I’ll forgive you for being confused. The winds of bewilderment have knocked us all about before. And they still blow strong. No amount of research can clear through these gallant storms of absurdity. Where is truth? The poor blighter has packed its bags and set off for a holiday in the Maldives, where the climate is somewhat less befogged. For if we were ever knee deep in the regions of ‘you-never-know’, we certainly are now. If you’ll only allow me to be your guide…
As you may already know, Bo Bjǿ is a writer who delights in all kinds of literary and literal perversions. The first ever Swedish transvestite to win the coveted Hoordeger Prize, he/she has published seven books under seven different names. 1989’s Eating Raw Apples was by a certain Grani Smit, 1992’s Puked Upon a Dutch Rock by Remy Damnbrandt. Following an operation in 1994 ‘he’ then ‘became’ the man behind Phil Master-Gate’s bestseller Error on Disk!, John Pope’s poorly received The Holy Toilet Exercises and Møøp Toëp’s 1996 cult classic Swedish Copse. That we can establish as much is due to the efforts of an Icelandic journalist Thor Herrenson, who has spent several years trying to track down Bjǿ, with little success. Furthermore, the fact that no one has claimed to have written any of these novels does appear to suggest that the same writer was behind them all; as does the consistently light-hearted approach to titles and pseudonyms.[1] Herrenson has also spotted the odd stylistic similarity, particularly in relation to the use of semi-colons. As to the discovery of the author’s sexual identity (or mis-identity) Herrenson has, for all his perceived confidence in the facts, declined to reveal the source of his information. It is for reasons such as these that he has received from some the tag ‘Red Herrenson’. For the sake of simplicity, however, it is best that for the meantime we agree to trust the man’s judgement.
It was not until 1998 that the novel Quite Smelly One Morning made its appearance. Bo Bjǿ was the given name of its writer, about whom not an acorn of information was supplied to the publishers, press or public. They cared not at first – the novel was enough: a work of singular genius, from the first word to the penultimate (the last word is, I’m afraid, a surprisingly lacklustre offering). Who could complain? The adventures of Magnus Sok were balms to the sores of the smallest criticisms. Of course, people couldn’t help but wonder who it was that had constructed such a literary feast – let alone what such a person might look like, eat for breakfast and think about the future of the United Nations – but in the absence of ready theories, interest was easily quashed. The story came first. And the story was good.
A new book – but not an entirely new character. As it happens, Magnus Sok’s first appearance had come earlier, in another book. Though his surname is not given, there is a character called Magnus in Error on Disk! whose physical characteristics are much the same and whose father, Olaf, bares the same name as Magnus Sok’s father. In that book, yet, he is no more than an incidental character; the butt of a brief joke and a pawn in larger plan. Whereas in Quite Smelly One Morning he takes centre stage, in all his three dimensional glory. However, Sok is not your regular hero. Witty, wise and well-endowed, he is yet hampered by a peculiar personal hygiene problem. However much he washes; however much he covers himself in expensive scents; however much he ensures that all the places through which he moves are suitably clean, the fact remains that Magnus Sok stinks. At his best, he is said to smell ‘akin to a ball of pungent dung’ – at his worst ‘an Englishman in a heavy sweat’. In most almost all situations both his friends and enemies are prone to clamping their nose between two hands; something they have long since given up trying to do surreptitiously. Magnus Sok knows that he stinks; the only thing he doesn’t know is how to stop stinking. Otherwise his life is a gilt-edged, diamond encrusted success. Born of a humble yet significantly sapient fisherman, he has risen to the heady world of Swedish politics, with an important job within the ministry of agriculture and a beautiful buxom wife (who, as it happens, was born without a sense of smell). The citizens of the country certainly respect his mind; as do his fellow politicians – but will he ever rewarded for his wisdom whilst his armpits continue to exude a sulphurous stench?
Upon publication, Quite Smelly One Morning was described, not inaccurately, as ‘a comedy of bad manners: a riotous satire of political life’. Bjǿ was complimented for his ‘light touch’ and ‘lack of scholarly excesses when dealing with matters of a political nature’. An English critic wrote a revealing piece in which he compared the plight of Bjǿ’s protagonist to those of actual politicians whose careers have likewise suffered on account of some physical defect (the most obvious of which would appear to be the balding head). Other critics found the novel ‘more charming than biting, but none the worse for it’. Few of them dived beneath the pond of obvious and when they did, they invariably wore thick googles, through which they saw very little beyond their own reflections. Even those whose knowledge of Swedish politics ought to have been better than the average bore failed to bore any holes through the latticework wall of Bjǿ’s copious cultural references. Or am I guilty of going to far? No: I will endeavour to defend myself against any such accusations. The problem is simply that critics have been befuddled by the immediate drollness of Bjǿ’s invention, a simple writerly device which fooled them into thinking that his creation stops there: that beneath the overcoat of this story, no underwear is to be found. Whereas, as I hope to illustrate, this is not quite the case.
Let us begin in Chapter Four. Magnus Sok is making a speech at the Halibuton Conference on the subject of exportation. Following the body of his lecture, he answers questions from his audience (which starts at row sixteen, on account of Sok’s body odour) one of which concerns the wider subject of Swedish foreign policy. Sok’s reply is as follows:
What is wrong with Swedish foreign policy? I’ll tell you what is wrong with it. We don’t care about foreigners. We find them foreign. That’s the problem. That and the fish. Oh, and the bloody Norwegians.
This carelessly flippant response, played for laughs more than anything, may have little relevance to the story as a whole – but as an example of Bjǿ’s approach to cultural references it is extremely significant. For those who haven’t already noticed it, the third and fourth lines are almost direct quotations from the late Erich Heisson’s infamous ‘foreign policy’ speech of 1959. In this well-publicised address, the Swede confronted his nations’ feeling of resentment toward their Scandinavian neighbours. However, unlike Magnus Sok, he was not thinking of Norway – as well Bjǿ knows. No, indeed. Bjǿ’s reference to Norway, coming directly after an ambiguous allusion to fish, is deliberately distracting. It is a comic veil covering a dark secret; bright green turf laid over stinking marshland. The word ‘bloody’ reminds us only of its ultimate redundancy: power lost through power enhanced. For Bjǿ is not really thinking of the Norwegians – but the Danish.
That there have been bad relations between the countries of Sweden and Denmark in the past should not come as a surprise to anyone – and I have no intention of revisiting the causes in this article. All we need to bare in mind is that there is nothing in the concept of a Swedish writer attacking the Danish that should shock anyone. What is startling, maybe, is that Bjǿ is so keen to conceal his assault. Or is he? Perhaps Bjǿ’s anti-Danish programme only passes people by because they do not now how to read the signals. And they do not know how to read the signals, because they are not all Swedish. A victim of its own success, I contend that Quite Smelly One Morning, for all its universal appeal as a quaint and sometime scatological expose of the underbelly of Scandinavian politics, is at heart a novel written for the sole purpose of entertaining Swedish people. And once you know where to look, the harder it becomes to deny this statement.
Let us take another look at our hero: the perpetually pungent and politely prudent Magnus Sok. His father, Bjǿ likes to remind us, is of the purest Swedish stock. And as we are similarly prompted, it is from his father that Magnus gets his intelligence. As for his father’s body odour: there are no blots on it. He smells ‘sweeter than a bee’s backside’. So is the abominable aroma that hangs about Magnus a freak of nature – or is there perhaps another source? What about Magnus’ mother? What mother you ask? Admittedly, she doesn’t figure highly in the novel, but she isn’t entirely absent, not if you read between the lines. Consider these lines from chapter six:
Olaf Sok was not to receive another Golden Cod award until the year after she had returned to the lowlands to avenge the death of her desire. That was when he landed the largest cold fish of the year.
Coming at the end of a paragraph whose main concern is fish, this somewhat sneaky reference to Olaf’s wife and Magnus’ mother is easy to overlook. But its implications are immense. Presented as it is above, any reader would be excused for thinking that ‘she’ had already made an appearance in either this paragraph or the one before. On the contrary, ‘she’ has snuck in without any explanation whatever: to unnerve us and alert us to her mysterious potential within the plot. So who is this ‘she’? ‘She’ is clearly Mrs Sok, who has abandoned her husband and fled to what her home-country, hence the use of the world of the word ‘return’. On these grounds alone we can conclude that Magnus’ mother was not Swedish. Furthermore, this passage proves that she was in fact Danish. This is at first suggested by ‘lowlands’, which refers both to the consistently level terrain of Denmark and which plays off the word ‘desire’ at the end of the sentence to suggest a land where the women are ‘low’. As this could conceivably denote Holland as well as Denmark, we are supplied with a final reference which seals the case once and for all. I refer here to the cunning ‘avenge the death of her desire’ – a most palpable allusion to the plot of Hamlet, the famous tragedy set in Denmark. Note also how the ‘death of her desire’ plays off the ‘largest cold fish’ in the following sentence, marking the author’s return to the land of broad comedy, after this brief and subtle recourse to political point-scoring.
Political? you ask. That is too surely too brief, too tiny a reference to amount to a political point. True, ‘tis diminutive. But stars too are small when seen from afar; and acorns dwarfed in the shadow of an oak. For it takes only a pinprick to puncture a balloon, or a bullet to kill a man. So it is that with this fleeting indication Bo Bjǿ has chosen to explain the great mystery of this novel. Why does Magnus Sok smell so bad? Answer: because his mother was Danish. This is the real soreness at the centre of Magnus’ life; the mental disability symbolised by the physical predicament. And in light of the plot it makes perfect sense. For it is Magnus’ foul smell – i.e. his Danish ancestry – that prevents him being accepted as a true Swede. Not, as the liberal reader might wish to think, an injustice to which Bjǿ draws our attention – rather a potentially laughable state of affairs: an inescapable tragedy of the fates in which Magnus plays the part not of undeserving villain, but of clown. This unfortunate fragrance cannot be covered up. Sok’s redemption – if it should come – will not come from acceptance of his roots, but from the destruction of his entire being. In short, the message of this novel is: Anyone who has Danish blood deserves never to succeed in Sweden. Once you have come to understand this, the signs will have never been clearer, not only in Quite Smelly One Morning, but in all those other works that have been attributed to the same author, where a similarly anti-Danish programme is surreptitiously carried out between the lines. Sex-switching, name-changing, style-shifting: in so many ways Bo Bjǿ is as unsettled as the wind. But there is always one constant. He doesn’t like Denmark.
‘Don’t write unless you have something to say’. Here it is: the ruddy cheeked bouncer standing at the gates of literature; the steely eyed sentence passed down by every amateur judge that there ever was. Advice, they call it, their foreheads furrowed as deep as the farmer’s new field. Give them five minutes and they’ll be at it again; their fingers stroking their stony chins; counsel being duly dispensed at the rate of forty clichés an hour. ‘Better say nothing than say something stupid’. Another pearl. You slip it into your handbag, as if it were a tissue. For there’s nothing like empty advice to console you in your darkest hour.
Funny thing about great art: so much of it is driven by dodgy morality. You may not have noticed it. How could you? Beauty is so dazzling; it shimmers like a thousand shards of glass on a Sunday morning shopping street. But this same glass can cut your feet. Ah, but what the hey? We need a little beauty in their lives. So what if a writer’s engine is fuelled by the gasses of dissolution? The vehicle looks and runs like a dream. So long as we don’t follow their lead, it doesn’t matter what they’re doing or thinking behind the scenes. One doesn’t show support for a writer’s lifestyle or philosophy simply by reading their book.
‘Don’t write unless you have something to say’. In Bo Bjǿ’s case: I don’t like Denmark. Not an especially pleasant or sensible something, maybe, but something all the same. A little something to drive the narrative along. A trigger. Which makes me think. Italian thinker Leon Battista Alberti wrote a little fable once. And it went something like this
‘The worm devoured the nut in which it had been born. “What an ungrateful wretch you are,” said the nut, “to bring ruin on me, when I made your existence possible.” The worm answered, “If you brought me into being so that I could die of hunger, you did me wrong”.’
What a witty fellow this Alberti was. What a charmingly astute chap, packed to the rafters with the sandbags of moral aptitude. But that’s by the by. The reason I bring out his fable (or epigram) is that it reminds me of my own attitude in regards to Bo Bjǿ’s racism. Racism is a strong word, I know, but by no means an unworthy one. Bjǿ is a racist. Racism is the engine that drives his novels. His writing is born out of racism. But once born, what is the relationship between the narrative and its original incentive? Need there be a relationship? The message of Quite Smelly One Morning may be anti-Danish, but what is that message? What does it mean to us as readers? Need we bother with it? Might it not simply be something that is there – a catalyst, perhaps – merely for the purpose of getting something going; something which can be tossed away at the end, when we no longer need it? Might not Bjǿ be using racism as a means to this end? Perhaps he was, as a young writer, instructed not to write something unless he had something to say. Therefore he manufactured a message; he devoted himself to a cause about which he did not really care – for the sake of what? For the sake of spicing up a story. For is it not in fact better to say something stupid entertainingly than nothing at all?
Of course, in so far as it does represent an assault on the Danish nationality, Quite Smelly One Morning is hardly brutal in its approach. At times, its snarl is almost kitten-like. And yet it was, all the same, considered vicious enough to merit a reply from one of its victims. And a suitably analogous reply at that. For just as the identity of Bo Bjǿ provokes panic attacks amongst the literary establishment, many a troubling tummy ache has been suffered over the author of The Field of the Red, known to his readers as Sven Gǿranblúd. The problem has caused so much difficulty that some indolent critics have suggested that Gǿranblúd and Bjǿ are one and the same. But this is too easy an answer, which ignores much if not all of the evidence to the contrary.
On the outside, The Field of the Red is a compelling saga in the true Scandinavian tradition, dealing in the main with big boats, pillage and the petty theft of one’s neighbour’s animal and/or wife. Its hero beckons from the land that we now call Sweden and, in the first half of the novel anyway, is cast as a great man: strong of both mind and muscle. At this point you would be excused for thinking that the book had been commissioned by the Swedish government as a patriotic statement. But then the tides of change begin to lap at the mainland. Having originally been narrated by the first person viewpoint of the hero, we enter a second mouthpiece, whose version of the story is slightly different. Gradually our hero seems a little less heroic. More than that: he is recast as an arrogant loafer, a committed liar and an amoral leader. And his idiocy is infectious. It seeps through the ages. It is the basis for a rotten nation. From the roots of this fool modern Sweden is born.
This is not said in so many words, of course. I am merely employing my particular and personal powers of perception to slice through the text and expose its gooey innards. Once one has developed the ability to read between the lines, it is curious how one finds it almost impossible to do anything but. Restraint is sometimes required, granted, but less commonly than you would suppose. This is especially the case in this example: The Field of the Red being one of those novels that has been put together with such calculation, such guile and such wisdom that it requires nothing less than a master detective to pick over the bones of its construction. I have already hinted how, in a general sense, it forms a reply of sorts to Bo Bjǿ’s work, countering the latter’s predominantly concealed anti-Danish programme with a rigorously subtle anti-Swedish agenda. What I have yet to explore is why I believe that it is a direct and specific reply: a deliberate riposte from one author to another. As ever, the evidence lies within. From Chapter Seventeen of Gǿranblúd’s novel, we read:
Krinberg’s daughter had cut her hair short before, but never so tight around the ears, for this was lowland fashion, and everybody knew it. Of course, she never meant to imitate those foreign women; it was simply that she had been born with pleasantly good taste – an unfortunate set of circumstances if ever there was one.
And again, in Chapter Forty-Four:
There was blood on his tongue; on his socks the stains of his victims’ brains, through which he had deliberately, callously, carelessly walked as they lay about the battlefield floor like cauliflowers in a farmer’s field. He loved to smash the enemies’ skulls: it was his primary weakness. But he would have those brains.
In both of these cases, both Gǿranblúd’s ability to generally knock the Swedes and, through sly references, specifically target Bo Bjǿ and his writing, is clearly evident. The first passage speaks for itself, but in the second I am inclined to draw attention to the clever use of the word ‘socks’ – no doubt an allusion to Magnus Sok himself: a man who also prided himself on his brains, though in a very different way. In fact, when you sit down and think about it, Krinberg is almost entirely a rip-off of parody of Sok, bearing most of his attributes, though often using the same talents that Sok was able to put to positive use in a thoroughly negative way. That he does not share Sok’s unfortunate scent is a vital point; one which Gǿranblúd manages to twist into his own advantage. Where Sok’s malodorous pits are seen as his downfall, Krinberg is blessed/cursed with naturally perfumed hair; without which he would undoubtedly be much less supercilious than he is and, as such, much less fundamentally flawed as a moral character. What Gǿranblúd may be saying here is that, if faced with a choice between wise ugliness and conceited prettiness, he would always opt for the latter. Whilst he may be conceding that the Swedish are a better looking nation, the implication is that the Danish have learnt from their experiences – as a less obviously handsome collection of personages – to become a much greater one.
All that I have written on this subject would suggest that these two novels under review represent an argument or boisterous dialogue between two writers from two different countries. This is not wrong. On this same point, you will also be aware of the fact that Sven Gǿranblúd is not a Danish name. The surname is most likely not a recognisable name at all; though the effect is evidently meant to be Swedish. It is therefore a pseudonym which both hides the real identity of the writer and scores a joke at the same time. It is through its exaggerated Swedishness that it hints at its Danish origin, as well as revealing something of the book’s bloody and gory content. For we must not lose sight of the fact that, like Quite Smelly One Morning, The Field of the Red is, for all its underlying playfulness, a perfectly powerful narrative in its own right. Again, the engine of racism does not drown out the delicate melodies of the resplendently violent story. Whereas those passages quoted above cannot be read without harking back to the novel’s unsavoury ‘message’, others – freed from the chains of trying to ‘say something’ – are easier to stomach. It is here that we find some of the more charming portions of Gǿranblúd’s prose. For instance, from the end of Chapter Three:
Through the vomit rainstorm they stumbled; their bloodied noses bleeding tributaries toward the source of their chapped lips. One of them had lost both arms, another two legs. One fortunate fighter had got away almost without a scratch, except that he carried his scrotum in a jar (having caught after it the sword swept between his legs.) He hoped that he would be able to exchange it at the next village for a grain of corn or two.
As is evident, Gǿranblúd is never more beguiling than in passages such as these. For The Field of the Red is in parts a dreamlike novel: a battleground for words and sentences, where colons and semi-colons engage in gruesome conflicts, and commas bleed like obese leeches in a needle store.
But for now, allow me to return to this ‘boisterous dialogue’ of which I spoke. It is not the most challenging debate, maybe, but it does hold a certain fascination for those people who enjoy the spectacle of two intelligent men insulting each other obliquely, creating amusing tales in the meantime. Well, I say men, but this is not necessarily the case. If we are continue to trust Herrensson’s word, then yes, Bjǿ is (now) a man. As for Gǿranblúd, the question of identity is still waiting to be answered. We have established that the person is surely of Danish nationality, but from here on in we are confronted with a wide range of options. Personally, I am inclined towards two: a man and a woman. One of these two, I believe, is Sven Gǿranblúd.
The man is Vincent Schmenker, a professor in Scandinavian mythology at Copenhagen Institute of Tall Tales. Not only would be more than capable of creating the compelling wartime saga that is The Field of the Red, but there are personal reasons why he might wish (and be able) to score a point or two against the Swedish. Vincent’s uncle, Gunter Schmenker, was a Danish spy in the 1950s, whose job it was to gather information about Swedish agricultural policies – the rewritten history of which happens to make up a large part of Bjǿ’s Quite Smelly One Morning. Gunter was caught in 1957, and only released twenty five years later, when he revealed that he had been forced to work three hundred and fifty five days a year assembling furniture for his malevolent captors. It is unlikely that an injustice such as this would be easily forgotten by the man’s nephew.
The woman in question is Gertrude Käud, a much more recognised figure in the Danish literary world, who has in the past ten years attempted to set up no less than fifteen satirical journals, most of which have not lasted beyond their first issue. The most recent of these was Right Up Your Nose – now on its third issue – which is almost completely taken up by writing of an anti-Swedish nature. Käud lived in Sweden as a teenager, where she developed a healthy dislike for the people and their culture. At the same time she may have been made aware of Bo Bjǿ’s early work – and taken issue with it. A scathing review of Swedish Copse that appeared in the Danish newspaper The Daily Pastry has since been attributed to her hand, though it is signed (revealingly) Sven der Svolker. Käud also spent some time working a nurse, developing anatomical knowledge that might have come in useful when describing the various bodily tortures with which The Field of the Red is concerned. As far as I know, she does not know Schmenker and the possibility of joint authorship seems to me highly improbable.
An unveiling may be due, but now it is not the time. The task that I have endeavoured to complete has been concerned with laying down the groundwork; of establishing connections, in order that others might be able, in the future, to tie together a multitude of loose ends. I forewarned my readers of confusion, but I believe that I have delivered something a little less bewildering. For at the heart of this strange fruit I have discovered a perceptible core. These two novels, Quite Smelly One Morning and The Field of the Red, whilst amiable narratives in their own right, also form a conversation, driven by mildly racist beliefs, between two proud people representing two proud nations. While this is not the only reason as to why these texts ought to be studied, it is by no means a bad one – and certainly not a dreary one, for all that it requires those unacquainted with the nature of either Swedish or Danish politics to read between the lines – and more.
[1] Having said that, the number of contemporary writers employing similarly silly pseudonyms has risen sharply in recent years. The Dutch writers responsible for Van Eel’s Underwater Transportation are the main contenders, but Edmund Ek deserves a mention for his pseudonymical middle name ‘Blumin’ – as does Monsieur Charles Rokalis Quarrét, who uses a nickname derived from his middle name to provide yet another ‘amusing’ moniker, guaranteed to chip away at any last vestiges of respect we had for his prose
Review by Michael Rosinith
Further Reading:
