Customer Reviews

The days of His Grace;: A novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a gravely underappreciated work of art by one of Sweden's finest novelists (if not the finest). The story is about hope, life, death and foresaken love in the realm of Charlemagne. A tribute, one might say, to the survival of intellect in the midst of unfettered violence and raw power.

... not a parable nor a satire of Stalinist Russia, not a 'political agenda' book at all, and if Johnson's leftist pals turned against him because of this novel, it must have been a matter of sour grapes or envy. "The Days of His Grace" is a historical romance, set in Lombard (Langobard) Italy between 775 and 825 AD. The 'history' in it is based on sound scholarship -- pedantry, to be blunt about it -- but the romance is too sourly frustrated, I fear, to appeal to the usual readers of the genre. There are brilliant passages of description, scenes of high drama, vivid characters, even a few touches of what a Swede might take for humor, but the whole novel is awkward, dour, and at times pretentious. Johnson did indeed win the Nobel Prize, but he isn't a writer of the caliber of other Scandinavian winners such as Par Lagerkvist or Halldor Laxness.

There is a curious 'ethnographic' agenda to the book, one which troubles me as an occasional historian. Johnson is plainly fascinated by the Langobards because he wants to believe that they migrated originally from Sweden, or at least from the Scandinavian Peninsula, and that therefore they were "us" -- proto-viking Swedes -- with all our virtues. I've encountered the same daydream among Japanese who visit the Hopi/Navajo reservations in Arizona; 'they' are evidence of 'our' cultural energies. To paraphrase another Johnson, "nationalism is the last refuge of egotists."

This isn't such a bad book, though. If you like historical novels with fairly authentic detail, you'll probably enjoy it, but don't be fooled into looking for depths.

This book is dictatorship and the struggle against it. The dictator is Charlemange, and the opposition is led by newly conquered Lombard nobles. It is not a book about ninth century Europe - it is a book about our own times. Dictatorships are all the same, even if they are known by different names. The struggle against them is also timeless; even an oppressed nobleman is still oppressed! The methods of dictatorships remain the same also: torture, disappearances, secret police, concentration camps, etc. The book could rank with 1984, George Orwell was also an apostate from communism.
This book got Eyvind Johnson in trouble with the cultural elite in Sweden: they saw it as an attack on the Soviet Union. The author had been an ardent communist, but after visiting Stalinist Russia he denounced it as just another dictatorship, and that communism was a sham. The treatment he received form his former friends forced him to commit suicide.

I considered myself lucky to have found this book a few years ago. I was aware that the author, Eyvind Johnson, was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature but wasn't sure I would ever find a book in English of his that I could read. When I finally got around to reading "The Days of His Grace", I spent most of the book wondering what the point of the story was. As the book was coming to its' conclusion, I realized that it certainly qualifies as a love story; one in which a life-long love is given its' chance in the twilight years. OK, I guess I appreciated that aspect of the story. I also realized that those Charlemagne buffs out there (if any) could enjoy this book somewhat. In addition, fans of Medievel Europe could probably appreciate the book as well. However, this is not a biography of Charlamagne and, although he is "His Grace", little specific information about him is supplied. There is also not enough about daily life in Medievel Europe to make this any sort of "cult classic" for those fans.

What the bulk of the book seems to be about is the members of an Italian family of intermediate nobility who put their fortune on a failed plot. What happens to them over the years is, apparently, the crux of the story. I had trouble keeping track of who was who and which ones were the "good guys". As I said, in the end some pieces start to fall into place for an adequate story. However, the hopes for something special had long since been discarded.

Martin Seymour Smith, in a review of 20th Century Literature, commented that the Swedish over-rate their authors. He points out that not all countries are guilty of this and cites the Dutch as an example. I quess I would have to cite this book as supporting evidence. However, it finished well enough for me to give the author one more chance. My research on the author tells me that his focus is on man's frustration. "The Days of His Grace" certainly frustrated me.