The Saga of Gosta Berling

Description

The first new English translation in more than one hundred years of the Swedish Gone with the Wind

A Penguin Classic

In 1909, Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Saga of Gösta Berling is her first and best-loved novel—and the basis for the 1924 silent film of the same name that launched Greta Garbo into stardom. A defrocked minister, Gösta Berling finds a home at Ekeby, an ironworks estate that also houses and assortment of eccentric veterans of the Napoleanic Wars. His defiant and poetic spirit proves magnetic to a string of women, who fall under his spell in this sweeping historical epic set against the backdrop of the magnificent wintry beauty of rural Sweden.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“At long last there is an excellent English translation of this important work by the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature.” —Swedish American Historical Quarterly

“At long last we have available to us a viable translation of one of the truly great works of Swedish literature sure to attract attention again to one of the region’s most significant authors and works.” —Scandinavian Studies

“Splendid . . . A fascinating peek into 19th-century Sweden, and . . . a cracking good read.” —Belletrista

“Every book of this great storyteller keeps on bringing us astonishing examples of her art. . . . No one in Europe can tell tales so unforgettably.” —Hermann Hesse

“Among [women novelists] of great talent or genius, none, in my opinion, is to be placed higher than Selma Lagerlöf.” —Marguerite YourcenarSelma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1909. She is known around the world for her classic children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson.

Paul Norlen (translator) was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize in 2004. He lives in Seattle.

George C. Schoolfield (introducer) is a professor emeritus of German and Scandinavian literature at Yale.

1. Chapter 1 (“The Landscape”) describes “the setting where Gösta Berling and the cavaliers of Ekeby lived out their eccentric existence” (p. 23). Should the landscape be considered a character in the book? Find other passages where elements of nature are personified. What is the relationship between the protagonists and their environment?

2. Gösta Berling has passionate feelings for a series of women (Anna Stjärnhök, Marianne Sinclaire, Elisabet Dohna, and in the past, Ebba Dohna). Discuss how these young women are described. Do they have any features in common? Do these relationships differ in any way?

3. The characters Gösta Berling and Henrik Dohna are both male and roughly the same age. Compare the author’s descriptions of these young men. In what ways do they embody their social class/other position of the time? Discuss their confrontation in Chapter 10 (“The Young Countess”).

4. Compare and contrast the power dynamic between the majoress, described as “plucky as a man” in Chapter 2 (p. 28), with the cavaliers. In what ways is power expressed in this narrative?

5. Death is a recurring theme in the book, and even appears as a character in Chapter 28 (“Death the Liberator”). Discuss the narrator’s attitude to death in that chapter and in passages from “The Ball at Ekeby” (pp. 79–80, “Oh Death, pale friend”) and “The Cemetery” (pp. 293–94, “Friends, children of mankind, when I die”).

6. Discuss the parent-child relationships in the book: the majoress (Margareta Celsing) and her mother; Melchior Sinclaire and Marianne; the captain’s wife and Ferdinand. What distinguishes these relationships? What do they have in common?

7. When Marianne Sinclaire knows she has lost Gösta Berling forever, she writes a long poem (“a kind of verse”) (p. 133). Is Marianne’s writing better for not being “tied up in the chains of rhyme and meter”? What does this suggest about the power of writing?

8. Chapter 29 (“Drought”) begins with a remarkable address to nature (“If dead things love,” p. 313). Discuss the narrator’s view of nature and the connection between human life and the natural world.

9. Who is telling this story? How do we know? Is the narrator (or narrators) a naive provincial storyteller or a conscious literary artist?

10. Is The Saga of Gösta Berling a novel? A collection of short stories? Does this matter for how we read the book? Choose one of the “stand-alone” stories to discuss in more depth.

11. “Kevenhüller” is a fantastic tale about a remarkable cavalier who is only mentioned in passing early in the book (p. 29). What is the source of Kevenhüller’s genius? Discuss the events in this tale from the point of view of Kevenhüller himself and the narrator.

12. The Saga of Gösta Berling was written in a different era (the 1890s) and is set in an even earlier period (the 1820s). Which aspects of the narrative feel the most remote from our vantage point in the twenty-first century? Which, if any, feel most contemporary?

13. What works of literature do you think The Saga of Gösta Berling might be in conversation with, i.e., what works were in the reader’s realm at the time?

14. How is religion portrayed in the book? Is there a tension between religion, the emergence of science/philosophy, and love? Or are they harmonious?

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