Older and more tired - but still jazzy driven
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Loading... - Nathan Brooks
- 09 Sep 2022
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The production of Torbjörn Flygt's beloved novel trilogy about the worker's son Johan Kraft has a nice relaxed rhythm. The first part, Underdog , came in 2001. The second, Outsider, in 2011. Now comes the long-awaited conclusion, Slugger.
Through the prism of the small life, they depict the last fifty years of Swedish society, from the socialist folk home dreams of the 70s to the racist new 20s. Slugger connects to the first parts through the cheesy style, the non-chronological jumping between now and then, the characters, the period details, the grand political fund.
But Slugger doesn't quite have the same organization. In part, its three major sections refer to the Midsummer holiday and its expectations of feasting and glory, the happy dreams that are broken by aging. In part, it is held in the gravity of a black hole: older sister Monika's illness, which tears her away from her husband and children. As in PTSD, the narrator constantly repeats the memories of the period of illness before and the period of mourning after her death.
The death has colored everything in his life, not least in a sad and beautiful cemetery scene where Johan stands with his teenage son by the grave and struggles to reach out and communicate.
I am possibly an ideal reader. The author, his hero and I belong to the same generation, all three of us have a similar upbringing in the working class with a single mother, we have dealt with the complications of the class journey during university studies and professional life.
But despite the strong recognition, I am rarely struck by the content. Surely it can't just be because I'm a pervert and from Linköping, while the author and the hero are tidy and from Malmö?
The author has defended himself against the novels being autobiographical. And Slugger clearly shows that Torbjörn Flygt and his hero are far from identical. For example, Johan Kraft neither reads nor writes books, he is a lawyer. Read More…
