Selma Lagerl?f by Sven Delblanc

Selma Lagerlöf by Sven Delblanc

'She is specifically Swedish and undeniably universal," wrote Paul Valery of Selma Lagerlöf, an opinion which cannot be refuted but can possibly be supplemented. She is certainly universal; early she gained an international audience; so far her works have been translated into some forty languages. She is Swedish, Nordic andprovincial, at one and the same time she is naive and sophisticated, an atavism which appears to maintain its validity and its interest. She has sometimes been the subject of a veritable cult but seldom of analysis; she has seldom been the center of literary debate. She is unique in her blend of simplicity and subtlety.

Selma Lagerlbf is Swedish but also specifically Nordic. That means she belongs to an epic tradition originating in the Old Norse (Icelandic ) saga, which in a singular way unites refined narrative technique, subtly interwoven homilies and simplicity, which is accessible to all.
Selma Lagerlöf is not only Swedish and Nordic but also provincial, and therein lies one explanation of her strength. Her home province of Värmland was distant and isolated from Europe's cultural centers. The art of storytelling was kept alive in the small manor houses. Landowners were conscious of their rank and their responsibility to culture, but socially and economically they were close to the farmers, and the traditions and legends of the masses penetrated their drawing rooms.

The epic and folkloristic tradition was carried on by women; this was the state of affairs particularly at Mårbacka, Selma Lagerlbf s childhood home.

The small manor house was a matriarchate, which long had been inherited on the distaff side. Selma's father was a weak patriarch, a poor manager, ultimately given to alcohol and embittered with life. It was the task of the women to keep this patriarch in a good mood, to love this man who was not worthy of love, a common theme in the fully developed writer. Apparently the image of Selma's father was what determined her view of the male sex, as did stories she heard as a child about the officers discharged after the Napoleonic wars, who had gone broke but lingered on as "cavaliers" (a euphemism of "spongers") on Värmland's manors andfoundry estates. It is striking how often the men in Selma Lagerlöf s stories are unfit for life, perpetrators of an outrage or a crime, drunkards, madmen, burdens to the family and to society. Only through the love of a woman could they be redeemed and integrated into the community.

Her first book, the novel The Story of Gbsta Berling about a defrocked minister, can be said to be a paradigm, governed with energy and prudence by the powerful "Majoress". She has broken the matriarchal command-ment, namely "thou shalt honor thy mother," and she is punished by the cavaliers who take over the manor, which they also do their best to destroy. Only when Gbsta Berling is brought to his senses through a woman's love does this little community return, to order and productivity.

Every great writer has his or her central theme, a great vision, an obsession perhaps. For Selma Lagerlbf it was her belief in love, particularly the liberating power of woman's love.

In our era of frankness in sexual matters, it should be said that Selma Lagerlbf's chastity and self-discipline in her way of life by no means excluded a very "normal" woman's feelings for the opposite sex. She was sensitive to male attraction and charm, and we of later generations who have indiscreetly probed in her posthumous papers have been able to perceive how well she realized what it meant to be a rejected woman and to long for a man's caresses. Poverty in her youth and a congenital deformity barred her out of the marital market, but she knew by nature what was involved in loving a man and at the same time she had such a disillusioned view of men! The thoroughly sound, wise and good male characters in her works are as a rule old men, rescued from the passions and follies of youth and manhood.

The Story of Gösta Berling had been a sonorous overture, but Selma Lagerlbf was not entirely satisfied with her work. For her part a period of self-examination and experimentation followed, which shows what a conscious artist she wás. Her search led away from the Central European Romanticism to the foundation of Scandinavian prose, i.e to the simplicity , clarity and laconism of Old Norse sagas. In this way she had finally perfected her style, learned to be master of her own language.

Part of that language she had acquired; part she had also inherited. During long winter evenings at Mårbacka women told stories. It is not difficult to find traces of oral narrative technique in Selma Lagerldf: attentiongetting devices at the outset of a story, interruptions in the text appealing to the listeners' own experience, an intensification of the story's emotional level toward the end Selma Lagerlöf belonged to a now very distant generation of women who were far more members of a family than individuals. They lived close to the earth and nature, which so capriciously gave and denied its gifts - were there not supernatural beings who existed around them? They lived a life which made spirits and elemental beings into genuine and intimate friends. Even as an adult, Selma Lagerlöf in her garden at Mårbacka might catch sight of the Lady of the Woods, a Värmland fairy queen who lay underneath a bush and enjoyed the fragrance of roses. Selma Lagerlbf felt no fear at all, but she withdrew with a feeling that her presence was not really desired. She was, in fact, something as rare as a modem writer with a living mythollogy.

The supernatural and mythical often emerge in texts where the doctrine of love is put to difficult or overpowering tests.

Literary research concentrating on the genesis of Selma Lagerlöf's fiction can find the origin of these supernatural beings in Swedish folklore, but in doing so it is nevertheless unable to explain the artistic force of her work in a totally different environments (nations) and in modem times. Neither can it explain the strange phenomenon that a work of fiction can have universal appeal - even though its roots are in the provincial.

In 1912 Selma Lagerlöf surprised her readers with a socially oriented story, Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness, which deals with an ordinary wretch of a drunkard who torments his wife. The subject would seem to demand social realism, but as so often she fills her book with a mythology which throws the reader between the real and the spiritual world. In term of technique, it presented enormous difficulties which she surmounted with an intricate system of "indirect" narration - thoroughly refuting all notions of her lack of narrative sophistication. Indeed she was very much aware of her artistry, even though she found it difficult or inappropriate to speak of her art and its technique.

There were occasions when Selma Lagerlöf could speak in plain language, particularly for instance on the issue of women's right to vote. She considered the home to be the creation of woman, the state that of man. And the home was a fine institution, as long as the husband stood loyally by the side of the woman. Man's shortcomings are evident in the imperfections of the state. Only if woman is given political power can she influence man for the good, thereby giving us hope for a better future.

In 1909 Selma Lagerlöf received the first Nobel prize awarded to a Swede. This was only natural since she had already been translated into several major languages and was loved in many countries. A consequence of this mark of distinction was that she reached still wider audiences.
Her book, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, became incredibly popular internationally, which may seem paradoxical, since it is a schoolbook for teaching Swedish children geography and to some extent the history of their country. The framework is proper and pedagogical, as is to be expected of a schoolbook. Nils is transformed into a pixie as punishment for being lazy and disobedient and unwilling to go to church. His great educational journey is part of the punishment. To children out in the world, his great trip on the back of a goose was regarded as freedom from the oppressive world of the grownups. Perhaps that interpretation is also possible since powerul works of art have many levels of meanings. There is no doubt, however, that the tame gander joining the wild geese was an event she remembered. For Selma Lagerlöf this daring escape was probably a symbol of her own longing for freedom from the family's isolation and well-meant exercise in authority.

World War I came as a shock to Selma Lagerlöf, who suddenly saw her great dream of the power of love shattered. For a long period she was silenced by the war. Her return with The Outcast was a great sermon for peace, giving evidence of her anguish over Europe's war. It is a touching document showing how her doctrine of love had been strongly experienced but sadly shattered by the war.

Selma Lagerldf was granted a productive old age. At seventy five she published her last collection of short stories, and she was at work on a novel when death smote the pen from her hand. Her last years and remaining strength had been devoted to the novel trilogy about Charlotte Löwensköld and her closest circle.

In many respects Selma Lagerlbf had changed her outlook and technique. Somehow she no longer dared believe in her doctrine of love; she could not dispel the war memories.

Anna Svärd, her last novel, would be considered by many to be her best. Selma Lagerlöf s view of the world and mankind had become darker but perhaps also more truthful. She had enriched her natural narrative ability with features from the contemporary psychological novel; she was never slow to learn, even from young authors.

She lived to experience the outbreak of yet another world war, which she had long suspected would come. She had tried to help Jews and other Europeans who had been persecuted. Her last months passed in a haze of exhaustion and resignation. But to the very last she worked on her novel. When reality failed, her art remained.

It is fifty years since Selma Lagerlöf died, and it is perhaps time to evaluate her works and to consider her reputation and popularity. She was subjective, visionary, obsessed by an idea. She was not a realist in the sense that she intended to give a photogrpahically accurate image of Sweden and its poeple. Selma Lagerlöf is a great writer who happened to be born in Sweden, and from experiences in her native country she has managed to shape her special vision of redeeming love. In her best hours Selma Lagerlöf speaks the truth, as only a great writer can.
I think the phenomenon Selma Lagerlöf became possible only because she was born in such a relatively "backward" cultural outpost as Sweden, and in such an out-of-the-way comer as Viinnland at that. She was born into a Nordic narrative tradtion of proud lineage and with perhaps a naive confidence in the classical novel. She was born in a country and a province in which women were still the preservers of tradtion and performed the family's storytelling. She was born in a remote spot where mythical notions were still alive. But above all, she was born in a country where she was allowed to be herself.

Sven Delblane is Assistant Professor in History of Literature at the University of Uppsala. He ranks as one of Sweden's leading contemporary writers, has received several prizes for literature and has been translated into many languages.