Ancient History

BY ØYSTEIN ROTTEM

Lars Sund
Erik's Book
Söderströms. FIN

If you're planning to read Lars Sund's novel, nominated for the Nordic Council's Literary Award, you better have time on your hands. It's convoluted, maybe too convoluted. But it's absorbing and entertaining in an elementary sort of way, which means it's tempting to get through it in one sitting.

The author knows his way around. He's familiar with the deceits. He knows what's needed to keep his reader's attention. Erik's Book is a superior example of narrative art. The prime setting is a small community in Ostrobothnia, Finland, a place called Siklax which lies north of Vaasa. From this centrepoint, the action spreads out in different directions, though it always returns to the point of origin. Although the novel looks backwards from time to time, its main chronological direction is forwards. It begins a few months before the outbreak of Finland's Winter War, that is the autumn of 1939, and advances to the Cold War of the 1950s and '60s. Most of the events in the book are concentrated to the war years, however.

Intelligence Service

The array of characters is formidable, but no more than we can handle. In focus most of the time is a small core of about 8-10 people, and it is not too difficult to keep track of their thoughts and deeds. Whether we should call Erik's Book a collective novel or not, remains an open question. Its title would seem to suggest the presence of a main protagonist, of the name of Erik. But while Erik does feature as one of the key characters, he has several rivals. The storyline follows the central characters simultaneously, though the focus expands from time to time to indulge a more panoramic view when they all happen to be assembled at one and the same place.

Erik is one of Ida's sons - Ida being another central character. She has been running Smedsas, one of the largest farms in Siklax, since the premature demise of her husband. Erik is sent to fight in the Winter War, and soon becomes involved in intelligence and efforts to spread disinformation to the Russians. The political climate of the post-war days did not favour people like Erik and he is forced to flee, first to Sweden, later to the US where he is snapped up by US intelligence. Since he is bright, persistent and a model anti-Communist, he rises quickly through the ranks, becoming in time next-in-command in Berlin. This is where he becomes the first Westerner, according to the novel, to discover what Khrushchev actually said in his famous 1956 speech.

Beyond the Grave

The other characters remain, by and large, where they are. One of them is Ida's mother Hanna, nicknamed Dollar-Hanna. She runs the village shop for year after year. Another character is the hot-tempered, though nonetheless industrious, Rurik, a pioneer in Siklax when it comes to buses and cinemas. A crucial character is Margareta. She takes over the bus company after Rurik, her father-in-law, and under her management it grows into a major company. Charles is also key. He was a shooting ace during the war who turned his hand to painting and became a famous artist. These two are the parents of the narrator/author, who emerges every now and then to tell a story of his own and to comment on the action, characters and, not least, tell us why the story is being told at all.

This narrator is fairly unique. Born the same year as Lars Sund, his name is Carl-Johan, he is an art historian, though he plays the part of a social historian here. He belongs in the story, but he is also it's source. Now this is a pretty well-used and well-worn procedure common to the so-called meta-novel. That said, in Sund's hands it is put to very sophisticated use indeed. As a teller of historical tales, Carl-Johan possesses an unusual but extremely useful sixth sense - he can speak with the dead. Whatever we happen to think about spiritism etc., in the framework of the novel, his ability is depicted as if it were real. And it's useful too, these conversations with departed spirits in fact give the novel a boost. To be precise, the spirits exhibit a wry, laconic sense of humour, a sense of humour sets its stamp on large sections of the novel, moreover.

Carl-Johan finds it impossible prize information out of people close to him. Usually help comes in the shape of the wider community. But there is one informant that stands out, a parson by the name of Gunnar Taxell and prone to air his objections to the account. Carl-Johan remains adamant, however. He generally has some document or vital information to back his claims.

Excellent depiction of the period

Erik's Book revolves around departing and returning, about people who leave and people who stay. It is about grand history insinuating itself into minor history, and what war and progress do to us. The novel is a tribute to an era, a society and ways of life - all of which are ancient history now, and have been for some time. The novel is ancient history, too, though it belongs in terms of genre to realism's long and glorious history. Its metafictional elements do not affect this fact. Time and place are given their due. As a reader, you feel transported back to the period covered by the novel, and it is precisely this sensation that comprises much of the pleasure we experience from reading it.

The characters and settings are affectionately drawn, and the author avoids sham sentimentality. The laconic comments provided by the narrator and the lively and fanciful way in which he handles his material is, on the contrary, not only an essential feature of the book, it is also one of its most valuable assets. Most important, though, is its verbal and stylistic form. Sund uses words and expressions in fresh ways, and stretches the Swedish language both lexically and grammatically much further than is usual.

Poetry and the ordinary spoken word unite on a higher plane in Erik's Book. One of the things that really shines in the novel is the realism of the repartee. It takes time to get used to the many peculiar accents and dialects but eventually one gets to feel at home in the language - as one does in the village of Siklax. And we do so because good literature has the magic to make it happen.

Øystein Rottem is a book critic