Eyvind Johnson (1900-1976)
Swedish working class writer - on his own from the age of 13 - who was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature with Harry Martinson in 1974. Johnson's early
works dealt with his impoverished upbringing and social or political problems.
In many of his later novels Johnson tested and questioned the many roles of
the storyteller and experimented with time, examining the interaction between
historical events and their interpretation. Often his hero is a battered but
resilient humanist.
"His work, which mirrors the ideological and technical development of the
novel from Hamsun to Faulkner, is pervaded by the political and cultural
debates of his time. He regarded the dissolution of the form of of the novel
as a necessary step in its development, and saw each of his novels as an
experiment in expressing the dark and the bright sides on life." (Sven H.
Rossel in A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980, 1982)
Eyvind Johnson was born at Saltsjobaden in Norrbotten, in northern Sweden.
When his father, laborer on the Lapland iron ore railroad, suffered from
mental breakdown, Eyvind's mother entrusted her son's upbringing to relatives.
Johnson left school at the age of thirteen. He worked in odd jobs, mainly as a
lumberjack, but also as a sawmill worker, and a locomotive cleaner. Johnson
educated himself by reading and in 1919 he settled in Stockholm, where he was
for a short time at LM Ericsson's workshop. With some other aspiring young
writers he founded the magazine Vår Nutid and wrote for the magazine Brand. He
also participated actively in politics and trade unionism. In 1924 he broke
with Socialism - the year marked also the beginning of his career as a writer.
Most of the 1920s Johnson spent in Berlin and Paris, earning his living among
others as a dishwasher. During this period he seriously developed himself to
become a writer. In 1921 he moved to Berlin where he lived for two years. In
Paris (1925-30) he wrote for Swedish newspapers. He read the works of John Dos
Passos, Alfred Döblin, Marcel Proust, André Gide, and James Joyce, as well as
Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud. Through their influence he gradually took
distance to traditional novel forms, which culminated in the publication of
KOMMENTAR TILL ETT STJÄRNFALL (1929), an attack on capitalist society. The
work was a critical success. On his return visits to Sweden Johnson was
distressed by its sense of isolation from the rest of Europe.
Johnson's first books appeared in the 1920s, among them TIMANS OCH
RÄTTFÄRDIGHETEN (1925), STAD I MÖRKER (1927) and STAD I LJUS (1928). These
early efforts showed the influence of Hamsun and expressionism. MINNAS (1928)
used the inner monologue which was quite new in Sweden. Although Johnson's
books inspired discussion about modernism, they were not widely read. In 1927
Johnson married Aase Christiansen and returned to Sweden in 1930 as an
established writer and the most important representative of experimental novel
of his generation. AVSKED TILL HAMLET (1930) began the series of five books
about Mårten Torpare, a character with a background like the author's own.
Mårten also learns to reject his ambivalence toward his simple past. REGN I
GRYNINGEN (1933, Rain at Daybreak) was concerned with boring office jobs.
Between the years 1934 and 1937 he wrote ROMANEN OM OLOF. The four-volume epic
was based on Johnson's experiences as a logger and became a classic of Swedish
literature. In the life of its young hero, Olof, Johnson blended fairy tale
and realism. Typical modernist features include use of inner monologue,
changing point of view, and preoccupation with the question of time. The
tetralogy - NU VAR DET 1914 (1934), HÄR HAR DU DITT LIV! (1935), SE DIG INTE
OM! (1936), and SLUTSPEL I UNGDOMEN (1937) - tells of the story of a young
Swedish boy growing up in the sub-Arctic during World War I. Increasingly
disturbed by the rising totalitarianism in the 1930s, Johnson worked actively
against the onslaught of Nazism and helped establish a link between Resistance
in Norway and Sweden. In NATTÖVNING (1938) Johnson's alter ego, Mårten Torpare,
gave his account of the times, and SOLDATENS ÅTERKOMST (1940) depicted the
fate of a Swedish volunteer who had fought dictatorship in Spain.
After his first wife died in 1938, Johnson married Cilla Frankenhauser, and
collaborated with her in translations of such writers as Albert Camus, Anatole
France, Jean-Paul Sartre and Eugène Ionesco. During World War II Johnson
coedited with Willy Bradt the newspaper Et Handslåg for the Norwegian
resistance and wrote the trilogy KRILON (published 1941, 1943, and 1945). The
work, which weaves together fictional, allegorical, and symbolic levels,
condemns Nazi oppression and explores the controversial policy of Swedish
neutrality during the war. In the story a real-estate broker, Krilon,
establishes a discussion group with his friends and tries to keep it together
as a counterforce against totalitarian and corporative pressures. Their
enemies are Jekau and Staph, representing the Soviet Union ("tjekan") and
Hitler's Germany (Gestapo). The Swedish- American Frank Lind symbolizes
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. At the same time their struggle is an
allegory of the events of World War II and the battle between idealism and
corruption.
In 1947 Johnson condemned Bolshevism in a radio speech, when the Soviet Union
celebrated the October Revolution: "Similarities between a Communist state and
a Nationalist or Fascist state are greater than differences. The both rule by
clichés and blood." His novel STRÄNDERNAL SVALL (1946) was a retelling of
Homer's Odyssey and illustrated the moral dilemma of World War II - does good
ends justify the means? In the 1960s and 1970s ideas of the rising leftists
movements did not attract him, and in 1974 he resigned from the writers'
association in protest.
In Johnson's early novels can be seen the influence of Marcel Proust, André
Gide and James Joyce. Among his best-known novels is perhaps HANS NÅDENS TID,
which have been translated into several languages. It is an analysis of the
totalitarian ideology, seen through the eyes of the inhabitants of a nation
conquered by Charlemagne. The tone is deeply pessimistic, but although the
Stalin-like dictator manages to destroy freedom, love and hope remain in
dreams. Internationally famous is also STRANDERNAS SVALL (1946), translated as
Return to Ithaca: The Odyssey Retold as a Modern Novel, which began a series
of novels emphasizing the repetition of history, the illusion of chronological
time and the similarity of man's condition under varying circumstances.
"Utan tidningar och radio skulle säkert stora delar av mänskligheten tro att
allt är så bra som man kan gebärä - också på alla andra ställen på Jordklotet.
Ja inbilla sej - kanske - att just de själva borde ha anledning till att vara,
att de var lykliga. I brist på telegram och radionyheter och andra raporter
skulle de kanhända vara fyllda av största lugn i själen. Människan är i hög
grad outforskad. I brist på fantasi eller brist på kunskanp om de andra,
skulle människor som har bara fem minuters promenadväg till Helvetet inte ha
en aning om att Helvetet fanns så närä deras egen trygghet." (from Några steg
mot tystnaden, 1963)
Following WW II Johnson traveled extensively in Switzerland, where he lived
two years (1947-49). Its culture and landscape provided the setting for
several of his novels. At age 46 Johnson began to write historical novels.
Among the author's later books is DRÖMMAR OM ROSOR OCH ELD (1949), which looks
at political trials and executions through the witchcraft trial of the 17th-century
French Priest Urbain Grainier. The process also inspired Aldous Huxley's The
Devils of Loudun (1952). MOLNEN ÖVER METAPONTION (1957) combined Xenophon's
Anabasis with the fate of a Swedish survivor of a German concentration camp.
The story moves back and forth between four time levels, between events that
happened 2300 years ago and were retold by the Greeks, the concentration camps,
and the 1950s. This narrative method was also used in NÅGRA STEG MOT TYSTNADEN
(1963). LIVSDAGEN LÅNG (1964) was an eight-episode chronicle spanning the 9th
to 16th cs. Johnson was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 1957. He
died in Stockholm on August 25, 1976.
"Man kan säga vad som helst on Amerika tämligen ostraffat, men till sist
kommer man fram till att USA:s styrka är den för närvarande enda fullviktiga
garanten för vår egen trygghet. Om Amerika är starkt - och med det
västerlandet - betyder det för oss att vi ännu har möjligheten till vår
folkliga självbestämmanderätt kvar. Ifall den styrkan mattas eller drar sig
tillbaka i isolationism, återtsår oss det andra: att omfattas av, pressas in i
en östlig världs intressen, att bli provinsen eller guvernementet Sverige i
protektoratet Europa. Förebilden är de so kallade folkdemokratierna med så
kallade folkdomstolar inför vilka själva tanken på västerländsk demokrati
betraktas som ett grov brott, som lands- och statsfientlig verksamhet, värd
dödsstraff." (first published in Stockholms-Tidningen, on March 13, 1951)
For further reading: Eyvind Johnson by Jørgen Claudi (1947); Eyvind Johnson by
G.K. Orton (1972); The Ulysses Theme by W.B. Stanford (1963); Den tidlösa
historien by S. Bäckman (1975); Eyvind Johnson's historiska romaner by O.
Meyer (1977); Romantikern Eyvind Johnson by Thure Stenström (1978); Hamlet i
klasskampen by Nils Schwartz (1979); Columbia Dictionary of Modern European
Literature, ed. by Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); Myt och
verklighet. Berättandets problem i Eyvind Johnsons roman Strändernas svall by
Merete Mazzarella (1981); A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980, by
Sven H. Rossel (1982); Eyvind Johnson och Djävulen by Mona Kårsnäs (1984);
Norrbottningen som blev europé by Örjan Lindberger (1986); Människan i tiden
by Örjan Lindberger (1990); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th
Century, vol. 2, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Berättaren Eyvind Johnson by
Örjan Lindberger (1999); Eyvind Johnson och Norrbotten by Kjell Lundholm
(2000); Eyvind Johnson: bibliografi by Per-Olof Mattsson (2000)
Selected works:
* DE FYRA FRÄMLINGARNA, 1924
* TIMANS OCH RÄTTFÄRDIGHETEN, 1925
* STAD I MÖRKER, 1927 - Kaupunki hohtaa pimeässä
* STAD I LJUS, 1928
* MINNAS, 1928
* KOMMENTAR TILL ETT STJÄRNFALL, 1929
* AVSKED TILL HAMLET, 1930
* BOBINACK, 1932
* NATTEN ÄR HÄR, 1932
* REGN I GRYNINGEN, 1933 - Rain at Daybreak
* ÄN EN GÅNG, KAPTEN!, 1934
* ROMANEN OM OLOF, 4 vol., 1934-37; published together in 1945 - NU VAR DET
1914 - trans. 1914 - Elettiin vuotta 1914; HÄR HAR DU DIT LIV! - Tällaista on
elämäsi; SE DIG INTE OM! - Älä katso taaksesi - SLUTSPEL I UNGDOMEN - film Här
har du ditt liv, dir. by Jan Troell, starring Max von Sydow, Eddie Axberg,
Holger Löwenalder
* NATTÖVNING, 1938
* DEN TRYGGA VÄRLDEN, 1940
* SOLDATENS ÅTERKOMST, 1940
* GRUPP KRILON, 1941
* KRILONS RESA, 1942
* KRILON SJÄLV, 1943
* STRÄNDERNAS SVALL, 1946 - Return to Ithaca - Rantojen tyrskyt
* PAN MOT SPARTA, 1946
* DAGBOK FRÅN SCHWEIZ, 1949
* DRÖMMAR OM ROSOR OCH ELD, 1949 - Dreams of Roses and Fire (trans. by Erik J.
Friis) - Tulta ja ruusuja (suom. Arvi Kivimaa)
* VALDA SKRIFTER, 1950
* ETT VÅRTAL, 1951
* LÄGG UNDAN SOLENB, 1951
* ROMANTISK BERÄTTELSE, 1953
* VINTERRESA IN NORRBOTTEN, 1955
* TIDENS GÅNG, 1955
* MOLNEN ÖVER MERAPONTION, 1957
* VÄGAR ÖVER METAPONTO, 1959
* HANS NÅDENS TID, 1960 - The Days of His Grace - Hänen armonsa aika
* SPÅR FÖRBI KOLONOS, 1961
* NÅGRA STEG MOT TYSTNADEN, 1963
* LIVSDAGEN LÅNG, 1964
* STUNDER VÅGOR, 1965
* FAVEL ENSAM, 1968
* NÅGRA STEG FÖR TYSTNADEN, 1973
* PERSONLIGT, POLITISKT, ESTETISK, 1992 (ed. by Örjan Lindberger)
* OCH SÅ VILL JAG PRATA MED DIG, 1997 (correspondence with Elmer Diktonius)
* HERR CLERK VÅR MÄSTARE, 1998