Relay leg 1

Presentation from the first leg of the book relay on April 3, 2025.

Fredrik Thisner

Peter Englund, Brev från nollpunkten. Historiska essäer (Letters from Ground Zero)

I became acquainted with Peter Englund's writing seriously when I was in my final year of high school, including in the form of the essay collection Förflutenhetens landskap (The Landscape of the Past). Englund must probably be considered complicit in the fact that I finally applied to study history at the university. The one of Englund's works that has made the greatest impression on me is Letter from the Zero Point. Historical essays that I dare say are his most successful works to date. I read the essay collection for the first time during the Christmas and New Year holidays of 1996/97 when the basic course in history, which I was studying at the time, was coming to an end. It is difficult to define exactly what Englund's work should be classified as, but I would perhaps turn to popular history – in the absolute best sense of the word. What Englund achieves with his well-composed texts, often based on individual human destinies, is that he actually also introduces the reader to different theoretical perspectives and explanatory models. In Letter from Zero, it is about, among other things, the bureaucratization of industrial war, the logics that permeate totalitarian states and the downsides of Progress. A lot of positive things can be said about this collection of essays. For my part, it was above all a really good and general educational reading experience, even if the theme may not be entirely cheerful.

Uwe Wittstock, Februari 33. Litteraturens vinter (February 1933. The winter of literature)

Uwe Wittstock, February 33. The winter of literature is a new acquaintance for me. Wittstock is a literary critic and journalist. In writing this work, he used diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other documents to depict a past event. The work is based on the highly productive artistic climate of the Weimar Republic. Here we meet all the big names – such as Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, Berthold Brecht, Anna Seghers to name a few – who are portrayed with both merit and sometimes piquant flaws. Wittstock's book is about how this world of artists – together with the rule of law, as it turns out – goes during that fateful year of 1933. Wittstock's purpose can be said to be to depict what the process looks like when it goes on, month by month, through political radicalization, restrictions on freedom of expression, demands for adaptation, and the choices Wittstock's myriad of protagonists are forced to make. Many go into exile, some end up in concentration camps and a few choose to go on the new regime's errands. For me, who has studied Germanics with a focus on literary studies, these were many dear reunions during a particularly dark time in German history. The pace is otherwise fast and one of the more thrilling non-fiction books I've read. Unfortunately, the theme that Wittstock deals with is highly relevant even today. Not least, the work is a chilling reminder of how quickly a social order can perish.

Väinö Linna, Här under polstjärnan (trilogi) (Under the North Star trilogy)

Väinö Linna is an author that I, like many Swedes, have come into contact with through the book (or film adaptations of) Okänd soldat (Unknown Soldier). For that very reason, I have chosen the work Here Under the Pole Star, which at least I believe is something of a modern national epic. I myself read it as a side reading when I wrote my thesis in high school about the Finnish Civil War. This is a trilogy that consists of three parts, High among Saarijärvi's moors, Up thralls! and Sons of a People, which depicts the Koskela family over three generations, from the 1880s to the 1950s. For a Swedish reader, this is an excellent opportunity to access Finnish history in the form of a novel during a formative period when Finland underwent a major modernization (certainly not entirely different from that of Sweden, although with some special features) and developed into an independent country. Through the fates of the Koskela family, issues such as social divisions, the language struggle, the labour movement, the civil war, the Lapua movement and the Second World War are depicted. A merit of the work is that you as a reader get to take part in the story of the losers. This refers in particular to the civil war and the treatment of the Reds by the White side after the victory. The perspective is by no means strange; Linna is one of the great Finnish working-class writers. This work should perhaps be read by Swedish officers to an even greater extent than Unknown Soldier – which is usually found on many cadet and officers' reading lists – in order to create a somewhat broader understanding of the modern history of the neighboring country.

Stephen King, Död zon (Dead zone)

I'm a big fan of Stephen King. Several of my first really great reading experiences in childhood and adolescence were composed by King. Some of his works I reread about once a decade, among these are Christine and Jurtjyrkogården. It's probably not just that they're well-told stories, but probably just as much about some kind of nostalgia for reading. The idea was therefore first that I would strike a blow for Jurtjyrkogården (Pet sematary). But then it occurred to me that Dead Zone is also such a recurring book. It was first published in 1979 and takes place against the backdrop of the political aftermath of the Vietnam War in the United States. The main character has become a psychic after an accident (a not entirely uncommon theme in King). The evil in the plot is a populist politician and who will of course cause great misery if he is not stopped. In addition to this, the themes of both political and religious cults are also depicted. I can't help but recommend a book that was published about 45 years ago and which seems to be about the kind of politicians who now rule the United States. The question is whether it is not only the main character who is psychic, but perhaps also King? Read and decide for yourself.

Fredrik Backman, En man som heter Ove (A man called Ove)

Many of the works I have included on this list have a rather dark soundboard. For this reason, I feel compelled somewhere to also include a work that lifts the mind and offers the occasional laugh, namely Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove. I don't really think that the work requires a more detailed presentation. The grumpy but (in fact – it's a bit inside) kind-hearted Ove is disturbed in his suicide attempts when a new family moves into the neighborhood. And there begins a new chapter in Ove's life, depicted through Backman's hilariously constructed situations and wonderful art of formulation. This book definitely qualifies for the feel-good genre. In addition, it offers some self-insight. Because who doesn't feel like an Ove on a regular basis?