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A review by msand3
Martin Birck's Youth by Hjalmar Söderberg
5.0
Söderberg continues to enthrall me. This edition had no introduction nor critical notes, so I have the chance to try to understand it through my own interpretation, uninfluenced by any other scholarly perspectives:
Söderberg's novel explores the divided self of modern man at the turn of the century, symbolized throughout the narrative in the colors blue and red, which we initially encounter along with Martin in his childhood dream in the opening chapter. Blue -- the color of Novalis' famous flower of hope in [b:Henry von Ofterdingen|337176|Henry von Ofterdingen|Novalis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387743750l/337176._SY75_.jpg|1992420] -- represents innocence, lasting love, the maternal, stability, order, unified bonds, and the aesthetics of an older, classical sensibility, referred to throughout the novel as being "of the eighties" (the pre-fin de siècle era). Red is the darker side of Martin's nature: lust, alienation, decadence, instability, fleeting romance, the impossibility of individuation, and the artistic movements of the 1890s that disturbed the prevailing aesthetic and social order, barreling forward into a twentieth-century modern world lost and without hope.
Here is Martin (and Söderberg) straddling these two worlds in a rapidly changing era and chronicling the struggle of one person to adapt and survive through his art. By the end of the novel, Martin's full understanding of the modern condition is symbolized in the color green -- the light of electric lamps, lonely moments, silence, and death. Like the green eyes of Joyce's protagonists in [b:Dubliners|11012|Dubliners|James Joyce|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334138184l/11012._SX50_.jpg|260248], it is a color at once mysterious, haunting, eerie, and impossible to ignore, representing the artist trapped between hope and despair, light and dark.
It is once again a pleasure to see an appearance from Söderberg's alter ego, Henrik Rissler (is the first name "Henrik" perhaps a nod to Ibsen?), who guides and clarifies for Martin, but still struggles himself, not pretending to have all the answers. His character, like Söderberg's novels, are always searching, even while accepting that any definitive understanding of the world remains largely elusive.
Consider this an essential early modernist text.
Söderberg's novel explores the divided self of modern man at the turn of the century, symbolized throughout the narrative in the colors blue and red, which we initially encounter along with Martin in his childhood dream in the opening chapter. Blue -- the color of Novalis' famous flower of hope in [b:Henry von Ofterdingen|337176|Henry von Ofterdingen|Novalis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387743750l/337176._SY75_.jpg|1992420] -- represents innocence, lasting love, the maternal, stability, order, unified bonds, and the aesthetics of an older, classical sensibility, referred to throughout the novel as being "of the eighties" (the pre-fin de siècle era). Red is the darker side of Martin's nature: lust, alienation, decadence, instability, fleeting romance, the impossibility of individuation, and the artistic movements of the 1890s that disturbed the prevailing aesthetic and social order, barreling forward into a twentieth-century modern world lost and without hope.
Here is Martin (and Söderberg) straddling these two worlds in a rapidly changing era and chronicling the struggle of one person to adapt and survive through his art. By the end of the novel, Martin's full understanding of the modern condition is symbolized in the color green -- the light of electric lamps, lonely moments, silence, and death. Like the green eyes of Joyce's protagonists in [b:Dubliners|11012|Dubliners|James Joyce|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334138184l/11012._SX50_.jpg|260248], it is a color at once mysterious, haunting, eerie, and impossible to ignore, representing the artist trapped between hope and despair, light and dark.
It is once again a pleasure to see an appearance from Söderberg's alter ego, Henrik Rissler (is the first name "Henrik" perhaps a nod to Ibsen?), who guides and clarifies for Martin, but still struggles himself, not pretending to have all the answers. His character, like Söderberg's novels, are always searching, even while accepting that any definitive understanding of the world remains largely elusive.
Consider this an essential early modernist text.