From my childhood days
From my childhood days (original title: Ett barns memoarer ) is the title of the second part of the autobiography of the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf , published in 1930. The title means, literally translated: "Memoirs of a child".
General
Ett barns memoarer ties in with the first part of Selma Lagerlöf's autobiography, Mårbacka , and subsequently deals with Selma Lagerlöf's ten to fourteenth year of life. As in Mårbacka , Selma Lagerlöf describes life on her parents' estate Mårbacka with all the small and large events that have taken place there, and gives a vivid picture of life there.
The narrative style of Ett barns memoarer differs significantly from the first part of the autobiography: While Selma Lagerlöf writes about herself in the third person in the first part from a long distance, the second part of the autobiography lives on the fiction that the book is by Selma Lagerlöf already written as a child. The Swedish original title already refers to this. In Ett barns memoarer , Selma Lagerlöf therefore writes about herself in the first person. She uses a deliberately naive, stylized childish style to give the impression that the book was written by a child. Many chapters begin with the sentence “And we think it's so funny ...”, and she often describes events with the remark that as a child she did not understand the context properly. As is typical for Selma Lagerlöf, the book consists of individual chapters that represent self-contained short stories.
In contrast to the first part of the autobiography, a darker tone can be heard here, even if it is cleverly packaged by the seemingly childish style. From the railroad attendant killed in a railway accident in the opening chapter to the grave of the dead child in the chapter Kyrkresan ("The trip to church") and the touch of madness in Uncle Shenson's daughter when she talks about what will happen, if her widowed father remarries, in the chapter Morbror Schenson ("Uncle Schenson"): Again and again the seeming idyll is clouded by unsettling moments. At the end there is the shock in the programmatically so-called chapter Jordbävning (“Earthquake”): The news that an uncle has to sell his property expands to the realization that due to the economic crisis, all goods in Värmland and not least their own Home are threatened.
Selma Lagerlöf also finds the threatening in herself : In the chapter Kortspelet ("The Card Game") she describes in impressive imagery how anger rises in her when she believes she was cheated while playing cards, but how she then feels conquers and learns self-control. Similarly, Selma Lagerlöf lets Maja Lisa get to know the evil in her own soul in Liljecrona's home .
A highlight of the book is the chapter Sunnebalen (“The Ball in Sunne ”), in which Selma Lagerlöf addresses her personal martyrdom: She doesn't want to go to the Sunne ball because she limps and therefore nobody wants to dance with her. But the father does not allow himself to be softened, and it comes as it has to come: everyone lets her sit down while dancing. The fate of the outsider always plays an important role in Selma Lagerlöf's work.
From the seemingly random combination of the individual episodes, two lines of action gradually emerge: On the one hand, the fate of Selma Lagerlöf's beloved father is portrayed, who is no longer recovering properly after severe pneumonia , is becoming increasingly discouraged and powerless and, instead of advancing the estate, wasted his time building a pointless pond. On the other hand, the reader experiences how the decision to become a writer and to write novels gradually matures in the author. At the end of the book, both lines of action are linked: The author wants to be rich and famous in order to be able to help her father.
Ett barns memoarer is also interesting because many characters and motifs from Selma Lagerlöf's novels can be recognized here. The Herresta estate with the blue cabinet is easy to identify as the Borg estate from Gösta Berling , and the old woman, who refused to leave the house for fear of the magpies , was the model for the evil Countess Märta Dohna who lived on Borg. The tramp Agrippa Prästberg, who moves from court to court to repair the grandfather clocks until they are finally broken, even though they previously worked perfectly, appears in The Emperor of Portugal . Even the main character of this novel, the crazy Jan i Skrolycka, is mentioned in passing. Finally, Pastor Unger's trip to Karlstad , who wants to apply for an attractive pastorate on the last day of the application deadline, but does not submit his application at the very last minute, is used by Selma Lagerlöf in Liljecrona's home .
literature
- Vivi Edström, Selma Lagerlöf , Stockholm 1991