When I Was a Child: An Autobiographical Novel

Soldat med brutet gevär #1-4

by Vilhelm Moberg

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the poverty-stricken Swedish region of Småland, young Valter, the son of a soldier, explores the world around him and watches his older brothers emigrate to America. In this novel of the life of a farm boy, first published in three volumes in 1946, Vilhelm Moberg sensitively explores his own childhood.

When Valter, a boy with great imagination, describes the exciting things he sees so vividly, he is punished for lying, so he learns to write his stories down instead. He willingly leaves school and helps support his family by working in lumber camps and a glass factory. His father's ill health and death bring even harder times. Through all his toil, he debates whether to honor his father's wish and remain in Sweden to support his mother.

With gentle irony and a loving knowledge of the landscape, the people, and the larger issue of class struggle, Moberg offers American readers a deeply moving view of the other side of Swedish immigration.

Genres: Fiction, Swedish Literature, Historical Fiction, Historical, Classics

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Vilhelm Moberg was a Swedish journalist, author, playwright, historian, and debater best known for his Emigrant series of novels about Swedish emigrants to America. He also wrote other novels and plays and also participated in public debates about the Swedish monarchy, bureaucracy, and corruption. Among other works are Raskens (1927) and Ride This Night (1941), a historical novel of a 17th-century rebellion in Småland acknowledged for its subliminal but widely recognised criticism against the Hitler regime.

A noted public intellectual and debater in Sweden, he was noted for very vocal criticism of the Swedish monarchy (most notably after the Haijby affair), likening it with a servile government by divine mandate, and publicly supporting its replacement with a Swiss-style confederal republic. He spoke out aggressively against the policies of Nazi Germany, the Greek military junta, and the Soviet Union, and his works were among those destroyed in Nazi book burnings. In 1971, he scolded Prime Minister Olof Palme for refusing to offer the Nobel Prize in Literature to its recipient Alexander Solzhenitsyn – who was refused permission to attend the ceremony in Stockholm – through the Swedish embassy in Moscow.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very affecting autobiography written as a novel. We get Valter's interior musings about his life from birth til age 18. The youngest of 7 children, he watches as all 6 of his siblings emigrate to America to escape the grinding poverty and hopelessness of Sweden in the early 1900s. Moberg is the author of one of my favorite series of 4 novels about a family coming to America and starting a new life in Minnesota, "The Emigrants", so of course I had to read this one when I found it at a booksale.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A straightforward, unsentimental, and forthright depiction of a boy-very-much-like-Moberg. coming of age around WWI. No-nonsense telling, starting in a Portrait of the Artist/James Joyce-like attempt to evoke a dawn of consciousness, not in language changing, but ideas and concepts emerging. This makes it a cut above what might have been expected in a bildungsroman, although I wish it went further than the protagonist's decision as a young man that "settles" him at least for the moment. I'd have liked to find out more about "Valmer"; note that this is reduced from three volumes in Swedish.

[Merilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life was so hard for those rural Swedes in the ‘old country’, with no hope of a better life except to immigrate to America. This book left me feeling sad and thoughtful, and thankful for the courage of my ancestors to seek a better life.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I Was A Child is an "autobiographical novel" about a boy growing up in the early 1900s in Sweden, with its rigid class structures and expectations, and the large number of people emigrating to find freedom and opportunity. It is a bit slow and really doesn't go beyond a basic telling of the tale.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bok 1 (del 1 & 2): 3,5⭐️ Intressant att läsa om hur Sverige såg ut runt 1910-talet, nykterhetsrörelsen, klasskampen, emigrationen till USA osv. Jag gillade att läsa om Valter Sträng och hur han blev medveten om världen runt omkring honom. Boken kändes dock lite repetitiv ibland när det kom till både hans day to day liv och hans tankar om klass, politik osv. Men såklart bra, älskar Moberg🙏🏻❤️

[Gina Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. We don't often think of what our ancestors lives were before they came to America.

[Helena R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Med hur media framställs i dagens läge kändes det ännu mer angeläget att läsa denna bok, även om jag inte visste det innan. Vi följer Valter Sträng, från hans uppväxt i ett soldattorp till vuxen ålder då han ger sig in i arbetarrörelsen och journalistiken.

Vilhelm Moberg vet hur en bra historia berättas. Det är lågmält, stilla men med bra beskrivningar av både miljöer och känslor. Det är en trovärdig berättelse och han skyr inte undan för svåra saker, det är bara så det är.

Detta är min morfars favoritbok, jag fick hans kopia, och jag förstår varför. Det berättas om arbetarrörelsens födelse samt hur viktig arbetarpressen var för den. Hur viktigt pressen är i en demokrati förstås mellan raderna, viktigt att tänka på i dessa dagar. En fri press är inte viktig i en demokrati, den är och bör vara nödvändig, något jag förstod riktigt ordentligt när jag läste denna bok.

Boken är en bra historisk skildring, om än fiktiv, av livet i början av 1900-talet i Sverige, samt livet under första världskriget. Vilhelm Moberg flätar fint in fakta och låter sina fiktiva karaktärer visa oss hur livet var - och det gör han bra.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title comes from I Corinthians 13:
" When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

Vilhelm Moberg was a Swedish author and wrote about the Swedish- American dynamic. This story is written from the pespective of Valter, youngest child in a family of 7 kids, whose siblings all emigrate to America when they reach the age of 18 or 19. It takes place in the early 20th century. Valter has to make the hard choice of whether or not to leave Sweden, and his mother, when his time comes to emigrate.
Moberg writes powerfully at times, especially when Valter's father dies and a funeral is held. The story follows Valter as he grows up and his many choices along the way, including socialist ideas vs. traditional roles in society; he goes through stages in his understanding of women; questions on the meaning of life, especially when one of his brothers is killed in an accident in America.

[Jenny Clifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is loosely based on the author's own life and youth, and Moberg really was good at capturing daily life around the turn of last century. It is a gripping tale of Valter finding his place in society and fighting for what he believes in, and a very nice introduction to the Swedish socialist movement of that time.

[Barbara Irene Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of a Swedish families struggle to survive in the late 1800s. The hardships they endured were probably similar to real life and accounts for the large numbers of people who saw America as a chance to have a better life.