Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 37 (2002). Ss.

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Review
Beata Agrell Paul Norln. Textens villkor: a study of Willy Kyrklunds prose fiction. Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1997. Pp. vi+240.

The Swedish author Willy Kyrklund (born 1921) is a celebrated outsider in Scandinavian literature. Short, elegant, and concentrated, his prose is also conceptually elusive and resists unambiguous interpretation Kyrklunds irony is famous, and he has been likened to both Voltaire and Kafka. By now he is translated into eight European languages, with the exception of English. Nevertheless, the first doctoral thesis in English on Kyrklund appeared a few years ago: Paul Norlns Textens villkor [The condition of the text]: a study of Willy Kyrklunds prose fiction (1997). This study offers an excellent introduction to this remarkable authorship. In his introductory chapter Norln emphasizes the difficulties of previous criticism to place Kyrklund in any particular school or literary trend (5). Also, his texts offer great problems of genre: some subtitles read Novel, but the texts do not contain traditional novelistic traits; they are hybrids, mixtures of different traditional short prose genres. The tradition of moral example (exemplum) is both evident and problematized: Kyrklunds texts have a clearly didactic orientation and yet a clear message is missing. There is also a problem of subject: the texts deal with existential questions, but these are not questions of life but of the rules of life, the conditions of life (5). Kyrklunds approach is rather meta-existential, or, if you prefer: philosophical. Thus, the narrative is reduced, mostly traversed and fragmented by discursive sections. Norlns Textens villkor is the second doctoral thesis on Kyrklund; the first, by the Swedish scholar Gunnar Arrias, appeared in 1981. In addition, three licentiates dissertations have appeared and numerous academic essays and articles. At present another four doctorate theses on Kyrklund are in preparation in Sweden. The existential and philosophical questions implicated in Kyrklunds texts have been object of much previous study, mainly thematic and ideological in approach. Norlns area of investigation, however, is the construction of Kyrklunds texts, primarily the short texts which make up the bulk of his production (13). Even the long texts, the novels, are in fact more like montages of shorter pieces: the assembled fragments can be seen as a collection of short texts. Norlns issue concerns Kyrklunds constant genre-bending. This motivates analysis of how Kyrklunds short texts play with the readers expectations of the literary conventions relating to short prose narratives (13f.). Of major concern is also the way Kyrklunds particular use of intertextual relationships relates to the construction of his texts in terms of genre, conventions, and reader expectations (14). This is relevant because of Kyrklunds use of his extensive knowledge of a range of literary and cultural traditions, based on his studies in languages from Arabic to Sanskrit (15). Of special significance is Kyrklunds use of game like structures that confirm the ambiguous relationship of Kyrklunds texts to realistic narrative (14).

Overarching theoretical perspectives pertain to genre and reception theory, especially the pragmatic approach of H.R. Jau and the conventionalism of E.D. Hirsch; surprisingly enough, A. Fowlers standard work on genre is left out. Also in use are Grard Genettes concept of transtextuality and Peter Hutchinsons inventory of literary games. The book is cumulatively composed in four main chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction presents Kyrklunds reception history including previous research. Focus is on the documented difficulties of unequivocal generic classification and interpretation. Norlns own contribution is said to be the investigation of Kyrklunds humor and his different kinds of play, at once funny and deadly serious (17). The following chapters deal with genre and parody, existential irony, intertextuality, and game as thought model, respectively. Chapter one, Genre, parody, and writing investigates generic play, by means of the distinction between representative and conceptual elements in the text, that is, between (automatizing) mimetic conventions and (desautomatizing) discursive strategies. Focus is on Kyrklunds first collection of short prose, ngvlten (The Steam-Roller), of 1948. The generic play is shown to operate on mixtures of short prose genres fictional, narrative, philosophical and discursive. Kyrklund requires and exploits generic and other conventions, while simultaneously parodying them (27f.). The function of this play is to challenge conventional reader-expectations of generic boundaries, thereby forcing fresh reflection on the identity of the text and how it is to be read as well as on the problematics represented in the text, often concerning the nature of writing and literature itself. Chapter two, Irony and mnniskans villkor (the human condition), investigates the discourses of doubleness and irony as a tool for indirect communication. The analyses include three novel-like texts: Tvsam (a neologism referring to the condition of being two in one) of 1949, Solange of 1951, and Mstaren Ma (The Master Ma) of 1952. Focus is on the split between the contradictory perspectives of man as a personal human being and the impersonal human condition (76); no unified or univocal perspective is available. This split perspective brings forth an underlying existential problem: mans unhappy attempts to overcome the limiting human condition. A frequent textual means of displaying this split is counterposing oppositions: man/ nature, inside/ outside, seeing/ being seen, dissolving/ stiffening, necessity/ randomness, uniqueness/ repetition, linearity/ circularity, time/ eternity, etc. In the same spirit, positive existential terms are defined negatively: memory as absence of forgetfulness (94); creation as lack of awareness (95). No syntheses or solutions are offered, but the irony of this is that these oppositions also interact and interpenetrate each other. Seen in this perspective, the impersonal human condition displayed gives the impression of fooling around with individual man: creating and dissolving borders at the same stroke. This harsh existential problematics interacts with the rhetorical construction of the texts, where narrative takes second place: the conceptual element overrules the represntation. The investigation of Intertexts and narrative structure in chapter three makes use of Grard Genettes concept of transtextuality, which makes differentiation between various intertextual relations possible. Most important is the phenomenon of hypertextuality, i.e. the relation of the text at hand to another previous text, which it presupposes and is grafted upon. Thus, Kyrklunds story of Den ansprkslse Holofernes (The modest Holofernes), for instance, relates not only to the apocryphal Book of Judith but also to a whole tradition of hypertexts (and paintings) re-using that text; and these, in turn, are now hypotexts in relation to Kyrklunds new hypertext. In his version of the

story Kyrklund transposes the biblical text, filtered through tradition, to a modern business setting; by means of irony he also calls some of the protagonists traditional characteristics in question. These parodic manipulations are likely to affect not only the text at hand but also the previous Judith-texts and their whole tradition. Furthermore, Kyrklund also plays with fake or imaginary intertexts, that is: plays with the very conditions of intertextuality. The investigation of thought-models and games in chapter four discovers in Kyrklund nearly all the game-types described in Hutchinsons Games Authors Play. Of these word-games, social games, and mathematical games are especially frequent. In these cases, what belongs to the game and what belongs to the story may be ambiguous. As for mathematical games the narrative element may be missing, being replaced by repetition and variation, sometimes in the form of musical structures. The most basic game that Kyrklund plays with the reader, however, is presenting opposing possibilities which are never unambiguously resolved in favor of one or the other alternative (185). The conclusion of the thesis is presented via an overview of the montage-novel Polyfem frvandlad (Polyphemos transformed) of 1964. This book is said to incorporate all the characteristic features previously discussed. Like this fragmented work, all Kyrklunds texts might be said to consist of atoms which in earlier manifestations were written by other authors. The play of these texts concerns how we look at fragments of meaning which surface and resurface through time (214). Such textual play, Norln writes, asks for a transformation of the reader, demanding a different kind of attention. In Polyfem frvandlad this act of attention itself is a theme. Norlns dissertation gives an interesting and well-done introduction to Kyrklunds texts and his methods of working. Especially the first and second chapters are of great value, and the textual analyses, as a rule, are laudable. Norln is also well oriented in previous research and exemplary in his way of referring to his precursors. Yet the character of his thesis is a bit inventory and descriptive rather than problem-oriented. Regrettable is the missing historical perspective. Kyrklund may be described as unique and timeless, but even so he is not unaffected by the cultural contexts of his times: these supply with the concepts that the playful strategies operate upon. A satisfying understanding of the aesthetic aspects of that play demands some reference to the historical contexts at hand. Also, the terminology is a bit fuzzy: e.g. in chapter one sliding between conventional, representative, mimetic, narrative, realistic. In spite of frequent referring to realism in the argumentation, the relevant conventions of realism are not stated, and conceptual remains entirely unspecified. Further, in chapter three the distinction between transtextuality, intertextuality and hypertextuality is not upheld. However, this malfunction does not affect the textual analyses seriously: they do bring forth important principles of generic play, not only in WK but in short prose discourses on the whole.