Novel
Om
Not translated into English
Lars Ahlin · 1946
Synopsis
Bengt, sixteen, and his father have just been thrown out by Matilda, who served as a mother to them, and set out in search of a new “fat boarding house”, a home where they can live in comfort. But the son has seen through the way his father flees from reality. Over the course of a single day, the novel thus puts the myth of the mother and the institution of the father on trial, in a form that breaks with realism and has most of the genres of language follow one another.
Context
The author's third novel, it was published by Tiden in 1946, running to more than five hundred pages. It is the most experimental of his books, and in it a humanist theology can be seen taking shape, in which each man carries his own meaning. It was reissued by Alba in 1977, then in 2003 by the Lars Ahlin society, at Modernista, with a preface by Gunnar D. Hansson. It has not been translated into French or English.
Who it is for
A very long novel, in Swedish only, of a very free form: it demands patience and reads like an experience.
Prizes and reception
His most experimental novel, presented by his publishers as one of the boldest in Swedish prose and as an early masterpiece.