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dancing_moonTil today, the reading assignment for school was the first lesbian novel in Sweden. Charlie by Margareta Suber from 1932 is a neat little book of only a 100 pages.
While the author was widely read in her own time, this book was published semi-silently to avoid controversy and Suber fell almost completely to the side in Swedish literature history - no research done, no reprints for years. Charlie was re-issued by Normal förlag (now sadly defunct) and it was an absolut delight to read.
It is strongly influenced by The Well of Loneliness, although according to much teacher it ends on a more uplifting tone. Now, I haven't read that book (yet), but I did like Charlie a great deal and it reminded me of another author from the same era - Wodehouse. The milieu is a Swedish beach town, near the continent with a wealthy and international patronage. There is in the book examples of Russian, French, German and English and the titular character, a young New Woman/flapper type peppers her speech with American phrases, most notably calling her love interest "Baby".
But where Wodehouse is always light, frothy and unconcerned about deeper romantic emotions (for all the love quadrangles in his books, none really seem to mean much, do they?) Charlie has a much more critical view of this society. Controlling, sexist, too glossy and too false, where the men don't so much actively repress women as ignore and infantilize them utterly.
Still - it does end on a relatively good note and it was a very good read.
After school, I also visited a store where I had some gift vouchers from Christmas, and bought two spring jackets. It's been a long time since I went shopping properly, but it was surprisingly nice ^_^
While the author was widely read in her own time, this book was published semi-silently to avoid controversy and Suber fell almost completely to the side in Swedish literature history - no research done, no reprints for years. Charlie was re-issued by Normal förlag (now sadly defunct) and it was an absolut delight to read.
It is strongly influenced by The Well of Loneliness, although according to much teacher it ends on a more uplifting tone. Now, I haven't read that book (yet), but I did like Charlie a great deal and it reminded me of another author from the same era - Wodehouse. The milieu is a Swedish beach town, near the continent with a wealthy and international patronage. There is in the book examples of Russian, French, German and English and the titular character, a young New Woman/flapper type peppers her speech with American phrases, most notably calling her love interest "Baby".
But where Wodehouse is always light, frothy and unconcerned about deeper romantic emotions (for all the love quadrangles in his books, none really seem to mean much, do they?) Charlie has a much more critical view of this society. Controlling, sexist, too glossy and too false, where the men don't so much actively repress women as ignore and infantilize them utterly.
Still - it does end on a relatively good note and it was a very good read.
After school, I also visited a store where I had some gift vouchers from Christmas, and bought two spring jackets. It's been a long time since I went shopping properly, but it was surprisingly nice ^_^
