Hjalmar Söderberg (1869–1941)
Author of Doctor Glas
About the Author
Works by Hjalmar Söderberg
Den talangfulla draken : En novell 11 copies
Doktor Glas : Förvillelser 7 copies
Kära Hjalle, kära Bo : Bo Bergmans och Hjalmar Söderbergs brevväxling 1891-1941 — Author; Author — 7 copies
Historietter och noveller 7 copies
Martin Bircks ungdom : Gamla minnen 6 copies
Ödestimmen : skådespel i tre akter 5 copies
Noveller. 1 4 copies
Noveller. 2 4 copies
[Skrifter]. 2, Gertrud ; Aftonstjärnan ; Den allvarsamma leken ; Noveller ; Dikter ; Journalistik 4 copies
Samlade verk. D. 8, Forntid och saga 4 copies
Skrifter. D. 10, Vers och varia 3 copies
La kiso : kaj dek tri aliaj noveloj 3 copies
Samlade verk. D. 6, Dramatik 3 copies
[Skrifter]. 1, Förvillelser ; Historietter ; Martin Bircks ungdom ; Doktor Glas ; Hjärtats oro 3 copies
The Burning City [short story] 2 copies
Historietter : ett urval 2 copies
Aforismer och maximer 2 copies
Short Fiction 2 copies
Jag tror på köttets lust och på själens obotliga ensamhet : Hjalmar Söderberg : de bästa citaten (2008) 2 copies
Valda sidor 2 copies
Det mörknar över vägen 2 copies
Skrifter. D. 6 2 copies
Gertrud, Aftonstjärnan 1 copy
Selected Short Stories 1 copy
Novelletter 1 copy
Vers och varia 1 copy
Litterärt varia II 1 copy
Sista boken 1 copy
Associated Works
A Very Scandinavian Christmas: The Greatest Nordic Holiday Stories of All Time (2019) — Contributor — 25 copies, 1 review
Meesters der Zweedse vertelkunst — Author, some editions — 10 copies
Svenske fortællere fra August Strindberg til Harry Martinson — Author, some editions — 1 copy, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Söderberg, Hjalmar
- Legal name
- Söderberg, Hjalmar Erik Fredrik
- Birthdate
- 1869-07-02
- Date of death
- 1941-10-14
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Uppsala University
- Occupations
- civil servant
critic
novelist
short story writer
playwright - Awards and honors
- De Nios stora pris (1934)
Gustaf Fröding-stipendiet (1941) - Relationships
- Söderberg, Tom (son)
Söderberg, Mikael (son)
Stangerup, Henrik (grandson) - Short biography
- Hjalmar Emil Fredrik Söderberg, né le 2 juillet 1869 à Stockholm et mort le 14 octobre 1941 à Copenhague, est un romancier, auteur dramatique, poète et journaliste suédois. C'est le grand-père maternel de l'écrivain danois Henrik Stangerup (1937-1998).
Il débute dans le monde littéraire à l'âge de vingt ans en écrivant pour le quotidien suédois Svenska Dagbladet. Il sort six ans plus tard son premier roman, Förvillelser (Égarements). Il s'intéresse à la fin de sa vie au journalisme. Il a critiqué le nazisme avec véhémence, écrivant longuement à ce sujet dans le quotidien libéral, très anti-nazi, suédois Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning. - Nationality
- Sweden
- Birthplace
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Places of residence
- Stockholm, Sweden
Copenhagen, Denmark - Place of death
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Burial location
- Vestre Kirkegård, København, Denmark
- Map Location
- Sweden
Members
Reviews
Revisiting classics is always an interesting experience.
I had read "Doctor Glas" when I was about fifteen, as a school assignment. I liked it then.
So, what did I think this time?
- Söderberg's writing is still marvellous. I found myself rereading certain sentences, just to savour them better. (I was reading the original, not the translation ;-))
- Every Söderberg novel I had read paints Stockholm beautifully. These glimpses of my city are very precious.
- I really liked the sense of time show more and place, and all those philosophical and not so philosophical conversations between friends.
- The moral dilemmas are going to be interesting to talk about in my book club...
- Doctor Glas is a masterfully created, and very disturbing character.
- It's interesting to see how far ahead of his time Söderberg was, discussing marital rape and euthanasia. Yet, there are things in this book that have not aged well. I wish Helga was more of a "real" character, instead of a symbol/catalyst/object of obsession. Sometimes I put the book down to say STOP.WRITING.ABOUT.WOMEN.THIS.WAY! (I wonder how many classics pass the Bechdel test? This one does not.)
Four stars, because I don't know what else to do. I have to confess that the last point made it more difficult for me to like "Doctor Glas". It doesn't happen with all the books I read, I CAN make allowances. This time, I had trouble doing that... show less
I had read "Doctor Glas" when I was about fifteen, as a school assignment. I liked it then.
So, what did I think this time?
- Söderberg's writing is still marvellous. I found myself rereading certain sentences, just to savour them better. (I was reading the original, not the translation ;-))
- Every Söderberg novel I had read paints Stockholm beautifully. These glimpses of my city are very precious.
- I really liked the sense of time show more and place, and all those philosophical and not so philosophical conversations between friends.
- The moral dilemmas are going to be interesting to talk about in my book club...
- Doctor Glas is a masterfully created, and very disturbing character.
- It's interesting to see how far ahead of his time Söderberg was, discussing marital rape and euthanasia. Yet, there are things in this book that have not aged well. I wish Helga was more of a "real" character, instead of a symbol/catalyst/object of obsession. Sometimes I put the book down to say STOP.WRITING.ABOUT.WOMEN.THIS.WAY! (I wonder how many classics pass the Bechdel test? This one does not.)
Four stars, because I don't know what else to do. I have to confess that the last point made it more difficult for me to like "Doctor Glas". It doesn't happen with all the books I read, I CAN make allowances. This time, I had trouble doing that... show less
You can love me in a pagan way.
Two young people, Arvid and Lydia, meet and fall in love. There are no immediate hurdles to their love. That should be it, right, just coast to the happy ending? Except things don't just "happen". (I have a feeling Söderberg would have agreed with John Lennon about life being what happens to you while you're busy making plans.) A few hesitations, a few clumsy words, and they're on different paths, reconnecting and rekindling and resplitting several times over show more the next 15-odd years, while the world continues around them. They both want to be free, they both want to be together, but as fate would have it, those two things are never possible at the same time.
They talk about mountain landscapes - it should be called valley landscapes. You live and work in the valley, not on the peaks.
I haven't read this since high school, and I'm struck again by how thoroughly modern Söderberg feels in almost all respects. It's a novel from 1912 (the free ebook version is pre- grammar and spelling reform, at that) in which people have casual (and not-so-casual) sex, swear and generally act in their own best interest, set to a clear-eyed, mildly ironic prose where Söderberg doesn't so much gladly dismantle the old society that's about to become something different as pass it by with cold disdain; while it's set during a time when both revolution and war was in the air, Söderberg remains coolly above such things as politics and just focuses on his two fuckups as they dance around each other, trying to figure out what's keeping them apart or together.
It's weird how it even feels more timeless than both adaptations I've taken in - Sundström's 1960s-set rewrite For Lydia and Pernilla August's 2016 film. Those feel like period pieces (an unsuccessful one in August's case) while the original, details and a few plot elements (the casual dismissal of children, for instance) aside, feels far more relatable. not because Söderberg doesn't allude to then-current events - he most definitely does, that's part of the point of having a novel take place over 15 years - or because things haven't changed (especially for women) in 107 years, but because the things he does dwell on remain mostly the same. (OK, apart from the obsession with what Carl Snoilsky would have thought.) (Though it also probably helps that 1910 is more safely in The Past than a story set when my own parents were dating.)
Where August rushes through the plot, Söderberg lets them evolve (or not) seperately, until it's already too late. Where Sundström rightfully calls both Arvid, Söderberg and society on their insidious rather than overt sexist bullshit, and probably writes a more likable story, Söderberg lets his two characters be both part of the world and isolated from it, creating tension from their inability (or well, chiefly Arvid's) to find and accept each other at the same level. Cool and collected on the outside, messed up as hell on the inside.
You don't choose your destiny. And you no more choose your wife or your mistress or your children. You get them, and you have them, and occasionally you lose them. But you do not choose! show less
Two young people, Arvid and Lydia, meet and fall in love. There are no immediate hurdles to their love. That should be it, right, just coast to the happy ending? Except things don't just "happen". (I have a feeling Söderberg would have agreed with John Lennon about life being what happens to you while you're busy making plans.) A few hesitations, a few clumsy words, and they're on different paths, reconnecting and rekindling and resplitting several times over show more the next 15-odd years, while the world continues around them. They both want to be free, they both want to be together, but as fate would have it, those two things are never possible at the same time.
They talk about mountain landscapes - it should be called valley landscapes. You live and work in the valley, not on the peaks.
I haven't read this since high school, and I'm struck again by how thoroughly modern Söderberg feels in almost all respects. It's a novel from 1912 (the free ebook version is pre- grammar and spelling reform, at that) in which people have casual (and not-so-casual) sex, swear and generally act in their own best interest, set to a clear-eyed, mildly ironic prose where Söderberg doesn't so much gladly dismantle the old society that's about to become something different as pass it by with cold disdain; while it's set during a time when both revolution and war was in the air, Söderberg remains coolly above such things as politics and just focuses on his two fuckups as they dance around each other, trying to figure out what's keeping them apart or together.
It's weird how it even feels more timeless than both adaptations I've taken in - Sundström's 1960s-set rewrite For Lydia and Pernilla August's 2016 film. Those feel like period pieces (an unsuccessful one in August's case) while the original, details and a few plot elements (the casual dismissal of children, for instance) aside, feels far more relatable. not because Söderberg doesn't allude to then-current events - he most definitely does, that's part of the point of having a novel take place over 15 years - or because things haven't changed (especially for women) in 107 years, but because the things he does dwell on remain mostly the same. (OK, apart from the obsession with what Carl Snoilsky would have thought.) (Though it also probably helps that 1910 is more safely in The Past than a story set when my own parents were dating.)
Where August rushes through the plot, Söderberg lets them evolve (or not) seperately, until it's already too late. Where Sundström rightfully calls both Arvid, Söderberg and society on their insidious rather than overt sexist bullshit, and probably writes a more likable story, Söderberg lets his two characters be both part of the world and isolated from it, creating tension from their inability (or well, chiefly Arvid's) to find and accept each other at the same level. Cool and collected on the outside, messed up as hell on the inside.
You don't choose your destiny. And you no more choose your wife or your mistress or your children. You get them, and you have them, and occasionally you lose them. But you do not choose! show less
"The widening of the rents experience had torn in the cobweb bushes of fairytale and dream", 10 Sept. 2015
This review is from: Martin Birck's Youth (Paperback)
Martin Birck crops up as very much a background character in Soderberg's better known 1904 work 'Doctor Glas' - the eponymous narrator considers him "a bit of a bore."
This earlier work (1901) takes us through Birck's life: his happy, innocent childhood, gradual awareness of "a world where he could no longer rely on the simple formula show more for getting by that his father and mother had taught him: be kindly and polite to everyone".
The loss of religion; finding himself in a monotonous job that doesn't pay enough to live the life he wants...
This isn't a novel with a plotline as such but is well written with many quotable paragraphs. I couldn't help thinking that if Dr Glas had got to know Martin Birck better he would have found him quite an interesting and sympathetic character! show less
This review is from: Martin Birck's Youth (Paperback)
Martin Birck crops up as very much a background character in Soderberg's better known 1904 work 'Doctor Glas' - the eponymous narrator considers him "a bit of a bore."
This earlier work (1901) takes us through Birck's life: his happy, innocent childhood, gradual awareness of "a world where he could no longer rely on the simple formula show more for getting by that his father and mother had taught him: be kindly and polite to everyone".
The loss of religion; finding himself in a monotonous job that doesn't pay enough to live the life he wants...
This isn't a novel with a plotline as such but is well written with many quotable paragraphs. I couldn't help thinking that if Dr Glas had got to know Martin Birck better he would have found him quite an interesting and sympathetic character! show less
For all its brevity this is a very sad story. Although it essentially relates only a few episodes in Blom's life that altogether span only several months, Söderberg manages to convey the full weight and tragedy of the injustices that fate deals to some unfortunate souls.
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Statistics
- Works
- 96
- Also by
- 9
- Members
- 2,433
- Popularity
- #10,550
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 75
- ISBNs
- 250
- Languages
- 22
- Favorited
- 22