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Frans G(unnar) Bengtsson (1894-1954) |
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Swedish essayist, novelist, poet, and biographer. Frans G. Bengtsson was the first successful practitioner of the informal essay in Sweden, a genre that he virtually introduced to the literature of his own country. His best-known work is Röde orm (1941-45, The Long Ships), a Viking saga written in an ornate and romantic style. The central character, Red Orm Tostesson, is captured by the Vikings in his youth. Orm's adventures take him to Spain, Ireland, England and Russia, after which he settles down to live peacefully in his farm in Skåne. "Orm was, in fact, fond of food, and did not grudge his mother her anxiety regarding his appetite; but Toste and Odd were sometimes driven to protest that she reserved all the titbits for him. In his childhood Orm had once or twice fallen sick, ever since when Asa had been convinced that his health was fragile, so that she was continually fussing over him with solicitous admonitions, making him believe that he was racked with dangerous cramps and in urgent need of sacred onions, witches' incantations, and hot clay platters, when the only real trouble was that he had overeaten himself on corn porridge and pork." (The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, translated from the Swedish by Michael Meyer, introduction by Michael Chabon, New York: New York Review Books, 2010, p. 12) Frans Gunnar Bengtsson was born in Tossjö, near Kristianstad, the first son of Sven Bengtsson, an estate manager, and Elsa Maria Ljunggren. In his childhood in Skåne Bengtsson suffered from poor health – he had a chronic kidney disease. The problems later hindered his plans for an academic career. Moreover, he did not serve in the army, he was forbidden to practice physical execise, and he never obtained ski and went to skiing. Bengtsson's favorite books in his childhood were James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer. His father was interested in books on Napoleon and Swedish history. At
the age of twelve, Bengtsson penned his first poem. After graduating
from a secondary school in 1912 he entered the University of Lund.
Bengtsson did not hurry with his studies. Such philosophers as
Schopenhauer and Hartmann deeply influenced Bengtsson's thinking, a
combination of a stoic world view with aestheticism, anti-democtaric
bias, and passionate Anglophilia. While living in Lund, he read extensively, wrote poems which he gave to his friends, and developed skills as an extemporaneous speaker and chess player. "I'm an aesthete when I read philosophy, and a philosopher when I read fiction," he once said. From this period dates his friendship with the literature historian and critic Fredrik Böök, who helped Bengtsson in the beginning of his career. His Licentiate in Philosophy Bengtsson received in 1930. Bengtsson married in 1939 Gerda Fineman, who worked as a
secretary at the Norstedts publishing house. Politically, Bengtsson
leaned to the right, and tended to view progress with suspicion. While
he seldom expressed his opinions on current world affairs, during World
War II he became known for his criticism of Nazism and the Swedish
sympathizers of Germany. When his German translator of Röde Orm approached him with a proposal to modify the background of Salaman, an Andalusian Jew, he did not accept any changes. The first part of the novel, Die rote Schlange: Abenteuer eines Seefahrers ums Jahr 1000,
translated by Elsa Carlberg, was published in München in 1943. Frans G. Bengtsson died in Ribbingsfors on December 19, 1954. Though he had often criticized institutionalized Christianity, and by his friends he had been considered nearly an atheist, on his death bed he read old Swedish psalms. As a side-effect of his long illness he had gradually lost interest in books, his dearest friends all his life. Bengtsson made his debut as a poet in 1923 with Tärningkast, which was followed by Legenden om Babel
(1925), which contained a translation of Tennyson's
'The Lady of Shalott' (1832): "På ömse sidor flodens våg / stå jämna
fält av korn och råg. / Längs strandens vall drar hög och låg / i
köpmansfärd och pilgrimståg / förbi mot tornkrönt Camelot. / Och envar,
stadd den vägen, hör / hur vinden alla liljor rör, / som vaja yvigt
nedanför / runt ön som nämns Shalott." ('Jungfrun av Shalott,' p. 113) Reacting against modernism, Bengtsson revived such old verse
forms as the canzone and the sonnet. In the 1920s Bengtsson began publishing historical sketches in the periodical Ord och Bild. His first collection of essays, Litteratörer och militärer (1929), contained several historical sketches, as well as pieces of literary criticism and literary history. Other collections include Silversköldarna (1931), De långhåriga merovingerna (1933), Sällskap för en eremit (1938), För nöjes skull (1947), and Tankar i gröngräset (1953), a selection. Essays brought Bengtsson great success. His broad knowledge of
history, large vocabulary, and masterful style were used most
effectively in these works. Bengtsson also had a phenomenal memory, and
he could quote by heart long passages from books he had read in his
youth. The writer Sven Stople, Bengtsson's friend, had told that only
the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin had a better
memory. Bengtsson's subject matters varied from literary and military
figures to historical curiosities and the art of lying. He was
especially interested in men of action, such as François Villon, Oliver
Cromwell, Wellington and Napoleon. A skeptical pessimist, Bengtsson had no illusions about the modern world. Over the years his attitude hardened. Bengtsson's feelings of being out of tune with his own times surfaces in many places in his memoirs, Den lustgård som jag minns (1953). He was seen as a highly anachronist figure in the 20th-century modernist Swedish literature. He once said: "Joan of Arc, Carl XII, and Garibaldi are the persons I would like to meet – for them the truth was more important than intrigues." Bengtsson admired Joseph Conrad more than any other contemporary novelist. The two-volume Karl XII:s levnad (1935-36),
published by Norstedt, won the Swedish Academy’s prize in 1938. It
was a detailed study of the life of King Charles XII, one of the
greatest military leaders in European history who defeated Denmark,
Poland, Saxony, and Russia in a series of campaigns, and was
killed while fighting in Norway. Bengtsson avoided psychologizing but
created an epic character who was hailed by the extreme right as
the model of a strong militrary leader. "By his scintillating style and
wealth of allusions the author captures his public, but just through
avoiding the sophism of preconceived historical dogma he becomes highly
subjective, presenting his reactions to problems rather than the
reactions of Charles". ('Three Swedish Books About Royalty' by Alma Luise Olson, New York Times, August 30, 1936) After his friend Fredrik
Böök made some negative comments about the work, Bengtsson broke
with him. Financially, the biography was an immediate success, and
Bengtsson did not start writing a new book, but spent his time reading
(his personal library consisted of approximately 8,000 books),
fishing, walking, and sleeping, "Varför händer det alltjämt att jag
lovar ärande vänner i redaktioner att skriva artiklar åt dem, när jag i
hela min varelse känner att jag inte vill skriva artiklar, och när jag
dessuttom inte lider sådan nöd som kan tvinga till den sortens
beklämmande sysselsättning?" ('Tankar in gröngräset,' in För nöjes skull: essayer by Frans G. Bengtsson, Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt, 1947, p. 19) Röde orm, which became one of the most widely read Swedish novels, was written during the war years, but its tone was light, and it did not have excessive patriotic fervour. The writing proceeded slowly. "Ett kvartsark, trettio maskinskrivna rader, förblev ett ståtligt dagsverke . . . Men en stor fördel var att jag fick leka ensam i min vrå, utan att någon lade sig i vad jag sysslade med." ('Hur "Röde Orm" blev till,' in Folk som sjöng, och andra essayer, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1955, p. 19) It took Bengtsson four years to finish the second part. Bengtsson he felt himself getting old and that Hemma och i Österled was not as good as the first part, Sjöfarare i Österled. Posthumously appeared Folk som sjöng (1955) and Lycklig resa (1960). An English translation of Bengtsson's essays was published in 1950 under the title A Walk to an Ant Hill and Other Essays. "In my career as a reader I have encountered only three people who knew The Long Ships,
and all of them, like me, loved it immoderately. Four for four: from
this tiny but irrefutable sample I dare to extrapolate that this novel,
first published in Sweden during the Second Word War, stands ready,
given the chance, to bring lasting pleasure to every single human being
on the face of the earth." ('Introduction' by Michael Chabon, The Long Ships, p. xii) The
work, which covered approximately the years 980-1010, drew a picture of people whose thoughts and feelings are seen in
their action. Bengtsson adopted a
narrative technique familiar from the Icelandic sagas. Colored with poker-faced humor and
irony, he parodied
romantic Viking pageants, in poetry and prose. The Long Ships was Bengtsson's only novel. As a model he did
not use such great narratives as Njáls saga or Laxdœla saga but turned to the smaller stories called pættir. By some critics Röde orm
was considered to have contributed to a reawakening of interest in
Vikings in popular culture. Jack Cardiff's 1963 movie adaptation of the
novel received poor reviews. "The plot, which has obviously suffered in
both editing and in censorial slaps, is a conglomeration of battles,
double-crossing, sea-storms, floggings, unarmed combat with occasional
halfhearted peeks at sex." ('The Long Ships,' Variety, December 31, 1963) For further reading: Frans G. Bengtsson: nya perspektiv på författaren till Röde Orm, edited by Svante Nordin (2024); Frans G. Bengtsson: en bibliografi, edited by Rolf Arvidsson, Jan-Eric Malmquist (2012); 'Introduction' by Michael Chabon, in The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, translated by Michael Meyer (2010); Frans G. Bengtsson och Hjalmar Gullberg: en bok om poetisk vänskap by Carl Fehrman (2003); Vem är vem i svensk litteratur by Agneta och Lars Erik Blomqvist (1999); 'Bengtsson, Frans G.,' in Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century: Volume 1, edited by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Frans G. Bengtssons människosyn och konstsyn by Ingrid Sällryd (1996); Frans G. Bengtsson, Röde Orm och vikingatiden: en föreläsningsserie, edited by Lennart Ploman (1993); En bok om Frans G. Bengtsson: minnen och studier, edited by Rolf Arvidsson (1988); Bertha von Suttner, Frans G. Bengtsson och jag by Ingegerd von Schéele (1986); Med Frans G. Bengtsson runt Rössjön: essäer, dikter, skisser: naturfotografier från Skåne och Västergötland by Agne Lageson; foto: Sven Hjalmarsson (1985); Legenden om Bengtsson by Ivar Harrie (1971); A History of Swedish Literature by Alrik Gustafson (1961); 'The Sword Does Not Jest. The Heroic Life of King Charles XII of Sweden by Frans G. Bengtsson (review)' by R.E. Sullivan, in Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly Volume 11, Number 4 (1960); 'Frans G. Bengtsson (1894-1954' by Lawrence S. Thompson, in Kentucky Foreign Language Quaterly, Volume 2, Issue 2 (1955); 'The Long Ships. Two volumes by Frans G. Bengtsson, Michael Meyer ' by Walter W. Gustafson, in Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1955); Frans G.Bengtsson: en minnesbok, edited by Germund Michanek (1955); Frans G. Bengtsson: minnesord by Hakon Stangerup (1954); Frans G. Bengtsson by Elof Ehnmark (1946) Selected works:
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