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P(er) C(hristian) Jersild (1935-) |
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Swedish writer and medical doctor, who stirred much debate with his books on bureaucratic follies and absurdities of the welfare state. From the 1960s until the later 1970s, P.C. Jersild practiced medicine at the same time as he distinguished himself as a writer. Jersild's best-known works include Babels hus (1978, House of Babel), a novel about inhuman treatment in a giant hospital near Stockholm. Many of his novels reflect the problems of the high technology nursing and medical research. "Den finaste utmärkelse en läkare kan få är inte Nobelpriset - det är i stället att få en sjukdom uppkallad efter sig. Pristagare glöms ofta lika snabbt som den filmstjärna som dalade i fjol. Men praktiskt taget alla sjukdomar består. De inte bara består, de ökar. Ju fler människomiljarder som föds på jorden, ju fler sjukdomsmöjligheter. Läkarvetenskapen mäktar inte hålla takten när många miljoner nya människor varje år väller in i den ormgrop där över 7 000 olika WHO-registrerade och numrerade sjukdomar väntar." (from Djurdoktorn, 1973) Per
Christian Jersild was born in Katrineholm, but grew up in Ängby, a
middle-class suburb of Stockholm. He was the youngest of three
children. His father was an editor and a pastor of Helgelseförbundet
(the Sanctification Union); Jersild himself abandoned Christian faith
as a young teen. Jersild's mother had given up her literary
aspirations. She never settled happily in the role of a housewife and
mother. At the age of 15, Jersild wrote his first novel. After attending a course in creative writing, conducted by the poet and critic Reidar Ekner, he became convinced that his true calling was that of a writer. Jersild entered in 1955 the Karolinska Institute, receiving in 1962 his Licentiate degree. In 1960 he married Ulla Flyxe; they had two sons. While still a medical student, Jersild published two books. As a short story writer he debuted with Räknelära (Algebra), which came out in 1960. Till varmare länder (1961) told of a housewife named Barbro who starts to receive letters from her old friends and her visions of warmer climates turn out to be hell. Later the novel was made into an opera under the title Resan, composed by Lars Johan Werle. The libretto was written by Lars Runsten. In his studies Jersild specialized in social
medicine and psychiatry. From 1963 to 1966 he was a staff member of the
Institute of Social Medicine in Stockholm. He then worked at the
Stockholm Civil Service Welfare Department and from 1974 to 1978 as a
social psychiatrist at the Huddinge Hospital. He has also been an
assistant professor of social and preventive medicine and a medical
adviser to the National Government Administration Board. These
experiences gave the author insight into the world of bureaucratic
institutions, which he later satirized in his books. From 1977 Jersild devoted himself entirely to writing. He has received several literature prizes, including Swedish Society for Promotion of Literature grand prize in 1981 and De Nio prize in 1998. Jersild's columns have been published in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The book-length essay Darwins ofullbordade: Om människans biologiska natur (1997) was based on six lectures Jersild gave at Uppsala University in 1996. Wider attention Jersild gained in 1967 with his television play Sammanträde pågor, about man's vulnerability in an impersonal bureaucratic society. Jersild's novel Grisjakten (The Pig Hunt) was adapted into screen in 1970. The story focused on a respectable government official, Lennart Siljeberg, who is given the assignment of killing all the pigs in Sweden, starting with the island of Gotland. Through Lennart's diary the reader follows the consequences of duty-bound obedience, which leads thoughts to the case of Adolf Eichmann. Lennart do not question his orders. His bureaucratic jargon Jersild mixes with authentic documents. One of the Jersid's models was Rudolf Höss diary, who was the commandant of Auschwitz and was tried and convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed. After realistic social stories Jersild started to developed his work into a more fantastic direction. The stylistic innovations of James Joyce were for him a crucial source of inspiration. Ledig lördag (1963) tells about a company party, where two of the participants are trapped for a week in a subway train on their nightmarish way back home. The story presents one of Jersildt's favorite themes: something absurd happens on an ordinary day and changes everything upside-down. Prince Valiant och Konsum (1966) is about a girl's dreams of a comic-book hero in the monotony of a Swedish grocery store. In 1965 Jersild published Calvinols resa genom världen, a combination of Voltaire and
Italo Calvono's fables, where Calvino's
mythical, immortal figure witnesses the turning points of European
history. The burlesque novel abandons the concept of linear time. By
the author himself the work was described as "an ecstatic writing
experience." Djurdoktorn (1973), set in 1988-89, demonstrated how humanitarian concerns are
nullified in a society where big business and social democracy have united. The protagonist, a vetenarian named
Evy Beck, unsuccesfully protest a purposeless experiment with animals at the Alfred Nobel Institute for
Medical Research.
Man's struggle with the structures of society are dealt in Vi ses i Song My (1970), in which the protagonist
believes he can change the Swedish military bureaucracy but is instead manipulated by it, and Stumpen (1973),
about an alcoholic bum who thinks he is worthless and should be eliminated by society. Jersild wrote the
book originally for the radical magazine FIB/Kulturfront. Vi ses i Song My and Uppror bland marsvinen (1972) were published by the leftist publishing company FörfattarFörlaget. As a "humanist socialist" Jersild has often criticized the big business. In House of Babel his target is the pharmaceutical giants. Primus Svensson, and elderly man, who suffers arteriosclerosis, is swallowed by a large hospital, suffers a heart attack and eventually dies. Through his fate and in the microcosm of a hospital, Jersild shows the whole picture of loneliness and isolation in modern Sweden. Jersild's novels En levande själ (1980, A Living Soul), told in first person by a disembodied
human brain, the "living soul" of the title, and Efter floden (1982), set 30 years after a nuclear catastrophe, are science fiction
stories, dystopians of future society. Efter floden
(Eng. tr. After the Flood, 1986) depicts the world after nuclear
holocaust. "Think of Ingmar Bergman in his most pessimistic theological
moments and you'll catch the flavor of this story," said Alan Cheuse in
his review in the New York Times. In A Living Soul the protagonist is a human brain, known as Ypsilon, without memories. Is it a human being? Is it only a laboratory project? In Holgerssons (1991) the author made fun of an icon of Swedish's children's literature, Selma Lagerlöf, taking Nils Holgersson from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils and describing his adventures in more recent Sweden. Barnens ö (1976) was about a young boy, Reine, who do not want to grow up and especially to go to summer camp. He searches in Stockholm meaning of life. Violence baffles him, the Vietnam war, costs of living. "And another thing: he had learned at school that people really see the world upside down; that was how their eyes functioned. But very early on in life you learned to turn the picture right side up in your head. It sounded a bit odd, but it was true. Reine didn't want to have anything to do with that kind of trick; he wanted to see the world as it really was, just as you'd seen it from the start when you were born, upside down." Den femtionden frälsaren
(1984) is a historical novel, set in the 18th-century Venice. The
narrator, young Ciacco, is a clerk, who meets people from different
levels of society. The central character is, however, the strange
Magdalenus, a time traveler, who sees a vision of the future. He
describes submarines, lifts, and modern toilets. Magdalenus claims,
that he is a direct descendant of Jesus. Sena sagor (1998) was set in the near future. In the playful story a doctor meets representatives of our own time. Tivoli
(2017), about getting old and dying, is again a social satire set in
the near future. Gröna Lund, the famous amusement park in Stockholm,
has been turned into a retirement home called Bliss Gardens. For further reading: Maktens verktyg by Inge Johnsson (1978); Swedish Book Review (1983, supplement); 'Dehumanization and the Bureaucrazy in the Novels by P.C. Jersild' by Ross Shideler, in Scandivavica (1984); 'Afterword' by Ross Shideler, in Children's Island (1986); Närvarande frånvaro by Bo Larsson (1987); Förnyftets brytpunkt by Jonas Anshelm (1990); Contemporary World Authors, ed. by Tracy Chevalier (1993); Den svenska litteraturhistorien by Göran Hägg (1996); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Vol. 2, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Vem är vem i svensk litteratur by Agneta and Lars Erik Blomqvist (1999); 'Jersild, Per Christian (1935-),' in Historical Dictionary of Scandinavian Literature and Theater by Jan Sjåvik (2006); Das Sinnvolle im Unsinn: eine intertextuelle Analyse ludistisch-parodistischer Textkonstitutionen in Calvinols resa genom världen und Holgerssons von PC Jersild by Susanna Albrecht (2009); Om Calvinols resa genom världen av P.C. Jersild by Gabriella Håkansson (2016) - See also: Peter Nilson and other modern Nordic writers, who have published science fiction Selected works:
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