Sand, Arne 1927–1963

PERSONAL: Born 1927, in Sweden; died of cancer March, 1963.

CAREER: Novelist and author of short stories; journalist, critic, and lecturer. Worked part time as a mapmaker.

AWARDS, HONORS: Literary prize, Bonnier, 1949, for Förföljaren.

WRITINGS:

Förföljaren (first book in trilogy), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1949.

Erövraren (second book in trilogy), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1951.

Ljugarstriden (novel), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1956.

Drömboken, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1958.

Trollkarlens läring. En saga från Sonneberg in Reiherstein (third book in trilogy), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1959.

Väderkvarnarna (novel), Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1962.

Enhörningarna. En efterlämnad berättelse, Bonnier (Stockholm, Sweden), 1965.

Østre Gausdal kirke (nonfiction), Thorsrud A. S. (Lillehammer, Norway), 1988.

Världen där ingen behöver simma: noveller i urval (stories), edited by Gunnar Ståhl, Legus (Stockholm, Sweden), 1991.

SIDELIGHTS: Swedish writer Arne Sand was the author of seven novels as well as short stories, satirical pieces, drama, and books of literary theory. His career as a writer was tragically cut short by brain cancer when he was just thirty-five. Sand's debut novel, Förföljaren, won Swedish publisher Bonnier's literary prize, and the money Sand received with the award made it possible for him to devote all his time to writing literature. While making a living as an author, he supplemented his income by writing reviews and lecturing at Konstframjändet, a Swedish art society. Later, he often asked his publisher for advance payments and supplemented his income by working part time making maps.

As with his first novel, Sand's Erövraren attempts to show the potentially devastating effect of ideologies and to capture an existential dimension. According to Per Arne Tjäder in Bonniers litterära magasin, Sand took up a theme typical of literature published after World War II: the search for meaning after two devastating wars. In Förföljaren, the confusion of the postwar years is expressed through the psychotic bewilderment of the novel's protagonist, Richard Wernon. Sand shows how spiritually bereft people can be in Erövraren, with the character Jaromir Tornov, a hardcore communist, reducing everything to social and political strategy. Tornov's rationality ultimately reduces humans to mere pieces in a power game.

In Trollkarlens läring. En saga från Sonneberg in Reiherstein, the third volume of Sand's trilogy, the same ideological theme is also present. The protagonist, Hans Lick, lives in a small German town where he devises a plan to let his magic carry happi-ness to everyone. However, Lick's plan fails due to people's extreme disappointment with life after the war. Collectively, Sand intended that Förföljaren, Erövraren, and Trollkarlens läring serve as an account of modern Europeans' relationship to Marxism. Tjäder commented that these works also demonstrate a concern for social issues that the author later abandoned.

Despite the literary prize he won for Förföljaren, Sand felt that Ljugarstriden marked his real literary debut. The novel can be read as a parody of Shakespeare's King Lear and Wagner's Tannhäuser; however, the story implies that there is something more serious behind its comical façade. Sand had great expectations for Ljugarstriden, which he worked on for a long time and into which he incorporated several abandoned novel projects. The novel contains many references and literary allusions that are intended to strengthen but not explain the action of the work. In a commentary in Bonniers litterära magasin, Sand once explained his esthetic intentions for the book, noting that the novel is intended to express the tension between the uncritical and the confirming on the one hand, and the critical and the skeptical on the other. Despite the intellectual depth of the work, however, it is intended to be easy to read. Tjäder credited the author as a humorous writer who effectively creates a unique mix of trivial and elevated, satire and Christian seriousness. The critic viewed Sand as successful in creating a highly cultured and incredibly ambitious and intellectual work that is nevertheless very readable.

Sand's books are also concerned with the theme of love and the lack of love among his characters. Tjäder speculated that there is perhaps an unintentional autobiographical element to these works, noting that the author himself was a handsome man whose charm was hidden by a cold and unapproachable demeanor. This attitude is perhaps reflected in Trollkarlens läring, Ljugarstriden, and Väderkvarnarna, in which Sand portrays characters who cannot love because they are too caught up in their narcissistic ways: hungry for attention, immature, and self-centered.

In the early 1950s, Sand announced that he was planning to write a novel that was entirely concerned with style. Väderkvarnarna was the result. While Tjäder considered Ljugarstriden to be Sand's best conventional novel for its craftsmanship and its balance between spontaneity and overview, he viewed Väderkvarnarna as the author's most original work, an attack on the illusory autonomy of art, as evident in unreflective "realistic" works. Unlike Tjäder, Bonniers litterära magasin contributor Per Olov Enquist did not see Väderkvarnarna as serving a critical function. Rather, he considered it to be the first Swedish nonfigurative novel, radical in its insistence on not serving a polemic and critical purpose. According to Enquist, nothing happens in the novel, neither in the plot nor internally with the characters.

To read a novel that is pure style with no plot or significant characterization is, according to Enquist, a challenge that at times seems like a hostile act perpetrated on readers. The critic advised readers of Väderkvarnarna to start with the "inner layers"—the novel's allusions to works by Miguel Cervantes, William Shakespeare, and Franz Kafka—and then move to the "outer layers" of ornament and style. Once readers accept the premises on which the novel was written, new meanings are revealed and Väderkvarnarna becomes, said Enquist, a meta-novel: a novel about writing novels.

In 1960 Sand published the essay "Författere tager ståndpunkt," in which he explains why he questions an author's responsibility to take a stand on political issues in his fiction. Sand gives a number of reasons why an author should avoid political themes: the writer's lack of political knowledge; the fact that many novels only have a thousand or so copies printed and distributed; the exclusive concern in Swedish politics for economic matters at the expense of more important issues; and the fact that a powerful election poster is more influential than a well-written and balanced novel. Sand claims that, instead, he is in favor of fantasy and lies; he thinks it impossible and undesirable for art to imitate life. He preferred, according to Tjäder, a good lie to a trivial truth. In fact, Disa in Väderkvarnarna says that it is truth that prevents us from living decent lives, a remark that echoes the author's viewpoint.

While other Swedish authors indulged in playfulness in the 1950s, Sand did the opposite in his novels. When literature without a social cause was dismissed, he wrote Ljugarstriden, not only a turnaround in relation to his previous works but also a parody of the political novel. As Tjäder noted of Sand, the author was also out of sync with his time; he wrote political novels when convention called for apolitical fiction, and he embraced fantasy when it was not in vogue. Sand's was indeed an independent mind, going its own way regardless of prevalent trends, searching for new literary ground.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bonniers litterära magasin, April, 1964, Per Olov Enquist, "Våren med Väderkvarnarna," p. 263; September, 1996, Per Arne Tjäder, "Sand för vinden," p. 30.