Now that I think about it, too late I give myself to the task of reviewing an entire emblem of world literature such as it is Selma Lagerlof. But it is never too late to make amends. So today I have to address my little tribute to this Swedish writer whose achievements were those first steps towards gender equality. Without a doubt, next to Virginia Woolf, both heirs of Jane Austen and predecessors of Simone de Beauvoir, the summon of feminism made transcendent literature.
To win the Nobel Prize for literature, Lagerlöf needed to turn his literature into something truly surprising. A work capable of marveling and awakening consciences narcotized by heavy patriarchal inertia. Perhaps without intending it at all, solely by daring to be a writer, Selma ended up being a notorious iconoclast in the face of the great masculine figures, erected as bastions of the social structure throughout the Western world.
All that and a little luck or opportunity, because in her work as a teacher in Landskrona, Selma found invaluable support for her writing vocation, which we give a good account of here today. Because Selma Lagerlöf is realism and fantasy in a balance achieved from the allegorical. Her stories and stories transport us to imaginaries full of symbology where the best ends up being the final result.
Top 3 recommended books by Selma Lagerlöf
The Wonderful Journey of Nils Holgersson
At an intermediate point between The Little Prince and Atreyu, both fantastic adventures from other masterpieces, Nils also addresses the discovery of the world from naivety towards the most overwhelming ultimate truth.
Little Nils Holgersson has been turned into a goblin in punishment for his bad behavior. To break the spell and return to being a child, you must accompany a flock of geese on their journey through Sweden. Together with them he will live numerous adventures, some dangerous and others fun, but none will leave him indifferent.
This is going to be the journey of a lifetime for Nils, the discovery of a world that will change him forever and make him a person, in every way. The Wonderful Journey of Nils Holgersson is a famous work of fiction by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, published in two parts in 1906 and 1907. The backdrop for the publication was commissioned by the National Association of Teachers in 1902 to write a book of geography readings for public schools.
“She spent three years studying nature and familiarizing herself with the life of animals and birds. He investigated unpublished folklore and legends from different provinces. All this material is cleverly intertwined in his story. An excellent prose book, the author of which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909, packed with exciting stories, poignant characters, and brilliant reflections on human nature.
The legend of a manor house
A disturbing work with a point between Kafkaesque and quixotic, with madness as a black hole around which emotions, sensations and visions of the human orbit, such as the tragic idea of the peremptory.
In The Legend of a Manor House, Swedish Nobel Laureate Selma Lagerlöf tells the story of student Gunnar Hede, who, spellbound by the music of his violin and on the verge of losing his country mansion in Dalecarlia, falls into madness. The young Ingrid Berg, rescued by him from the grave, will accept the difficult task of healing Gunnar with her unwavering and self-sacrificing love.
The novel, like a psychological fairy tale, raises with extraordinary intensity the theme of the struggle between good and evil, while remaining a study of personal relationships and the acceptance of otherness and difference, while while it is a variant of "Beauty and the Beast", in which the fable atmosphere merges perfectly with earthly elements and with the human portrait of the characters.
Selma Lagerlöf, world famous for her The Wonderful Journey of Nils Holgersson through Sweden, shows a great knowledge of human psychology in this novel in which the themes of music and love are so important, along with remarkable paintings of the landscape. and supernatural motifs that Lagerlöf's genius manages to organically integrate into the narrative. This story is one of the roundest, most dramatic and aesthetic-quality works by the greatest Swedish author of all time.
The Emperor of Portugalia
Sometimes the most sought after arrives at the wrong time. And that is when everything conspires so that you truly discover that notion of time with the value of each second. What at other moments in life is impossible to stop to qualify happiness or quantify the love necessary to survive, is sometimes dosed at its exact point, in the most unexpected way, when the expired deadline is much greater than the future.
Jan, a poor peasant, marries nearing old age and becomes a father without wanting to, but the child that the midwife puts in her arms will change what remains of his life, seeing himself as the owner of the greatest treasure in the world: love for his daughter. The Emperor of Portugalia does not seem like a novel and is much more than a fable: the material with which legends are forged
