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REVIEW. Klas Östergrens “Forsaken” is a thick book. It is quite reminiscent of a red box, I really missed it tonight. I was going to carry a can of red from room to room, but grabbed Östergren’s new one. It could be a sign of something, it is not clear what.
The “renegades” are not only fat, they are also good. Already the cover, out Miroslav Sokcic, it’s excellent. “Forsaken” in red, the capital letters jump and tighten, the letters form an image of fixation, something is hidden under this title: generals perhaps, or resignation. Deny at least means apostasy, fanatic refugee, funny words that too.
I want credit for reading the book right from the beginning, not jumping to page 485, where the long party about the Swedish Academy begins. The two hundred pages on the well-known debacle have already been published in the press. I was curious to know how this party was inserted into the novel, the project sounded difficult, would it really work?
Keeping address speed at 746 pages is not easy, not even for a professional like Klas Östergren. But you can do it. Suddenly the book ended and I immediately felt a nostalgic longing to return to the mood of the novel. You recognize his masters in the hall, a little gray, a little resigned, the shots from the back come and go, the sun has its way and soon it gets dark on the stage. But it doesn’t have to be that bad, after all.
At first, the author stands at the gate of his farm in Österlen and looks out over the area. A thin man in a suitcase approaches resolutely. He is our old friend Henry Morgan, a carpenter, pianist, repairman, and storyteller. In the company of Henry Morgan one is not bored, but it is understood that the Author is on guard. Henry Morgan’s specialty is disrupting other people’s circles. This time he makes a request to the author. Östergren will write a report on misery at the Swedish Academy. What really happened? Why did you quit?
But the author is already in the process of another book, about another old scandal, the so-called South African initiative. It was 1989 and the winds of freedom were sweeping the world, the apartheid regime was over. Sweden would celebrate both Nelson Mandela and sell JAS planes. The Social Democrats hired an advertising agency, which for unknown reasons failed at everything. The most famous is the concert there. Dr. Alban and other Swedish artists played a 30,000-seat stadium in Soweto. Three (3) spectators came.
This monumental fiasco is a driving force in “Renegates”, and serves as a parodic counterpart to the fiasco at the Swedish Academy. The protagonists are a collection of frayed publicists who have been licking their wounds since 1989. Not without taste, Klas Östergren signs this pack, which in the eyes of the cultural world despises the pack that sacrificed the mouse on the altar of Mammon.
But it is evident that Torsten Ljung has soul and heart and more preparation than the sun-drenched Knights of Parnassus. Even the unlikely Jerry Qvarnstedt, a talkative Bible belt promoter, with a gold cross on his chest and the glint of faith in his eyes, has some certainty. But it’s bad for Jerry, he’s a gossip. Anyone who gossips outside of school goes crazy. The principal gave Jerry candy because he mentioned comrades. “This is how he learned the truth; a mixture of blood and caramel ”. And now it is the author who is gossiping about his former comrades at the Academy.
The Academy section tastes like blood and caramel. The material would have sufficed for his own thieves novel, but when reality surpasses the poem, the prose of the dry report fits well. It will be burlesque anyway. All the main characters have been named after grass species, behind Mr. Darrgräs you can guess Anders olsson and Mr. Styvrepe has a move Horace Engdahl. Sara danius is Mrs. Rye, and the author himself is called Svingel, according to Östergren (he with the dictionary) a species of grass that mixed well with rye. The struggle for power at the Academy is icily portrayed. The section where Östergren talks about the friendship of his youth with a completely different tone, more tender Catherine Frostenson and especially her husband, “Klubbvärden”. The sun flows during a summer in Provence. There, Östergren gives background and shape to the tragedy that follows long after.
All the protagonists of the novel cry and for a long time, they have something to hide or try to forget.
The “report” on the Academy in “Forsaken” actually deviates from the classic Östergren pattern, where what happens in the novels is always subordinate to how it happens. Style is everything. Also, Östergren never sticks to a single story, instead deviating from the main story in a thousand and one episodes about yours and hers, from cooking lobster to the art of mastering dental fear. Above all, “Renegates” is an entertaining investigative study in the gray area between reality and fiction. The author plays with the expectations of the reader, but the process also goes in the opposite direction. The reader is a demanding customer. “Forsaken” strike at least a perfect balance between jokes and seriousness, mourning and parody.
As in the novel “Twist”, Östergren weaves at a rehearsal party on a cultural-historical theme. It is a sublime “snow painting”, of Pieter breugel to Gustaf Fjaestad, fun to read. He winks at his fellow writer Lars Andersson who wrote “Snöljus” and a novel about Fjaestad, and more Peter englund that throbbed in the snow with Breugel.
But Östergren’s main teacher is enough John Le Carre. All the protagonists of the novel cry and for a long time, they have something to hide or try to forget. They are trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the world. The external environment is, among other things, Stureplan in Stockholm, where mysterious sewers create secret connections and reveal rooms that no one knows about.
Like John Le Carré, Klas Östergren manages to make readers feel our own spy life on the bare skin. Life is a seesaw. Each company is a bet, each project a nest of snakes. There is always someone listening and putting together puzzles. Carelessness with details will cause disaster. You can’t trust anyone and no matter which villains you date, it’s always you to blame. Forever.
ROMAN
KLAS ÖSTERGREN
Renegater
Polaris, 746 s.
Ulrika Knutson is a writer, critic and contributor to Expressen’s cultural pages.
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