Det Går An again
 |
| A boat on the Lidan, Lidköping (Västergötland) |
[Image source: Wikipedia. © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons .]
A few years back I recorded my delight at finding an online English translation of Carl Jonas Love Almvist's short novel Det Går An (It Will Do).
https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2017/07/carl-jonas-love-almqvist-det-gar-an.html
In that post I introduced the first chapter or two. Now I've finally got round to reading the whole thing.
Almqvist's novel was written in 1838 and published around Christmas 1839. The 1919 translation, by Adolph Burnett Benson, is titled Sara Videbeck.
*
The book is in eight chapters. To some extent it's a travelogue. Albert meets Sara on a steamboat just after it leaves Stockholm. The first part covers their journey from Stockholm to Strängnäs to Arboga: the whole width of the mighty Lake Mälaren.
Then the novel quickly runs over the four days that Albert and Sara spend travelling through the central area of Glanshammar, Örebro, Kumla and "other places further on". In a novel so thick with place-names there's a surprising absence of them when it comes to the long stretch SW of Kumla. Only one overnight stop is named, and I can't find it on the map: Bodarna, where "Sara was not entirely well". It is apparently somewhere between Vretstorp and Hofva (=Hova). The withdrawal of detail marks the point where our pair become lovers.
Then we pick up their journey in Mariestad (on the east side of an even larger lake, Vänern) and travel south (by the "prosaic" route of Enebacken) to Sara's home town of Lidköping.
I found this travelogue aspect interesting: the logistics of travelling across central Sweden in the 1830s, the details of ferries and inns and ordering food and hiring vehicles and horses, the question of whether Albert should ask the postboy to drive or take the reins himself. Presumably Almqvist's contemporary audience found this interesting too; perhaps long journeys weren't so very commonplace.
After a time Sara spoke again. "It is terribly dusty! I believe I'll take off my hat."
Although the sergeant, who meanwhile had regained his temper fairly well, did not answer the remark, he asked, nevertheless, "Perhaps you would prefer to sit in the back seat? I notice that the black horse is constantly whipping your shoes with his long, untrimmed tail."
"I have nothing against that; he whisks off the dust."
"Well, all right. Then perhaps you don't care to sit in the back seat?"
"Beside the postboy? Have you not room to drive here in the front seat as it is?"
"Oh, yes, but the postboy could sit here and drive, and we could sit in the back seat; it wouldn't shake you so much, Sara."
"I can't say that it shakes very much. It was worse on the streets of Arboga."
"But if you should take off your hat on account of the dust, as you say, what good would it do? That would not make the dust any less."
"No, but a white cambric hat that is dusty must be washed, and that is a great deal of trouble, for it must be cleaned in the lake itself with a brush. On the other hand, the dust will come off a silk handkerchief by slapping it against your hand a couple of times."
"Well if you wish to change your headgear, I'll stop at once and we'll get out."
"Suppose I should put up the umbrella and hold that against the dust?"
"Dust does not act like rain," interrupted the sergeant, "which falls only on the top of the umbrella. Dust comes up underneath and, what is more, right around your head; I don't like an umbrella in fair weather."
(from Chapter V)
But Sara and Albert's colloquy, though it's so concrete, looks beyond transportation and geography to the heavens. It thinks about what happens after the couples are united at the end of a conventional novel. Det går an is an eloquent argument for unmarried love, for a woman's independence and property.
Here's the structure:
Chapter I. The steamer leaves Stockholm. Sara's aunt is too late and gets left behind. Initial encounters between Sara and the young sergeant Albert.
Chapter II. A stop in Strängnäs. They breakfast together.
Chapter III. Back on the steamer. Sara's background and work in Lidköping. Sara and Albert arrange to travel on together down to Västergötland.
Chapter IV. On the steamer: the rich passengers pre-booking rooms. Arriving at Arboga. Gaining a single room (with difficulty). Sleeping arrangements. Albert tries to find a stable or loft, eventually comes back to the room and sleeps in a chair.
Chapter V. Friday morning. Waking in Arboga, mistaken by the maid for man and wife. Albert kisses Sara. Driving off for Fellingsbro.
Chapter VI. Friday. Driving through Fellingsbro woods (W. of Arboga).
"...Therefore everyone should be free and live his own life in his own way and not spoil things for another. People can be good friends just the same, and that is the best way. It is pleasantest when all goes well and one does not trouble one's neighbor."
Albert shook his head. "She is still dreaming," he thought.
But she continued, "I suppose God knows what He wants people to be, but I certainly don't. It is best, however, to live as God intended when He made us."
These generalities seemed so ridiculous in the sergeant's eyes that he came near laughing aloud, but out of respect for the expression on the girl's face, which was very thoughtful, he refrained and tried to pursue his own line of thought.
"There is one bit of information you must give me, Sara Videbeck," interposed the sergeant. "Your mother lived an unhappy life with your father; I gathered that from what you told me yesterday. But you must not therefore think all evil comes from men --"
"I know that well enough," she answered. "Why, I know the family of the master turner, Stenberg. His wife is such a quarrelsome hussy that the man is in danger of losing his life on account of her. And it isn't much better at Sederbom's, where the wife is a bit simple-minded, and the man is frantic from grief. And there are the Spolanders -- and the Zakrissons. It is the same everywhere, if one only comes close enough to see them in their cages. They never stop until each has made an utter wretch of the other. I can never approve of that."
"Did your father, Sara, treat your mother badly at first?"
"God only knows. I was not born then and did not see them in the beginning. But I think my mother too, poor thing, had her faults, although she tried to improve. I am sure she was always respectable, but nevertheless wasteful and hard to get along with. So far as I can judge, her manner was never very gracious nor particularly pleasant. And so father, who had his own peculiarities, gradually became one of those -- and thoroughly wicked and finally mad -- ugh!"
"This is getting too distressing, Sara dear. Let's forget Lidköping; we have not got there yet. Do you know the name of these woods?"
"Yes, I think God will forgive me for being what He has made me. That is, when I do as well as I can, of course. But it is unnecessary for me to torture another into the nethermost hell or for another to drive me into it. I don't care what the name of these woods is, Albert, but I know that God has made the stars and the whole heavenly Host. All that is beautiful and good on earth has been created by God, and Christ has come for our salvation. Although I am not a Dissenter, I can well understand that Christ has nothing against the people who love each other and thus fulfill the first commandment. But when it is carried out in such a way that they make devils and madmen out of each other, He cannot approve of it Himself. People have invented so much nonsense to cause each other's misery, and worst of all, they imagine that it is for their benefit. So far as you are concerned, Albert, you are younger as a man than I am as a woman, though you may well be a year or two older in actual age. For that reason, you are not as wise as I am, though you may be familiar with other things that are more beautiful and pleasant. Still you must not think that I am unhappy; I am as free and bold as a bird, and I assure you I intend to keep my wings. If you can fly too, well and good, but if you are only a babbler, you might just as well say so at once."
The four-night gap. This conversation took place on Friday. The couple show up in Mariestad on Tuesday.
Mariestad: conversation in the churchyard, concerning the care of children, especially of unmarried parents.
Chapter VII. Mariestad: conversation at the inn. This is the central discussion of the unmarried arrangement that Sara proposes.
Chapter VIII Mariestad to Lidköping. At Lidköping the pair separate for what's meant to be just a few hours, but then Sara learns of her mother's death. The book ends with Albert (after a worried night alone at an inn) arriving at Sara's home where he's to take rooms upstairs. Here's how it ends:
Her sorrow was painted like a delicate twilight around the uppermost part of her eyes, but the enamel of the white reflected a bluish tinge as never before, and the pupils sparkled. "Albert!" she cried.
He did not answer; he just looked.
"How do you like these rooms? Do you want to rent them? But you cannot know them very well yet. May I not invite you down to my place, and then you can see how I am fixed? Breakfast is waiting. And if you don't start right off again on your trips, this very day, I'll invite you down to dinner also. Will all this do, Albert?"
Still he said nothing. But in the whole expression of his face was the answer: "It will do."
[Den sorg, varom hon talade, satt som en fin skymning omkring det översta av hennes ögon. Men vitögats emalj sken blåvitt, såsom alltid förr, och pupillerna glänste. Albert! sade hon.
Han svarade inget: blott såg.
Vad tycker du om dessa rum? vill du hyra dem? Men du kan inte känna dem mycket ännu. Får jag inte nu bjuda dig ned i mitt, så skall du få se hur jag har det: frukosten väntar. Och börjar du inte dina resor strax i dag, så ber jag dig ock hos mig till middagen. Går allt detta an, Albert?
Han sade ändå inget. Men i hela uttrycket av hans ansikte låg detta svar: Det går an.]
[Surely "as never before" is wrong -- såsom alltid förr means "as always before", i.e. the whites of her eyes had the same bluish shine they always did.]
*
It's a joyous story of hope and of youthful clarity, of pragmatism and the determination to do things better.
For all that, I feel no assurance that Sara and Albert would necessarily fare better than any more conventional couple starting out together.
Sara's distinctiveness, for instance her serious absorption in the glazier business, and her indifference to the poetry of landscape, are both intriguing and irritating to Albert.
" ... Still, if after a few years I shall have saved a little, it may happen that I shall buy a little place in Timmelhed over towards Ulricehamn, where I have acquaintances. I don't want to persuade you to go there, since you seem to shun the country -- just as I have no particular love for small towns, except as a traveller, and generally get out of them as soon as I can ..."
(Chapter VI)
How will this difference in their outlooks work out, will they continue to respect it in each other, will Albert get bogged down in Sara's small town of Lidköping?
["Timmelhed" is presumably Timmele, in the country far to the south of Lidköping.]
It just isn't possible to assure the future of a love relationship. Sometimes I think it's just good biology and luck, when we see one couple grow together and become more united and amiable and more loving and appreciative with every passing year; and another couple struggling, always more or less pulling in different directions, at loggerheads, less able to be what they could be, less happy with each other and with themselves, their flame of love blown about by conflict. It's like the difference between two bean plants: the one healthy and green and fertile and full of blossom and fat hanging beans; the other one slighter and weaker, less secure in its soil, more prone to drought and blight, a magnet for slugs and insects, so it seems like a victory if it finally manages to outgrow them and put out a few little flowers.
*
After the first publication of his story Almqist added an Introduction (subsequently moved to the end as an Epilogue). In it he says that his book is not a thesis, and he adds:
We neither can nor desire to see theses on these subjects. We are mistaken if we believe that scientific systems of any value may be devised in all fields beforehand. We must first learn to know people themselves, observe them in their nooks and corners, listen to their innermost sighs, nor scorn to understand their tears of joy. In brief, what we need are true stories or sketches from life: examples, contributions, and experiences.
He also says:
It is our opinion that the mystery of morality must be solved simultaneously with the mystery of happiness.
It feels like a bracingly radical statement, for the time.
It isn't exactly clear why a fiction is to be accepted as a true experience, for the purpose of philosophers and their theses. Perhaps because its convincingness can be tested by the degree of the reader's conviction? -- I'll gladly take it on those terms, but ought I?
Well, maybe that would be in line with something I most definitely agree with, Almqvist's assertion of connaître, of real and personal acquaintance, against modernity's tidal wave of savoir; of data, statistics, quantifiabilities.
At any rate, at the time Det går an was seen as both less and more than objective documentation. Surely it had a "social tendency", wasn't it in fact a thesis? And as such it gave birth to a good deal of debate, collectively described by Swedish literary historians as gåran-litteratur. Participants included J.V. Snellman, August Blanche (whom Almqvist insulted, then refused his challenge to a duel), Magdalena ("Malla") Silfverstolpe, V.F. Palmblad, and Wilhelmina Stålberg.
Malla Silfverstolpe was a literary salon hostess and a lively diarist, valued for her descriptions of various eminent literary figures, including Almqvist himself. Here's her contribution to the debate: Månne det går an? Fortsättning (Will it really do? Continuation (1840))
One of the targets of Det går an was the guild system, which made it near-impossible for women such as Sara Videbeck to be economically independent. This guild system was abolished in 1846.
*
Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793-1866) was nearly twenty years older than Charles Dickens (1812-1870), yet I kept being reminded of Dickens. And this despite the fact that a Dickensian argument for unmarried love is laughably impossible to conceive: that there are stark differences between what each author could do and what each author could never do. I suppose this nagging reminder is partly just about the date, the 1830s, the decade that proved the high point of Almqvist's trajectory and witnessed the dazzling emergence of Dickens.
*
The same online volume contains Benson's translation of another Almqvist tale, The Chapel (Kapellet) from 1838.
This perhaps reminds me of Dickens in a more limiting way, for instance of his Christmas books and stories. An idealistic novice priest gives his first sermon at a chapel on an impoverished Blekinge skerry. Here he meets a poor family of fisherfolk whose missing father may be lost at sea. The tale contrives to sketch the entire life stories of its characters while focussing on the history of a single day.
Benson calls Kapellet "Almqvist's most pleasing and beautiful tale of the common people", and says that it "has long been a Swedish and Danish choice for wholesome folk-reading, and will contribute materially to perpetuate the name of Almqvist".
*
This was one of the volumes published by the American-Scandinavian Foundation. I had a momentary hope that all their other early publications might be available online, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Labels: Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, Malla Silfverstolpe, Specimens of the literature of Sweden
Permalink posted by Michael Peverett @ 10:41 am
0 comments
