Axel (Hydra Books) [Hardcover]

Bo Carpelan (Author), David McDuff (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Swedish

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press; Translated edition (December 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810116170
• ISBN-13: 978-0810116177
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,200,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the great secret books, December 26, 2005

By 

Frederick Pollack - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Axel: A Novel (Paperback)

This is simply one of the most provocative and moving novels I've ever read. Henry Miller said of Hamsun's *Mysteries that, reading it, he felt he was reading the story of his own life, at a level where empirical differences were irrelevant. *Axel affected me that way. It is one of those rare great novels that are about a soul, not its relational or social determinants (although these are well depicted); offhand, I can only compare it to *Mysteries and to Pessoa's *Book of Disquietude. Weeks after finishing it, I'm still haunted by its sensibility. Tolstoy is invoked often in the novel; imagine Tolstoy rewritten by an agnostic Kierkegaard.

The person on whom it was based was the author's great-uncle. He lived from 1858 to 1919 and was a close friend of Sibelius. The author learned about Axel only while reading about the latter; the name was never mentioned in his family. Axel left no diary; this novel is that diary, covering his entire life, interspersed with third-person sections each of which is a superb (and often heartrending) set-piece. If you don't know Sibelius's music, you will still, I think, be affected by it. But if you do - Axel was the person to whom S. dedicated his 2nd Symphony.