Instytut Prasy i Wydawnictw "Nowum"
Language: Polish

”Felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem!” Oh happy fault that has earned us such a redeemer. The sin of man is great. The love of God is greater. And if we can love Him back by only a fraction of the love He has for us, we will be redeemed by his eternal glory.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:7.

Yet man is merely a temporary compilation of earthly matter and his wit and heart are weak and ephemeral. How is he supposed to contain the grandness of a divine love without fumbling, dropping it into the mud, dragging it through the ashes and dust from which he himself came? This is the question that Zofia Kossak seems to ask in her novel “Blogoslawiona wina” (not available in English but a direct translation might be “The Blessed Fault”).   

The plot is relatively simple and the number of crucial characters limited to a handful. Mikolaj Sapieha, a Polish-Lithuanian duke and war hero in the early 17th century falls ill which bereaves him of all vigour, spirit, and vitality for which he was formerly admired. A broken man, he wanders the corridors of his castle if he gets out of bed and walks at all. After an embarrassing episode during a wolf hunt, his reputation and that of the entire house of Sapieha are put at serious jeopardy when his actions are deemed cowardly. Since no known medicine has been able to remedy his condition, his remaining friends see no other solution than turning to God by means of a pilgrimage to Rome. Reluctantly, but well aware of the damage his illness has dealt to his good name, he embarks on this onerous campaign. Well in Rome, he prays to the icon of Our Lady of Guadeloupe and is miraculously healed. From this moment, Sapieha becomes obsessed with acquiring the icon and bringing it back to his duchy in Poland.

Kossak explores several important angles of religious devotion and zeal in this short novel. How is a Christian supposed to behave when God tells him to act in a way that is contrary to the will of God’s own representative on Earth? What is the difference between a devotee and a zealot? What emotional and intellectual process inside a believer drives him or her to iconolatry?

Zofia Kossak was herself deeply religious and is still today respected by the Polish Catholic Church as a heroine and a role-model. In her Christianity, actions speak louder than words. Her attitude to the present life was that each and every one of us can be God’s answer to someone else’s prayers. Her creed seems to have been that it is acceptable to hate beliefs and actions but never the person who carries or commits them. During the Second World War, she translated this principle into action when, although explicitly condemning Judaism, she put her life on the line to rescue the lives of hundreds of Jews who would otherwise be murdered by the Nazis. Her actions earned her the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations from the state of Israel.

Against this backdrop, “Blogoslawiona wina” gives a fascinating insight into the thoughts of a devoted Catholic who may have had reason to harbour bitterness and rancour toward the Holy See which under Pope Pius XII refused to take a stand against the German occupation of Poland and the unimaginable crimes against humanity that followed. While Mikolaj Sapieha has the highest regard for the Church and her leaders, he concludes that the direct dialogue he believes to have with Holy Mary must have precedence. What looks like religious single-mindedness and zeal to us (and Sapieha does contemplate and finally discard this possibility) is a response to a calling to someone else. The Pope, after all, speaks with a voice from this world. There is nothing in Church doctrine that says that God or indeed His Motiher cannot speak to any of us directly, as proven by any and all of the catalogue of saints venerated by the Roman Catholic Church.

SPOILER ALERT

Mikolaj Sapieha’s request to be granted ownership of the Our Lady of Guadeloupe-painting having been repeatedly and categorically rejected by the Pope and his Cardinals, leaves the Polish nobleman with no other option than to steal it. Hounded by the joint forces of every Italian knight and squire, he somehow manages to smuggle the painting to Poland where he puts it on display in his own parish. When pilgrims from near and far are healed while praying to it, he takes it as a sign of approval by Holy Mary herself. If she had disapproved, his reasoning goes, she would not have dispensed her grace in his church.

The Pope, as can be expected, is furious and bans Sapieha from the Church declaring him dead to Christianity and forever condemned to walk as an outcast among his people on this earth. This comes as a heavy blow to a man who in his own view has done nothing but abide by the will of the Mother of God. Sapieha, consequently, removes himself from all social life, breaks off his daughter’s engagement with the son of his best friend, withdraws from politics and even pushes away his wife and sons. Even though he is not allowed to enter any holy place, he finds a way to pray to the painting every night when no one is in the church. Despite several attempts by his rapidly shrinking group of friends and confidantes to lift the ban, the Pope remains relentless.  

When one day, the new king of Poland declares that he intends to marry a Protestant princess and calls for the parliament to convene in Warsaw to approve of the union, Sapieha surprises everybody by giving the order to assemble a travel party. At the parliament, despite all of the other noblemen arguing for the union in obvious attempts to win the new king’s favour, Sapieha alone challenges the decision on moral, patriotic, and historical grounds and cajoles the monarch into calling the wedding off. For his intervention, he is rewarded by the Holy Father who lifts the ban and reluctantly grants the icon to him as a gift.

And so Kossak concludes, that the politics of man have nothing to do with the will of God. The same way the condemnation was instated as a response to the embezzlement of an earthly object (and possibly the assault on earthly pride), it was also revoked by an act of earthly politics and power. When Sapieha again travels to Rome to pay tribute to the Holy See after having been pardoned, he finds that the presence of the Mother of God is the same in the chapel where the Our Lady of Guadeloupe used to hang. The duke’s spat with the Pope was a mundane affair all along and Sapieha’s trespass, Kossak seems to argue, never was against God. Nor could it be for as long as his devotion and submission were genuine. For even though our minds, hearts, and bodies are insufficient vessels to carry the love of God, our souls were made for this unique purpose.

 

A HUNTED MAN

Author: Hans-Olov Öberg
Year: 2001
Publisher: Pocketförlaget
Language: Swedish

Detectives and crime fighters come in all shapes and forms in literature. Sometimes they are attorneys, at other times ex-cops. We have read about professional assassins turning the tables on their former employers as well as mellow antiquities dealers who would not hurt a fly and yet are tossed into intricate mysteries hidden in the artefacts that pass through their hands. Some sleuths are teenagers that happen to, time and time again, stumble upon the most sinister plots in their own community, whereas others are little old ladies with a keen eye for the unexpected and a mind so sharp you could cut a diamond with it. There are university professors, physicians, navy officers, taxi drivers, cooks, crooks, hackers, slackers, firemen, journalists, priests, and politicians. And last but not least the veteran police inspector who has seen it all and just needs to solve his last case before retirement.  

So of course, we also need a murder mystery in the world of finance. Micke Norell is the protagonist in Hans-Olov Öberg’s novel “En jagad man” (not available in English but a translation might be “A hunted man”. This novel has previously been printed under the title “En gudabenådad bullshitter”). He is a financial professional who has turned to journalism and works for a small but respected business periodical in Stockholm. When the controversial former CEO of a small but publicly traded company that is the target of high-value market speculation is murdered during a hunting trip, Mikael is pulled into a power struggle which escalates to a point where his life is suddenly in peril.

Those of you who follow my reading will know that crime is not my forte. As a Stockholm-based banker with over 15 years of experience from the industry, I was however curious about how a murder mystery might play out in an atmosphere that should be well-known to me. And true enough, there is a certain measure of recognition.  The banter is authentic and the financial instruments and the transactions mentioned are mostly accurate and relevant. Having said that, there are two significant differences between Öberg’s world and my reality.

Primo; the book feels old. It was published several years before the authorities began to aggressively regulate the financial market. MiFID, GDPR, EMIR, Basel I-IV, AML Directives, and a plethora of other rules and regulations have rained down on the operators in the financial industry in the last two decades. It began shortly before the Lehman Brothers-crash and ensuing credit crunch in 2008 and virtually ballooned after that event. A process that is still ongoing and new requirements are being introduced, tightened, or amended all the time. The financial magic tricks that the high-rollers in Micke Norell’s world amuse themselves with are largely a thing of the past.

Secundo; none of the action in Öberg’s book takes place in any of the major Nordic banks at the time but rather in small financial institutions, brokers, financial advisory forms, and independent asset managers. I have no insider experience from what it is like to work in such an environment and what the corporate culture might be. Suffice to say, it seems far removed from that of a major Swedish bank of today.

As a piece of literature, this is a novel that is intended for quick consumption. As a murder mystery, it does not really gain pace. The plot never thickens and the ending arrives all of a sudden without the reader even realising that they have reached the climax of the story. It is obvious that Öberg has a good command of the ins and outs of the financial industry and the premise of the story is reasonably strong, but the delivery, I am sorry to say, is sub-par. Öberg also has a crack at trying to bring his characters to life by dwelling on their private lives and relationships but it works very poorly. The relationship between the analysts, traders, and managers are relevant and interesting but the passages about Norell’s wife and kid constitute a complete waste of time to a point where they become annoying. It is clumsy and irrelevant, as if the writer had heard from others that he ought to add further dimensions to his characters for the reader to care about them but had no clue as to how to go about it.

For a quick reader who wants to broaden their perspectives and add some Stockholm and some finance into their reading, this might not be a complete loss but for more discerning readers, this is a book that may be by all means be left on the shelf in favour of more inspired literature.

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