404:, describes the book as setting the Odysseus figure into modern time, its subtitle "A novel about present time" emphasising its contemporary focus. She states that Johnson takes off Odysseus's heroic halo and lets him be a reflective person who feels divided and unsure. Published just after the Second World War, Johnson has made Odysseus a tired warrior who just wants to go home and live in peace. Nordgren writes that the novel describes Odysseus's dizzying, wandering, adventurous homeward journey, meeting nymphs and monsters, and his wife Penelope's long wait on Ithaca. She calls the novel's structure interesting, with its simultaneous and parallel events in somewhat mythic style, a "metafiction" and a narrative in Johnson's own time. As such it is a rewarding book, and an excellent way in, in Nordgren's opinion, to Johnson's novels.
377:(Myth and Reality. The Problem of Storytelling in Eyvind Johnson's Novel 'Return to Ithaca') examined in detail Johnson's treatment of the homeric myth of Odysseus. She explores Johnson's recurring theme of escape and return home, seeking to demonstrate how the fictional narrator has to escape from subjective experience using myth, so as to share his vision with his readers. What is lived is never the same as what is evoked; Mazzarella describes this as a tension between the described reality and the escaped. To make the case for this "dynamic tension", she analyses the importance of the Odysseus myth to Johnson's writing; Johnson's own statements about myth and reality in his writing; and twentieth century views of myth by writers such as the folklorist
397:- help to unpick the issue of violence, ending with Odysseus's killing of Penelope's suitors. Odysseus makes his experiences into a myth, while the narrator breaks up the myth, necessarily making Odysseus an anti-hero, to discover the ancient reality that applies in modern times. Among the ironies and the illusions of heroism are that Odysseus went to war to protect Ithaca, but that he comes home bringing violence to re-establish peace and order. Mazzarella links this to Johnson's post-Second World War Sweden, and suggests a humanistic resolution as Telemachos reacts to Nestor's cup, a symbol of both grief and longing.
277:. The novel has an ingeniously executed composition consisting of three simultaneous narratives. The first has Odysseus as the protagonist, the second centres around Penelope and the third revolves around Telemachus. The events in these three threads partially interfere with each other and finally run together. With the narrative approach, Johnson strove for a sense of simultaneity in these events and an opportunity to see the whole of reality at once, with all its complications. This was a narrative style that Johnson would later develop further in his novels.
356:
393:, all of whom influenced Johnson. Johnson's Odysseus is presented as Frazer's mythical archetype of the fated hero, but also a self-consciously Freudian figure full of memories, dreams, and reflections. In Monica Setterwall's view, the core of Mazzarella's thesis is the way the narrators - both the explicit narrator, and Odysseus himself as he tells his tale to the
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lives and stays there for seven years. In Ithaca, Penelope hesitates to remarry. She is courted by a large number of suitors whom she puts off by saying that she cannot make a decision until she has finished weaving a bedspread for her father-in-law. She weaves every day, but unpicks most of the
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found that the author had set out and almost succeeded in a paradoxical task: "The elevated must remain elevated but still be lowered to an everyday plane; the supernatural must be connected to a chain of cause and effect without ceasing to be impenetrable and marvellous; the timeless must be
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wrote that "If Homer makes the Trojan
Expedition the greatest and most heroic war of history, Eyvind Johnson makes the decade following, when Odysseus was wandering home, an almost proportionate post-war depression."
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wrote that "Nowhere has Eyvind
Johnson's storytelling gift been given freer rein than here; and never before has he given more convincing proof that he is the only genius among the prose writers of his generation."
575:"A Hero's Homecoming; RETURN TO ITHACA: The Odyssey Retold as a Modern Novel. By Eyvind Johnson. Translated from the Swedish by M. A. Michael. Preface by Mark Van Doren. 474 pp. New York: Themes & Hudson. $ 4"
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who discovers
Odysseus and brings him to the king's court. After Odysseus's poignant account of his adventures, he sails back to Ithaca. Disguised as a beggar, he arrives on the island; he meets the swineherd
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The book was published in the late autumn of 1946. It was greeted with some hostility by homerologists, who objected to the amount of modern naturalistic scene description, and the
333:
coloured by the present without losing its character of timelessness." Vennberg also praised the style, the joy of storytelling, the portrayal of people and above all the
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633:[Rewriting the Odyssey in the 20th Century: Lies and Literary Creation in Naissance de l’Odyssée by Jean Giono and Strändernas svall by Eyvind Johnson].
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574:
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view, in that
Johnson has added a psychological dimension where the main characters' thoughts and doubts are depicted, among other things through
631:"Récrire l'Odyssée au XXe siècle Mensonge et création littéraire dans Naissance de l'Odyssée de Jean Giono et Strändernas svall d'Eyvind Johnson"
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weaving again at night. At the same time, Telemachus has begun to find out about his father. Odysseus is visited by the messenger of the gods,
709:. Diss. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 497. ISSN 0039-6842. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland.
210:, who orders him to return home. Reluctantly, Odysseus sets off to sail to Ithaca, but is shipwrecked and washed ashore on a coast ruled by
527:
Setterwall, Monica (1983). " Myt och verklighet. Berättandets problem i Eyvind
Johnsons roman 'Strändernas svall.' by Merete Mazzarella".
201:. The war went on for ten years, and on the way home Odysseus was delayed by many mishaps. He fetches up on an island where a woman named
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spoke of "a significant work, without any question one of the boldest approaches in our new art of storytelling".
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608:"Sommarklassiker: Med fokus på det närvarande. Eyvind Johnson: Strändernas svall, Bonniers 2004"
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presentation. On the other hand, it was warmly received by Sweden's leading critics.
177:. It has been published in many editions and translated into some twenty languages.
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Myt och verklighet. Berättandets problem i Eyvind
Johnsons roman 'Strändernas svall
707:
Myt och verklighet: Berättandets problem i Eyvind
Johnsons roman Strändernas svall
161:'s eagerness to meet his father. The novel is counted among the great classics of
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Strändernas svall: ett drama i tre akter och ett antal bilder om den återvändande
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Strändernas svall: ett drama i tre akter och ett antal bilder om den återvändande
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explores the role of the narrator in the novel, and its exploration of violence.
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it was named in 2013 as one of only five books that should be part of a
Swedish
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who persuades him that he must deal with his wife's suitors and kill them.
445:"Klassikerrummet - Strändernas svall av Eyvind Johnson - P1 Kultur – podd"
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Return to Ithaca: a Drama in Three Acts and Some Images of the
Returning
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134:'The Surge of the Shores') is a 1946 novel by Swedish author
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Människan i tiden: Eyvind
Johnsons liv och författarskap 1938-1976
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The plot recounts the events surrounding the Greek hero
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189:. Nineteen years earlier, he left his wife
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606:Nordgren, Elisabeth (14 July 2004).
573:Burnham, Philip (16 November 1952).
258:, but differs from the original, in
469:"Bildningspanelens litteraturkanon"
423:In 1948 a reworked theatre version
197:to join the Greek forces attacking
185:Odysseus is ruler of the island of
687:(in Swedish). Stockholm: Bonnier.
443:Radio, Sveriges (15 August 2010).
340:Outside Sweden, Philip Burnham in
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669:] (in Swedish). Libris. 1948.
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157:'s waiting for him and his son
235:The novel is based on Homer's
138:. It is based on the story of
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635:Revue de littérature comparée
409:Revue de Littérature Comparée
78:Ancient Greece, Mediterranean
614:(in Swedish). Archived from
535:(3 (Summer 1983)): 276–278.
149:, his journey home from the
16:1946 novel by Eyvind Johnson
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683:Lindberger, Ă–rjan (1990).
629:François, Cyrille (2008).
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744:Novels by Eyvind Johnson
739:Swedish-language novels
413:Naissance de l’Odyssée
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31:Cover of first edition
415:on the same subject.
407:Cyrille François, in
381:, the psychoanalysts
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529:Scandinavian Studies
312:Stockholms-Tidningen
252:is based on Homer's
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490:"Strändernas svall"
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379:James George Frazer
47:Original title
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703:Mazzarella, Merete
580:The New York Times
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360:Merete Mazzarella
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20:Return to Ithaca
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292:anti-heroic
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255:The Odyssey
153:, his wife
75:Set in
728:Categories
496:2013-05-13
475:2013-05-13
454:2016-10-22
431:References
395:Phaeacians
195:Telemachus
159:Telemachos
151:Trojan War
612:Lysmasken
402:Lysmasken
387:Carl Jung
366:In 1981,
281:Reception
165:. In the
91:Publisher
83:Published
705:(1981).
541:40918335
492:. Libris
370:'s book
216:Nausikaa
212:Alkinoos
191:Penelope
169:program
155:Penelope
147:Odysseus
140:Odysseus
95:Bonniers
57:Language
677:Sources
238:Odyssey
221:Eumaios
203:Calypso
132:
119:Swedish
61:Swedish
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691:
539:
351:Modern
245:, 1893
208:Hermes
187:Ithaca
105:Sweden
37:Author
665:[
537:JSTOR
471:. SVT
374:'
335:moral
329:]
267:]
171:Babel
70:Novel
67:Genre
711:ISBN
689:ISBN
385:and
199:Troy
181:Plot
130:lit.
86:1946
643:doi
319:in
309:in
298:in
167:SVT
730::
610:.
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
