Ismael i Öknen: Strindberg som Mystiker by Göran Stockenström (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 399 length of an aspect of twentieth century theatre in Japan available in English, a fact which by itself alone almost compels one's recommendation of it. It is impossible , however, to conceal a personal regret that a work of this nature was undertaken by a scholar who evidently either has little personal interest in theatre as performance, or who felt that such an outlook has little place in a study of an "intellectual," "literary" playwright. A more serious shortcoming in the work itself , it seems to me, is that it finds no place in a treatment of Japanese theatre in the twentieth century for a more positive and sympathetic account of the rich variety of other performance types existing simultaneously with the genre which it treats; especially since only a more catholic grasp of this sort can prepare us intellectually for the various new directions theatre there has taken since 1960, directions and points of departure which surely must seem baffling, to say the least, to a reader who takes seriously the claim that shingeki is the "Modern Japanese Theatre." As a final observation it is interesting to note that a promising young playwright is honored each year by a prize bearing Kishida's name. In this sense at least, if not in the current repertories, the example of his efforts is still alive. FRANK HOFF University ofToronto ISMAEL I {)KNEN: STRINDBERG SOM MYSTIKER, by Goran Stockenstrom, with a summary in English by Paul Britten Austin. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis , Historia litterarum No.5, 1972. (Distributors: Almqvist & Wikcell, Stockholm.) 547 pp. Ishmael in the Desert: Strindberg as Mystic is a lengthy and detailed study of the dramatist's state of mind and literary activity during the important four-year period (1896-1900) immediately following the Inferno crisis. In addition to analysis of what Dr. Stockenstrom terms "Strindberg's Inferno Theology," it encompasses one of the most persistent explorations yet to appear of the works that first reveal the challenging complexity of his later writing: Inferno, Legends, Jacob Wrestles, the first two parts of To Damascus, Advent, and Crimes and Crimes. The study is structured more or less chronologically, with each chapter introduced by an assessment of Strindberg's intellectual and emotional state as he wrestled with the problems involved in planning each of these major works. What is of particular value is the thorough examination Dr. Stockenstrom has given to the vast body of related manuscript material preserved in the Royal Library in Stockholm. The evolution of Part One of To Damascus is traced through plans for a play about Merlin, on through the projected Robert Ie Diable, and finally to the very different play we now have, but in which some fascinating residual details of the earlier projects may still be discerned. There is a particularly revealing comparison of the completed Crimes and Crimes with the initial sketch and plans for Damne, and Dr. Stockenstrom makes a very convincing case for not reading this playas a throw-back to realism. The much-neglected Advent receives one of its best analyses to date, with particular emphasis on the author's problems with the controversial ending, which Dr. Stockenstrom sees as quite in line with Strindberg's new religious outlook. It becomes clear why he opted for the title Advent, rather than the earlier choice, The Mausoleum. 400 BOOK REVIEWS The book's main title refers of course to Strindberg's continuing and obsessive identification with Ishmael, "the son of the bondwoman," after whom the first volume of his autobiography is named, though this biblical association seems to defy unaffected English translation. Dr. Stockenstrom also uses the Ish~ mael figure as a motif for Strindberg's relentless struggles with the problem of unmerited suffering, and with such other scapegoat figures (in Strindberg's view, at least) as Cain, Ahasverus, Merlin, Robert Ie Diable, and Napoleon. It is in relation to the question of suffering that Strindberg's debt to Swedenborg becomes most relevant, and Dr. Stockenstrom makes this deb:t one of the most important aspects of his thesis. For example, he gives a good deal of attention to what he terms "the March crisis," a period in...