The Dramatic Quality of Strindberg's Novels

THE DRAMATIC QUALITY OF STRINDBERG'S NOVELS AMONG THE NUMBER of Strindberg's collected works is a dramatization of Hemsoborna (The People of Hemso).l This galumphing rustic comedy in four acts-which relies for its laughter chiefly on lewdness and liquor, and ends merrily after the dull son of the house who is marrying a maid for love has ousted the sharp farm hand who has married a widow for money-is scarcely recognizable as an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Stock figures of fun like the midwife, the woman three times widowed, the customs official, and the peddling merchant make their heavy contribution to the mirth; the leading characters, Carlsson, Widow Flod, and Pastor Nordstrom, scarcely rise above caricature. What life there is in the play is achieved by the irritatingly rapid sequence of scenes. Oddly enough the funniest scenes in the novel-the marriage ceremony to the accompaniment of popping beer bottles and the pastor's unseasonable speech at the wedding feast-find no place in the comedy. Naturally the later tragic development which gives substance and completeness to the novel is absent. A detailed comparison between play and novel would be fruitless. As Gunnar OIIen has pointed out,2 Strindberg only agreed to dramatize Hemsoborna-a project which at first revolted him-because he was so desperately hard up at the end of 1888. The play is a pot-boiler, or, as Martin Lamm styles it in his curt footnote, "a vandalization of the novel."3 Nevertheless, a newcomer to Strindberg, confronted with these two works, would imagine that Strindberg was better at writing novels than at devising plays. This possible but ludicrous inference prompted me to have another look at Strindberg's three chief novelsRoda rummet (The Red Room), 1879; Hemsoborna, 1887; and I havsbandet (In the Outer Skerries), 1890-to study the dramatic quality of Strindberg's narrative and to see how far his success as a novelist depended on his sense of drama and the stage. I am not looking for plays disguised as novels, but for novels enlivened and sharpened by dramatic presentation. And here I am concerned rather with the form and structure of the novels than with details of style and technique of language, realizing of course that such distinctions cannot be consistently maintained. To exemplify and analyze the dialogue which 1. Samlade skrifter, ed. John Landqulst (Stockholm, 1912--1920), XXV, 5-111. All subsequent references to strindberls workS, given in parentheses in the text, are to the above collected edition (abbreviated S.S. . . 2. Strindbergs dramatik, 3rd e . (Stockholm, 1949), p. 94. 3. August Strindberg, 2nd ed. (Stockholm, 1948). p. 187. 299 300 MODERN DRAMA December gives sparkle, pace, and thrust to both Roda rummet and Hemsoborna,4 and to examine carefully the imagery on which the pulse of I havsbandet ~ so largely depends, would, I fear, retard and obscure the general enquiry. Roda rummet, the youthful masterpiece which set a new tone in Swedish letters, is probably Strindberg's freshest and most generous work. One develops a real affection for Arvid Falk, Olle Montanus, and their Bohemian associates. But the poseur and the actor are there too, in the persons of Arvid's brother and the absinth-drinking Falander . And with them come scenes which have a strong suggestion of staging and dramatization, that is to say, scenes which are conceived as dramatic not merely by the narrator but also by the players themselves . Carl Nicolaus Falk, who uses his business as a cover for moneylending and shady financial transactions, plays the incensed elder brother when Arvid comes to claim what he imagines to be the residue of his inheritance (S.8. V, pp. 21-31). He has his role perfectly rehearsed (8trindberg takes care to remind us of this); he paces the floor diagonally between the spitoon and the umbrella stand, and deftly tosses up his keys before opening the safe-perhaps a shade too briskly-to produce the bill of discharge signed by Arvid. To seal his triumph and have an audience and witness he calls in the office boy, who confirms that his master would be a rogue if he were to...