THE SEVEN GOOD YEARS

Author: Etgar Keret
Year: 2018 (2015)
Publisher: Brombergs Förlag
Language: Swedish (translator Kristian Wikström)

In an earlier blog post, I compared some books to shiny pearls (see Convenience Store Woman from January 2023). This is how I think of books that appear leaner and less conspicuous than the bombastic classics that tower over the literary realm like mighty sphinxes, yet in all their unpretentious beauty and grace still offer the readers a sublime reading experience, gently ushering them into intellectual or emotional areas previously unexplored. Etgar Keret’s collection of short stories “De sju goda åren” (“The Seven Good Years”) is another such pearl. Across 36 short stories, most of which are only a few pages long, Keret picks out some nuggets from the time period between the moment his son Lev is born up until his father passes away seven years later.

Keret is a true Master of the short story format. Each text is a snapshot from reality to which he adds not only colour and context but moreover an additional dimension, a way of thinking and responding to the situations described in an innovative, analytical, and highly entertaining way. Some of his contemplations are deeply sensitive and personal. Others, laugh-out-loud hilarious bordering on the ridiculous.

Many of the themes are universal. The challenges of family, friendship, money, time, and a hot summer day are things we can all relate to. Other themes are specifically Jewish and provide peepholes into the world of a Jew, both in Israel and abroad, from a perspective that is rarely encountered in other literature, even that written by other Jews. Keret’s Jewish perspective is not that of a victim. It is that of an introspective observer studying his field from an emic point of view, starting with himself.   

In the very first text, his son is born, while all the medical staff at the hospital is scrambling to respond to a Palestinian missile attack. He comes into a world full of anger, conflict, hatred, and vindictiveness. In another, Keret examines domination techniques and phone salesmen, and how his own ability to see things from the perspective of others is abused by people for their own gains, as symbolised by the telemarketers. Year two opens with one of the funniest texts I have ready this year as Keret tries to be creative with how he dedicates his books during signing events. He also shares his experiences with a wealth manager on the Channel Islands, which certainly resonates with This Banker. In year three, he accounts for his participation in the Gothenburg book fair during a diplomatic row between Sweden and Israel. The fourth year begins with the threat of nuclear war between Israel and Iran and proceeds to discuss courtesy in a taxi as well as the challenges of seeing ones sister turn into a religious zealot. In year five, Keret discusses his identity as an Israeli of Polish heritage and what Warsaw, which is where his mother grew up and had to flee from, means for him and his understanding of himself in the world. He also dwells on his role as a writer and his decision to write. During the sixth year, Keret’s father is finally given his death sentence in the form of a cancer diagnosis. How Keret handles this is the theme until the end of the book. The seventh and final year is where Keret’s father passes away. The year ends with another missile attack on Israel. This time, his son is old enough to ask questions.  

Keret brilliantly finds way to tie two or three observations together into one unified reflection that draws on one experience to examine or explain another. It is almost as if he is capable of stopping the clock to show us a scene frozen in time, and reveal to us the vulnerability, imperfection, angst, and self-repression of the people in it and put it in the context of a carefully delimited cultural or historical superstructure.

Etgar Keret may not be a journalist and he is certainly no philosopher, but he is an observer and a highly intelligent thinker, and he is very acutely aware of his surroundings. This together with his sense of humour and charm will render most readers defenceless. While every short story is a gem, the collection as such is a well-filled pouch of precious pearls. He will not win the Nobel Prize for his writing, but he will win many hearts.   

 

THE SEAGULL & UNCLE VANYA

Author: Anton Chekhov
Year: 1967 (1896 & 1897)
Publisher: Gebers Förlag AB
Language: Swedish (translator Jarl Hemmer)

A dead seagull at the feet of a confused young actress. Shot out of boredom and spite. Red blood seeping from its still heart onto its snow-white plumage. Its eyes wide open reveal nothing. Maybe because there is nothing to reveal. A receptacle devoid of content. A body without spirit.

This is the scene in Anton Chekhov’s play “Måsen” (“The Seagull”) where the shooter, Konstantin, and the young actress Nina go their separate ways after a short romance. He is passionate about the future. She is in love with the past. They can never truly know each other. He goes on to become a celebrated playwright of avantgarde drama, she is seduced by an elderly writer past his prime and gives birth to his child before being abandoned and shamed. “Måsen” is a play about the new challenging the old but also about humility challenging pride. Chekhov wants to show us how hard it is to create beauty and how easily it is ruined.

The second play in this short volume is “Onkel Vanja” (“Uncle Vanya”), another one of Chekhov’s most famous works. The mansion inhabited by professor Serebryakov and his young second wife along with his deceased first wife’s mother, brother (Vanya) and niece, is the ideal setting for a perfect storm. All the disappointment, disenchantment, and grievance on the side of Vanya toward his brother-in-law, whom he once revered, is like a powder keg about to explode. Vanya came many years earlier to the mansion to help his sister and her husband run it while the latter was still alive and the former was busy with his research. After her passing, Vanya stayed on and continued to run the estate, growing increasingly dissatisfied with his mission.

Anton Chekhov’s greatness is in his skilful construction of the dialogue as a way of developing his characters and the relationship between them. Whereas the engine in many playwrights’ works before his is a misunderstanding (comedies) or deceit (tragedies), the force that propels Chekhov’s plays is the impossible reconciliation of individual desire and ambition. Every person on stage is essential to the plot and to the message that Chekhov is trying to convey. No villain is necessary in either “Måsen” or “Onkel Vanja”. Fate and society are quite enough.  

Chekhov’s importance to the modernist revolution in late 19^th century modernist theatre can hardly be overstated and the school he established spread across Europe and the British Isles. Most famously, George Bernard Shaw implicitly dedicated his play “Heartbreak House” to Chekhov by the subtitle “A Fantasy in the Russian manner on English Themes”. It probably also widely known that Chekhov repeatedly argued about the minimalist storytelling technique where everything that is placed on stage needs to serve a purpose: known as Chekhov’s gun. If a gun is shown in the first act, the principle goes, it needs to go off before the end of the last, alternatively, if it does not go off, that in itself must be a significant turn of events in the plot.

Reading plays is in many respects different from reading novels. There is no narrator, descriptions are scant, and the setting implicit. All there is, essentially, is the dialogue. Exclusively external. When one reads a stage play, one must try to imagine the emotions, the gestures, the voices, deducing it all from the lines and the context. The work is intended to be performed, not read. This transfers the burden from the director and the actors to the reader. Often with poor results.

Although, I have never seen a play by Chekhov performed live on stage, after having read “Måsen” and “Onkel Vanja”, I am confident that the experience of these works would be ten times more potent had I enjoyed it from the stand at a theatre. Knowing what a play is about is one thing. Feeling it something altogether different.  

 

 

 

 

VIOLINS

Author: Anne Nilsson
Year: 1981
Publisher: ICA Bokförlag
Language: Swedish 

How much do you know about violins? Probably a lot less than you think. Even if you play the instrument, you may not have contemplated its history, handicraft, usage, or the physics of its composition. It may seem like violins have always looked and sounded the same, an yet a continuous development over time is taking place and instruments find different roles to play in different eras.

Anne Nilsson is a journalist and writer who has written books on a broad variety of topics since her debut in 1975. Not being an expert in any particular field, in an interview she said that the best way to become an author is to find a topic that you are passionate about and as you read up on it, you will notice what is missing in the literature available at the time. Then simply get to work and fill the void.

In her book “Fioler” (not available in English but the translation is “Violins”) Nilsson does just that. The angle on violins that was missing to her, appears to be an accessible and comprehensive overview of the instrument aimed at the non-professional general public. It is clear from the first paragraph that the book has not been written by a specialist but by an enthusiast. Not only does the writer say so in the book, but the structure, the language, and the depth at which Nilsson is capable of gauging her chosen topic all point to the same conclusion.

“Fioler” begins with a short overview of what violins are used for and all the genres of music that they can be applied to. This already shows that the book is intended for a novice audience.

The next chapter is about the history of string instruments in general and violins in particular. This is the most interesting part of the book and although it is a bit patchy and incoherent, it is a stimulating experience to dive into the past and learn about the evolution of the instruments but also the music that the instruments were supposed to play. Nilsson reaches for examples from all around Europe as she takes us back to early medieval times. As I am also a dabbler in music, the scope and depth of Nilsson’s survey is perfectly aligned with my needs and abilities.

The chapter after this is dedicated to the many violinmakers in history who have made their mark on the evolution of the instrument. A special section is devoted to Swedish artisans who on a global level made no lasting impression on the violinmaking industry but served an important role in supplying decent instruments to Swedish musicians over the centuries thus providing them with the necessary means to adopt musical influences from other parts of Europe as well as producing a rich tradition of folk music which in Sweden to a large extent dependends on the violin. Since the book was printed in 1981, the last few Swedish violinmakers mentioned were still active at that time but probably are no longer. By the same token, the violinmakers that picked up the baton after them and are active in Stockholm today, such as Sebastian Skarp, Joakim Amundin, and Philippe Dormond among others could not possibly be mentioned back then.

Nilsson rounds off her book with an uneven and sketchy but, again, for a dilettante adequate chapter on the construction of a violin; both in terms of its different parts and in terms of the techniques used to put the parts together.  You will not be able to build an instrument from the instructions given in “Fioler” which makes some of the details superfluous. The feeling I got away with was that the author ought to have either included a detailed step-by-step instruction on how to construct a violin, or leave some of the details out and focused on a general understanding of the building process. As it is now, the image of an enthusiast from the first pages is exacerbated as it is obvious that Nilsson simply put every piece of information that she could find into her book, whether useful or not.

All in all, “Fioler” is a gratifying read for the curious beginners but I suspect that a professional violinmaker or historian of music would probably scoff at it, likely forgetting that they are by no means the intended audience.

 

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.