“It is said that a light veil hangs suspended before the
future of Europe and prevents us from observing clearly the forms that beckon
to us from within…” writes Swedish writer Carl Jonas Love Almqvist in his
preface to his 1839 novel, Det går an; un tavla ur livet (translatable
as “It will do,” “It can be done,” or “It’s acceptable”; “A picture from life,”
though the English translation settles for the more pedestrian Sara Videbeck).
With extraordinary explicitness and forward-thinking, Almqvist defines the
writer’s role in trying to discern these mysterious new contours:
We must first learn to know people
themselves, observe them in all their nooks and corners, listen to their
innermost sighs, nor scorn to understand their tears of joy. In brief, what we
need are true stories or sketches from life: examples, contributions, and
experiences.
In other respects, though, Almqvist’s preface is remarkably
opaque, and walks on eggshells around his radical subject: the liberation of
sexuality. For readers with their antennae out, it’s hard to miss Almqvist’s
euphemisms - “happiness,” “material interests,” “a glimpse of heaven on earth”
- and the sexual imagery of the preface’s final lines abandons most, if not all,
pretext. But Almqvist needn’t have obfuscated; Det går an dropped onto Sweden
like a bomb, igniting a furor concerning marriage; helping add fuel to women’s
rights efforts; inspiring later Swedish authors in their presentation of social
material; even launching a new literary genre – Det går an literature – that challenged
Almqvist’s ideas and occasionally reworked them to reveal his story as naïve or
prurient male fantasy (conveniently, Almqvist appears to leave children out of
his utopian picture of relationship). It also led to Almqvist himself being
branded as a corruptor of youth and morals. The invaluable site
nordicwomensliterature.net has a fascinating short piece on the reception of Det går an.
Given Almqvist’s straightforward intentions, it’s hardly
surprising that Det går an tethers itself to an equally straightforward plot,
one traced by the journey of Sara Videbeck and an infatuated non-commissioned
officer, Albert, as they meet and travel together, first by boat and then
overland, from Stockholm to Videbeck’s home province of Västergötland, with
Almqvist using their developing relationship to explore a range of issues in
male/female relations. But Almqvist provides more than a simple polemic; Det
går an succeeds as a richly imagined story touching on marriage, the
position of women, the stratification of Swedish society (Almqvist cleverly
uses the ship’s hierarchical accommodations to comment on Swedish class
structure, even inserting a memorable depiction of the typical bourgeois
family), and above all the impediments to individual happiness placed by
tradition and convention. While foregoing the more daring literary acrobatics
present in the one other Almqvist work I’ve read, his exhilarating 1834 "fugue," The Queen’s Tiara, in
favor of a stricter focus on social concerns, Det går an nonetheless displays
Almqvist’s idiosyncratic imagination; rich, realist description (one could
duplicate the trip without a map; even the Yngve
Frey’s departure hour is drawn from its actual schedule); astute
psychological observation; incisive commentary on class and regional manners
and differences; and wry humor, including - as in The Queen’s Tiara -
the narrator’s occasional interruption of the narrative to comment upon the
story or explain himself.
Videbeck, her chaperone aunt having comically missed the
boat by seconds (as in The Queen’s Tiara, Almqvist revels in eliciting
comic potential), is making her way home from a business trip. She forms a
striking silhouette among the middle class passengers, and the slightly
cartoonish Albert has a difficult time trying to pigeonhole her into a
particular social stratum. Bemused and befuddled by Videbeck’s apparent
non-conformity, Albert expresses his confusion by fussing irritably with the boat’s
serving girls and displaying an obsession with cigars that might have caused
Freud to reassess his famous caveat. But in Albert’s persistent attempts to get
to know Sara, he is as deferential and awestruck as he is mystified by her uncompromising
sense of herself.
Videbeck is a glazier, having taken over the business from
her deceased father but prevented, by rigid guild rules, from continuing in the
trade once her sick mother expires and takes along certain widow’s rights. Yet
Videbeck is confident in her future, having invented an improved commercial glazier’s
putty and also planning to open a shop where she can sell decorative glass
boxes and mirrors. She describes her work using the confident, competent tones
of a professional, even noting that she herself supervises special jobs as she
cannot trust “the boys” – her employees – to be sensitive in manipulating the
diamond. Videbeck also asserts her independence by insisting on paying her own
way, even when Albert invites her to lunch. Further, she shows no sense of
embarrassment about being on familiar terms in public with a young man she
barely knows, culminating one night at a hotel where, with only a single room available,
she suggests Albert share it with her.
As Albert and Sara’s relationship develops, the former
begins to learn the vision Sara has for the ideal relationship, one born from witnessing
the experience of her poor mother, driven nearly to suicide by an alcoholic
husband. When Albert suggests that as an
unmarried woman, Sara will nonetheless be unprotected and vulnerable, she
replies,
We shall see. On the contrary, if I had
a husband as unsober and irritable as my mother’s was, I should be defenseless
and miserable. No, I tell you, I shall get along just as I am.
To Albert’s credit, he rises to meet Videbeck’s calm
assertiveness, emboldened rather than intimidated by her complexity:
Quite unexpectedly and boldly he
answered: “I am just wondering whether any person has ever kissed that mouth.”
A quickly flitting smile was her only
answer, and she looked away over the Mälar waters. In so doing, there was not
the slightest coquettishness or glimmer of mischief discernible in her eye,
but, on the other hand, nothing exactly romantic or dreamily divine. It was an
intermediate something of an incomprehensible character. Not at all ugly, nor
yet profoundly beautiful. It was of the kind concerning which we are wont to
express ourselves with a happy countenance: ”Oh, it will do!”
At a subsequent hotel room, the narrator suggests that
relations have become warmer than warm (in this delightfully subtle passage,
the metaphorical text flies at such a high altitude that it may leave some
readers behind), and all that remains is for the couple to find a form for
their relationship going forward.
That form is apparently what caused Det går an to
explode with such impact. Videbeck makes clear she has no interest in marriage
(the narrator, with Almqvist’s trademark tongue-in-cheek drama, refers to it as
“humanity’s greatest problem”), proposing instead an arrangement that will
guarantee both her and Albert’s independence and the long-term vitality of
their affection for one another. With gently ascending courage and respect for
Sara Videbeck’s individuality, Albert - and Almqvist - step through that veil
into the future. One can only hope to see more of this remarkable writer’s work
translated into English.
