The book I bought on a cold autumn night is a collection of Stig Dagerman's best short stories. The book is translated by Steven Hartman. While reading these stories for the second time, I had a better chance to step back and look for commonalities, patterns, themes, and, in general, to better understand the author's philosophy. To address this, I'd look at stand-out stories as an independent entity. These stories are written at various time points; therefore, it is reasonable to represent various concerns of the author throughout his life, from desolate childhood, anxious adolescence to the cold facts of adulthood. Here is a brief one-line take on each of the stories:
The Stories:
To Kill a Child:
The inconspicuous nature of the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The accident is the scene of sacrifice. The victimhood of innocence before the ignorant eyes of the static machinery of the mundane.
In Grandmother's House:
An immaculate encounter with Death. The absence of a loved one. A beautiful line is from the grandmother, hearing the voice of the grandfather in the form of a grunt and whisper coming from beneath the gravel:
"He says to go inside. He says he's not sleeping, he's just resting. He'll move on in a minute."
The Surprise:
This one deserves its spot as the first of the series. It is truly heartbreaking. A plot slowly progressing to a dim climax in a setting as harsh as a Swedish winter. The notion of poverty, loss, and bereavement, and a crude patriarchy exercising cruelty on a widow and the child. All the sadness gets worse when you, as the reader, see the brutal experience from the innocent POV of a child.
Men of Character:
The story depicts a chauvinistic view across relationships and the environment. A series of mistrust, betrayal, adultery, abrasive manners, and men and women so engaged with their self-interest. However, as the story unfolds, layers of pathological, chauvinistic undertow emerge. This is a story of guilt and sin and an emotional fracture. But mostly it pictures coarse masculine hubris. As the author put it fabulously, this story depicts "men pregnant with their own honor."
The Stockholm Car:
Again, the rural vs urban, the city vs village, the rich and the poor, come together in an unsavory manner. The subtly hidden in each manner and movement of the gentleman from Stockholm. It is one image that is among the most violent pictures in modern literature, without uttering a word, without raising a hand, and with no gun. The simple neglectful behavior is what hurts the kids (and me as the audience) the most.
Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?
Alcoholism and manipulation are the main themes. The storytelling follows a pattern that was later categorized as a stream of consciousness. Herein, however, we are dealing more with unconsciousness than consciousness. Curiously, the protagonist stirs a variety of emotions in me: from anger to pity, and even sometimes I felt sympathy as the man is afflicted with PTSD of his wife's betrayal. This story is as dark as it gets, and curiously, it is the last in this series.
Major Themes:
In my mind, Dagerman is a genius and these short stories are oeuvres of a writer/journalist whose lens captured the agony of twentieth-century mankind. There is plenty of literary assets that he denied us beyond his published works. The repeated themes are human regret, the entrapment of existence, being sentenced to lose gradually while poorly equipped to cope, and financial destitution:
1. Existential Burden:
"Time does not heal the wounds of a dead child, and it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who forgot to buy sugar and who sent her child across the road to borrow some. And it heals just as poorly the anguish of a once cheerful man who has killed a child."
2. Fragile Foundation of Being:
Again, the story To Kill a Child is the prime picture of this notion, which is palpable in Dagerman's works.
3. Nordic Despair and Cold Family Ties:
Parts of the stories resemble the existential dread in Ingmar Bergman's movies. The Nordic existential despair in the Winter Light movie. The conflict of belief and the utter solitude we endure throughout existence. For example, in the story The Surprise, a family function and a milieu which traditionally evoke warmth and bond, we read a most heartbreaking and harsh, steely hierarchy:
"His grandfather looked up from the paper, and his aunt let the ladle slip from her hand.
"If it ain't the widow," said Hakan's grandfather. "What you got in the bag? Not a present, I'll bet.""
4. Misogyny:
A prime example, as mentioned above, is the brilliant "Men of Honor". Rarely is a story more aptly titled!
5. Poverty and Social Injustice:
And of course, poverty has a ubiquitous presence in the stories, sometimes married to the children's innocent behaviors in a heart-wrenching fashion:
"Like all children with poor mothers, he was ashamed at first and pretended that he didn't know her. He crossed the street with his friends, parted company, and then timidly made his way back. His Mother sensed his anxiety, and she did not take his hand until they were completely alone on the street."
In conclusion, reading Dagerman leaves one with no surprise why he has been labeled as a Swedish Camus. The writings reek of existential philosophy.
Pedram
10/20/2025
