“The Great Swedish Novel & Me”

Above The Timberline

by Wayne Mergler

ANCHORAGE, AK—(Weekly Hubris)—5/10/10—Many years ago, when I was studying at the summer session of the University of London, I met an elderly woman schoolteacher from Stockholm with whom I quickly formed a friendship. We “hit it off,” as they say, nearly immediately, even though she was nearly 30 years my senior. Our common link was literature—we both taught it to high school students—and we spent many an hour talking about writers and books. We were both passionate about Dickens. We even found that we shared a love for film. One of her favorite movies was also one of mine: Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander,” a great Dickensian tale if ever there was one, and a truly great film.

Once she said to me: “If I could only read one American novel in my life, which one would you recommend as the most characteristic of your country and your people?”

“That’s easy,” I said The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.” Then I said to her: “And if I could only read one Swedish book?”

“That’s even easier,” she replied. “It would have to be The Story of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlof.”

I had heard of the book. I knew that it was sometimes translated as Gosta Berling’s Saga, and that Selma Lagerlof was a Nobel Prize laureate. (In fact, she was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.) I also knew that there had been a famous silent film version of the novel in the 1920’s, famous mainly for beginning the career of Greta Garbo. But I had never read it. My Swedish friend went on to explain that it was a wonderful, thrilling book—required reading in schools; and that, therefore, every Swedish child knew it practically by heart.

“And it captures the Swedish soul as no other book has ever done,” she added.

Later, before I left London, I bought a copy of Huckleberry Finn at the famous Penguin Bookshop as a parting gift for my friend. Shortly after I returned home to Anchorage, a package came for me with a Stockholm postmark. In it was a secondhand copy, in English translation, of The Story of Gosta Berling. I was pleased, more by the thought than the content, but I had no idea then what a marvelous gift she had given me. And how it would change my life . . . .

I was hooked on Gosta Berling from the first page, and I soon became so immersed in its joys that I read it all in one non-stop weekend. And then I actually did something that I had heard people say they do but never actually knew anyone to really do it: I turned back to the beginning and started over again.

Selma Lagerlof was a young spinster schoolteacher when she wrote the book in the 1890’s. It was the time of the great realists and naturalists of literature: Zola, Crane, Dreiser, Hardy, Nexo. Romanticism was long dead and buried. Yet this young Swedish woman dared to write an unabashedly romantic novel, a fantastic tale of demons and rogues in the North based upon the legends and folklore of her region of Sweden.

Over the period of one year, the seasons change and the landscape takes on many moods and colors. Four tragic love stories—all involving the roguish Gosta—unfold; souls are sold to the devil; ravenous wolves pursue illicit lovers in horse-drawn sleighs along frozen roads; a woman is imprisoned in her castle by menacing birds; giant bears are hunted and killed; a witch exacts revenge.

These tales, familiar enough in Swedish lore, are brilliantly woven into the story of Gosta Berling, a handsome, young, defrocked minister; a flawed man who tries to be saintly but can never carry it off.

The most wonderful thing about the book is Lagerlof’s high-hearted tribute to life. Her characters are human, with weaknesses as well as attributes. They are quick to laugh, quick to anger, quick to fight a duel or break a lover’s heart. But it is also a story about sin and redemption.

The Story of Gosta Berling is a book I think I have read every year since I received that package from Stockholm. I never tire of its joys. Each subsequent reading brings something new. And its influence on me has been profound. In my own writings, I have found myself, consciously or not, imitating Selma Lagerlof in many ways. The vivid seasons and the Northern landscapes of Sweden have become the seasons and landscapes of Alaska. I once read a newly-written passage of my never-ending, unfinished novel manuscript to my wife and she pointed out that it reminded her of something.

“That book . . .” she said, groping for a title. “That book, you know, the Swedish one.”

And, yes, I must confess that I have been trying to do for Alaska what Lagerlof did for Sweden over a century ago. I hope she would take it as a compliment.

Because of the perversities of the publishing world, The Story of Gosta Berling has been unavailable in this country for decades. I have tried, on occasion, to encourage publishers to look into bringing out a new edition, perhaps even a new translation, but to no avail so far. But it is still out there in used and out-of-print bookstores and from various on-line vendors. It would be worth your finding it.

Recently I went on-line, to Google and to other sources, and tried to find some information about my old friend, whom I have not seen now since 1980. After much fruitless searching, I eventually found—though I do not read Swedish—what I am quite certain was an obituary. I wasn’t surprised. The dear lady would have been in her 90’s now. But I am sure she knew what a wonderful gift she had given me. And I wonder how she fared with Huck and Jim . . .