Novel
Fröknarna von Pahlen
Not translated into English
Agnes von Krusenstjerna · 1930
Opening lines
Petra von Pahlen stod vid fönstret och såg ut.
Petra von Pahlen stood at the window looking out.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from litteraturbanken.se
Synopsis
Angela von Pahlen is eleven and has just lost her parents. Her uncles' wives would like to take her in, but it is Petra, her father's unmarried sister, who raises her at the manor of Eka, in Småland, before the two of them leave for Stockholm. Around these two women, the seven volumes bring to life a whole noble kinship and many other women besides, before and during the First World War, in their loves, their friendships and their struggle against convention to be masters of their own lives.
Context
The seven volumes appeared from 1930 to 1935: the first three with Bonnier, the next four, which Bonnier refused to publish without cuts, with the young publisher Spektrum. More than a family novel, it is a collective novel, in which the lives of many women intersect. Its frank sex scenes, especially in the last volumes, set off a public quarrel over morality and the freedom to write: attacked by conservatives and church circles, the cycle was defended by young writers, including Eyvind Johnson and Karin Boye, up to the Sigtuna conference in 1935. In French, only one volume appeared, with Gallimard, in 1940. In 1964 Mai Zetterling made from this cycle her film Älskande par, which bears the title of the fifth volume.
Who it is for
Seven novels in Swedish, to be read in order; only a small part is translated into French, nothing into English. The Swedish text is online.
Prizes and reception
The best-known cycle of its author, compared in scope to the novels of Proust and Roger Martin du Gard.
Sources for this page 8
The pages consulted to check this page.