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Sleet: selected stories
Stig Dagerman (1923–1954) is regarded as the most talented young writer of the Swedish post-war generation. This selection, containing a number of new translations of Dagerman's stories never before published in English, is unified by the theme of the loss of innocence. Often narrated from a child's perspective, the stories give voice to childhood's tender state of receptiveness and joy tinged with longing and loneliness.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 1, 2013
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323 people want to read
About the author
Stig Dagerman
82 books242 followersStig Dagerman was one of the most prominent Swedish authors during the 1940s. In the course of five years, 1945-49, he enjoyed phenomenal success with four novels, a collection of short stories, a book about postwar Germany, five plays, hundreds of poems and satirical verses, several essays of note and a large amount of journalism. Then, with apparent suddenness, he fell silent. In the fall of 1954, Sweden was stunned to learn that Stig Dagerman, the epitome of his generation of writers, had been found dead in his car: he had closed the doors of the garage and run the engine.
Dagerman's works deal with universal problems of morality and conscience, of sexuality and social philosophy, of love, compassion and justice. He plunges into the painful realities of human existence, dissecting feelings of fear, guilt and loneliness. Despite the somber content, he also displays a wry sense of humor that occasionally turns his writing into burlesque or satire.
Dagerman's works deal with universal problems of morality and conscience, of sexuality and social philosophy, of love, compassion and justice. He plunges into the painful realities of human existence, dissecting feelings of fear, guilt and loneliness. Despite the somber content, he also displays a wry sense of humor that occasionally turns his writing into burlesque or satire.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 13, 2024
4.5
"When it rains,” thought the boy, “it must be hard to be dead.”
This is a collection of short stories by the prominent Swedish writer and journalist who penned 'German Autumn'.
The stories are mostly recounted from a child’s perspective and revolve around family relationship, reminiscences about the past, innocence, friendship and death.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ To Kill a Child
A pleasant day in a village turns dark and miserable, because on this day a child will be killed by a cheerful man.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In Grandmother’s House
There’s no such thing as quietness. Everything can be heard. That thing that we call silence — it’s not really silence. It’s only our own deafness. If we weren’t so deaf the world wouldn’t be such a wicked place. But lucky for us there are some people who can still hear.
A little boy is searching for the quiet in his grandmother’s house and finds more than he bargained for.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Surprise
There are some people who never do anything to be loved and yet still are. And then there are those who do everything to be loved, but never are.
A poor mother and child are exited about a gift they have prepared for the grandfather's birthday.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sleet
It’s nice to sit out here in the stable. The pile of carrot tops is growing and growing. Rain fingers the roof’s shingles, and Sigrid says how it sounds so homelike.
“Yeah, if we only had a home,” says Mama. “Then it sure would be real homelike.”
He will never forget that day when they were chopping carrots, when it was raining and the rain turned to sleet. That day, his great aunt from America came to visit.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salted Meat and Cucumber
A child recounts his adventures and misadventures at school.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Games of Night
The days are worse than the nights. The games of the night are much better than those of the day. At night you can become invisible and dash across rooftops to where you are needed. In daylight you cannot become invisible. In daylight things do not happen so fast. In daylight the games are not so fun.
Håkan likes to play games. In these games he pretends he is invisible. In these games, the impossible becomes possible.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Men of Character
There is no detective so imaginative, no bloodhound or hunter so ruthless as a jealous husband.
A story about a husband, a wife, her lover and a bunch of gossipy villagers.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Stockholm Car
But then comes a time when forgetting isn’t possible. And I do mean a particular time when no amount of dreaming, not then and maybe not ever, can change how naked and unimportant we become in our own eyes.
A story about a group of farmers’ children who see themselves as invisible and nobodies; who play grown-ups and imagine themselves free and by doing that, they become what they imagine.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Midsummer Night’s Chill Is Hard
A story about a boy who is sitting in his room contemplating about his failures.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bon Soir
He feels like a string that has yet to be played, a taut string fearful of being plucked lest it should break, or like a dynamo spinning and spinning without any outcome.
A story about a teenager who sells newspapers on a boat and is confused about his feelings of lust and disgust for women.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Game of Pocket Chess
Fear and respect are not one and the same but actually each other’s opposite.
It was an ordinary morning in winter and two friends decided to play chess on their break time.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?
Reminiscences of a man who is back to the village from town for his father’s funeral.
"When it rains,” thought the boy, “it must be hard to be dead.”
This is a collection of short stories by the prominent Swedish writer and journalist who penned 'German Autumn'.
The stories are mostly recounted from a child’s perspective and revolve around family relationship, reminiscences about the past, innocence, friendship and death.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ To Kill a Child
A pleasant day in a village turns dark and miserable, because on this day a child will be killed by a cheerful man.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In Grandmother’s House
There’s no such thing as quietness. Everything can be heard. That thing that we call silence — it’s not really silence. It’s only our own deafness. If we weren’t so deaf the world wouldn’t be such a wicked place. But lucky for us there are some people who can still hear.
A little boy is searching for the quiet in his grandmother’s house and finds more than he bargained for.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Surprise
There are some people who never do anything to be loved and yet still are. And then there are those who do everything to be loved, but never are.
A poor mother and child are exited about a gift they have prepared for the grandfather's birthday.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sleet
It’s nice to sit out here in the stable. The pile of carrot tops is growing and growing. Rain fingers the roof’s shingles, and Sigrid says how it sounds so homelike.
“Yeah, if we only had a home,” says Mama. “Then it sure would be real homelike.”
He will never forget that day when they were chopping carrots, when it was raining and the rain turned to sleet. That day, his great aunt from America came to visit.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Salted Meat and Cucumber
A child recounts his adventures and misadventures at school.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Games of Night
The days are worse than the nights. The games of the night are much better than those of the day. At night you can become invisible and dash across rooftops to where you are needed. In daylight you cannot become invisible. In daylight things do not happen so fast. In daylight the games are not so fun.
Håkan likes to play games. In these games he pretends he is invisible. In these games, the impossible becomes possible.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Men of Character
There is no detective so imaginative, no bloodhound or hunter so ruthless as a jealous husband.
A story about a husband, a wife, her lover and a bunch of gossipy villagers.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Stockholm Car
But then comes a time when forgetting isn’t possible. And I do mean a particular time when no amount of dreaming, not then and maybe not ever, can change how naked and unimportant we become in our own eyes.
A story about a group of farmers’ children who see themselves as invisible and nobodies; who play grown-ups and imagine themselves free and by doing that, they become what they imagine.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Midsummer Night’s Chill Is Hard
A story about a boy who is sitting in his room contemplating about his failures.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bon Soir
He feels like a string that has yet to be played, a taut string fearful of being plucked lest it should break, or like a dynamo spinning and spinning without any outcome.
A story about a teenager who sells newspapers on a boat and is confused about his feelings of lust and disgust for women.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Game of Pocket Chess
Fear and respect are not one and the same but actually each other’s opposite.
It was an ordinary morning in winter and two friends decided to play chess on their break time.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?
Reminiscences of a man who is back to the village from town for his father’s funeral.
August 30, 2018
But the lonely — in the truest sense of that word, lonely — they don’t bother to cry out their despair, since the very act would be meaningless. The deserts don’t hear.
*
But then comes a time when forgetting isn’t possible. And I do mean a particular time when no amount of dreaming, not then and maybe not ever, can change how naked and unimportant we become in our own eyes.
*
And actually we’ve discovered another thing: that there’s no remedy for what we know, that we can only ever be what we are —
*
For an awfully long time we stood there facing each other, and there was a great deal more than just a pane of glass separating us.
I could see that he understood. We both understood. We would have a difficult time ahead of us, and it would be a long time before we could look each other in the eye again. And that barrier would always be there, far thicker than any glass. And each of us would carry around our own guilt. It would be our only friend for the rest of that winter.
*
But then comes a time when forgetting isn’t possible. And I do mean a particular time when no amount of dreaming, not then and maybe not ever, can change how naked and unimportant we become in our own eyes.
*
And actually we’ve discovered another thing: that there’s no remedy for what we know, that we can only ever be what we are —
*
For an awfully long time we stood there facing each other, and there was a great deal more than just a pane of glass separating us.
I could see that he understood. We both understood. We would have a difficult time ahead of us, and it would be a long time before we could look each other in the eye again. And that barrier would always be there, far thicker than any glass. And each of us would carry around our own guilt. It would be our only friend for the rest of that winter.
December 20, 2015
Jan 2015
Swedish short stories of the 1940s, translated in a manner which I found jarringly American and contemporary - with this combo of style, vocab and names, it felt like we were in historical fiction, Minnesota. In fairness, this is an American publication not aimed at an international market, so Yanks may find the translation less marked than would an English speaker from elsewhere, and thus discover a more 'Swedish' sense of place.
Alice Munro fans would probably like this; settings are largely small-town families, ordinary people's difficulties viewed through an exact yet compassionate lens, with some surreal and dreamlike moments to mix it up a bit. Many protagonists are school-age boys. The writing, whilst at least free of specific tics from MFA Anglo literary fiction, has a tone recognisable from that.
I may have been bored by his book at times, but Dagerman's heart is very much in the right place. His writing career was concerned with trying to understand everyone, especially, those whom society at large finds it least important to understand. The translator's introduction explains how this began when he was a foreign correspondent in post-war Germany:
Dagerman’s ambition to chronicle the supposedly “indescribable” realities of life for ordinary Germans in a land left in ruins at a time when world sympathies for the German people were at an all-time low and the need to judge and punish the guilty was at an all-time high...Dagerman sought instead to chronicle as nakedly as possible the suffering of all the remaining victims of the war and its ravages with an eye unaffected by the collective need to assign guilt for the atrocities.
Inside the narrative of his stories are wiser than usual generalisations far (and this writer wasn't yet 30):
Those capable of maintaining their composure always imagine they’re in the right. (There are remembered situations in which this is a longed-for comfort. And others in which one might wish to repudiate it utterly...)
that fear and respect were not one and the same but actually each other's opposite.
He seemed so interested in people. And also to be staring at certain familiar problems of life which look like brick walls. He hasn't worked out a way to live with them or round them or see them differently. It's a shame he wasn't around long enough for there to be space for a 'yet' in that sentence.
'To Kill A Child' - Commissioned by a road safety campaign. (Blimey, that was a different world.) Concentrates on a chilling series of frozen moments, actions by people who didn't know what was going to happen, and then an everlasting sense of regret and wish to undo: And in the fitful dreams of his nights he will try instead to gain back just a single minute of his life, to somehow make that single minute different. But life is so merciless to the man who has killed a child that everything afterward is too late.
It's as well done as anything in this simple, well-crafted sort of style can be.
'In Grandmother's House' - A strangely magic-realist game leaves marks in reality. A child's fear of getting into trouble and oddly creative lying to try and cover up.
'The Surprise' - A sweet lone mother and her son have some ungrateful bastards of relatives who treat them like servants. Features one of those greetings records like the one in the recent Apple ad about a student and her grandma. The first of several boy protagonists to be named Håkan; possibly they are the same kid at different times, but the ages don't seem to match up right for that.
'Sleet' - People were doing things in the barn that they shouldn't have been, and he saw... that aspect is hackneyed now, probably daring then, but there was plenty else here that's still just strange enough, people having rows over carrot peeling en famille. (No vegetable innuendo should be inferred.)
'Salted Meat & Cucumber' - is the unwanted contents of our anti-hero's school sandwiches. About the peculiar and unpleasant ways children may treat the social outcasts among their number. A great eye for psychological currents that are too wildly illogical to be untrue (e.g. only the person one has offended can save one from eternal shame), and for understanding the perspectives of both bully and bullied, even within a first person narrative.
'The Games of Night' - this Håkan lies in bed in an imagined wish-land. Though not one as magical as many kids; it's mostly about 'rescuing' his father from various gangsters and swindlers. The alcoholic reality of this deadbeat dad later becomes clear.
'Men of Character' - The first story I found really engaging. A strong, silent forester buys a ladies' headscarf in the village store and gossip starts. I started humming The Lumberjack Song, but rather this is a tale of an affair and a love-triangle reminiscent of earthier, anguished French films, e.g. Chabrol. Nice little kick at the end.
'The Stockholm Car' - Farm kids encounter a flash car from the big city. This felt so American. He really overdid it with the US slang here.
'The Midsummer Night's Chill is Hard' - (Another?) Håkan is a school leaver working as a postman. Various thoughts about people and places on his route, and some lovely descriptions, give this a stronger sense of place than most of the stories.
'Bon Soir' - another boy about the same age, mid teens, working as the cashier in a ship-board kiosk. Very familiar mid-century coming-of-age scenario in which he practices eyeing up the ladies like the older lads, gets shy with girls his age, is pounced on by an unappealing much older woman, he thinks he might as well... You'll have read something similar before, although the ending's unusual.
'A Game of Pocket Chess' - The most puzzling piece of fiction I've read for years. What have I missed? Is it some cultural gulf I was previously unaware of? NB WHOLE PLOT FOLLOWS. The narrator and his highly anxious friend hide away in a classroom one break to play chess. Their history teacher - previously established as the nicest teacher they have - comes in. The friend has just stuffed the folding chess set in his pocket and so there's no supporting evidence when the narrator tells the teacher what they were doing. The teacher doesn't quibble with them, just tells them to go outside. Friend continues to be paranoid about whether the teacher saw the chess set. (But why? I can't see anything saying it was stolen. Why else would a teacher object to chess? Narrator never reassures friend. They're behaving as if they'd done something utterly dreadful.) Teacher then starts to blank them in class. The boys go up to him after a lesson and ask to speak to him. He tells them to visit him at home in the evening, and they do. Almost nothing is said and nothing changes, a lot of awkward standing about, teacher is still cold. Narrator throws chess set away on his way home. (What a weird way for a teacher to behave. Is chess some kind of metaphor or slang for The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name? That's the only possible sense I can make of any of this.)
'Where's My Icelandic Sweater?' - At first I couldn't get bizarrely amusing 90s album title Do You Like My Tight Sweater? out of my head, but this long story proved quite engrossing, despite featuring that thing I'm pretty tired of right now, an unreliable narrator. How did they manage this? Got him pissed. Everybody's unreliable and forgetful and truculent when they're very drunk, so it kind of levels the playing field. This is a marvellously effective, unromantic, blackly comic portrayal of a drunk - surely anyone will have heard and/or remember having these feelings to one extent or another, albeit probably at a better time. There were multiple layers of irony in the drunkenness and its companions and circumstances too.
Swedish short stories of the 1940s, translated in a manner which I found jarringly American and contemporary - with this combo of style, vocab and names, it felt like we were in historical fiction, Minnesota. In fairness, this is an American publication not aimed at an international market, so Yanks may find the translation less marked than would an English speaker from elsewhere, and thus discover a more 'Swedish' sense of place.
Alice Munro fans would probably like this; settings are largely small-town families, ordinary people's difficulties viewed through an exact yet compassionate lens, with some surreal and dreamlike moments to mix it up a bit. Many protagonists are school-age boys. The writing, whilst at least free of specific tics from MFA Anglo literary fiction, has a tone recognisable from that.
I may have been bored by his book at times, but Dagerman's heart is very much in the right place. His writing career was concerned with trying to understand everyone, especially, those whom society at large finds it least important to understand. The translator's introduction explains how this began when he was a foreign correspondent in post-war Germany:
Dagerman’s ambition to chronicle the supposedly “indescribable” realities of life for ordinary Germans in a land left in ruins at a time when world sympathies for the German people were at an all-time low and the need to judge and punish the guilty was at an all-time high...Dagerman sought instead to chronicle as nakedly as possible the suffering of all the remaining victims of the war and its ravages with an eye unaffected by the collective need to assign guilt for the atrocities.
Inside the narrative of his stories are wiser than usual generalisations far (and this writer wasn't yet 30):
Those capable of maintaining their composure always imagine they’re in the right. (There are remembered situations in which this is a longed-for comfort. And others in which one might wish to repudiate it utterly...)
that fear and respect were not one and the same but actually each other's opposite.
He seemed so interested in people. And also to be staring at certain familiar problems of life which look like brick walls. He hasn't worked out a way to live with them or round them or see them differently. It's a shame he wasn't around long enough for there to be space for a 'yet' in that sentence.
'To Kill A Child' - Commissioned by a road safety campaign. (Blimey, that was a different world.) Concentrates on a chilling series of frozen moments, actions by people who didn't know what was going to happen, and then an everlasting sense of regret and wish to undo: And in the fitful dreams of his nights he will try instead to gain back just a single minute of his life, to somehow make that single minute different. But life is so merciless to the man who has killed a child that everything afterward is too late.
It's as well done as anything in this simple, well-crafted sort of style can be.
'In Grandmother's House' - A strangely magic-realist game leaves marks in reality. A child's fear of getting into trouble and oddly creative lying to try and cover up.
'The Surprise' - A sweet lone mother and her son have some ungrateful bastards of relatives who treat them like servants. Features one of those greetings records like the one in the recent Apple ad about a student and her grandma. The first of several boy protagonists to be named Håkan; possibly they are the same kid at different times, but the ages don't seem to match up right for that.
'Sleet' - People were doing things in the barn that they shouldn't have been, and he saw... that aspect is hackneyed now, probably daring then, but there was plenty else here that's still just strange enough, people having rows over carrot peeling en famille. (No vegetable innuendo should be inferred.)
'Salted Meat & Cucumber' - is the unwanted contents of our anti-hero's school sandwiches. About the peculiar and unpleasant ways children may treat the social outcasts among their number. A great eye for psychological currents that are too wildly illogical to be untrue (e.g. only the person one has offended can save one from eternal shame), and for understanding the perspectives of both bully and bullied, even within a first person narrative.
'The Games of Night' - this Håkan lies in bed in an imagined wish-land. Though not one as magical as many kids; it's mostly about 'rescuing' his father from various gangsters and swindlers. The alcoholic reality of this deadbeat dad later becomes clear.
'Men of Character' - The first story I found really engaging. A strong, silent forester buys a ladies' headscarf in the village store and gossip starts. I started humming The Lumberjack Song, but rather this is a tale of an affair and a love-triangle reminiscent of earthier, anguished French films, e.g. Chabrol. Nice little kick at the end.
'The Stockholm Car' - Farm kids encounter a flash car from the big city. This felt so American. He really overdid it with the US slang here.
'The Midsummer Night's Chill is Hard' - (Another?) Håkan is a school leaver working as a postman. Various thoughts about people and places on his route, and some lovely descriptions, give this a stronger sense of place than most of the stories.
'Bon Soir' - another boy about the same age, mid teens, working as the cashier in a ship-board kiosk. Very familiar mid-century coming-of-age scenario in which he practices eyeing up the ladies like the older lads, gets shy with girls his age, is pounced on by an unappealing much older woman, he thinks he might as well... You'll have read something similar before, although the ending's unusual.
'A Game of Pocket Chess' - The most puzzling piece of fiction I've read for years. What have I missed? Is it some cultural gulf I was previously unaware of? NB WHOLE PLOT FOLLOWS. The narrator and his highly anxious friend hide away in a classroom one break to play chess. Their history teacher - previously established as the nicest teacher they have - comes in. The friend has just stuffed the folding chess set in his pocket and so there's no supporting evidence when the narrator tells the teacher what they were doing. The teacher doesn't quibble with them, just tells them to go outside. Friend continues to be paranoid about whether the teacher saw the chess set. (But why? I can't see anything saying it was stolen. Why else would a teacher object to chess? Narrator never reassures friend. They're behaving as if they'd done something utterly dreadful.) Teacher then starts to blank them in class. The boys go up to him after a lesson and ask to speak to him. He tells them to visit him at home in the evening, and they do. Almost nothing is said and nothing changes, a lot of awkward standing about, teacher is still cold. Narrator throws chess set away on his way home. (What a weird way for a teacher to behave. Is chess some kind of metaphor or slang for The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name? That's the only possible sense I can make of any of this.)
'Where's My Icelandic Sweater?' - At first I couldn't get bizarrely amusing 90s album title Do You Like My Tight Sweater? out of my head, but this long story proved quite engrossing, despite featuring that thing I'm pretty tired of right now, an unreliable narrator. How did they manage this? Got him pissed. Everybody's unreliable and forgetful and truculent when they're very drunk, so it kind of levels the playing field. This is a marvellously effective, unromantic, blackly comic portrayal of a drunk - surely anyone will have heard and/or remember having these feelings to one extent or another, albeit probably at a better time. There were multiple layers of irony in the drunkenness and its companions and circumstances too.
August 5, 2017
What can I say about this collection of spare, bleak, but incredibly beautiful stories other than it grabbed me by throat from the first paragraph and never let me go the rest of the way. Here is a passage from that first story:
“This is the pleasant morning of an evil day, because on this day a child will be killed in the third village by a cheerful man”
I knew from that moment I was reading something special. While this first story “To Kill a Child” about the emotional repercussions of a car accident for both the victim’s family and the perpetrator is the best story in the collection (the stories involving children are particularly sad but also poignant), the other stories are outstanding in their own right. The four I found particularly moving in addition to “To Kill a Child” were:
“In Grandmother’s house” is narrated from the point of view of a young boy who has retreated to a world of fantasy and silence after the death of his grandfather, with only his grandmother to keep him from completely collapsing into himself. If you don’t mist up a bit after reading this story, consider yourself too jaded to live.
“The Surprise” about a widower and her young son’s trip to visit her dead husband’s family. Despite knowing the cold if not utter hostile reception they’ll receive, they prepare a surprise they hope makes it all better, with shocking consequences. This one will tear your heart out.
“Men of character” tells of a man’s affair with the wife of a local school teacher and the ramifications it has for their lives in a claustrophobic town where everyone knows everything. Lust, betrayal, and no redeeming characters. Yet in the hands of this author, so incredibly tragic.
“Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?” is the final story and perhaps my 2nd favorite along with “The Surprise”. It tells of a man returning to his village from Stockholm for the funeral of his father. As we slowly discover more about him, we learn of his insecurities, lies, and irresponsibility. He is a man who knows he is barely holding himself together and yet dealing with the death of his father, is unable to stop himself from falling apart. It was physically painful to see the self deception and abuse this man subjected himself too. Surrounded by what seemed like decent loving family members, he nonetheless is intent on self destruction.
This is a painful and heartrending collection, as beautifully written as any short stories I’ve ever read. Highly, highly recommended.
“This is the pleasant morning of an evil day, because on this day a child will be killed in the third village by a cheerful man”
I knew from that moment I was reading something special. While this first story “To Kill a Child” about the emotional repercussions of a car accident for both the victim’s family and the perpetrator is the best story in the collection (the stories involving children are particularly sad but also poignant), the other stories are outstanding in their own right. The four I found particularly moving in addition to “To Kill a Child” were:
“In Grandmother’s house” is narrated from the point of view of a young boy who has retreated to a world of fantasy and silence after the death of his grandfather, with only his grandmother to keep him from completely collapsing into himself. If you don’t mist up a bit after reading this story, consider yourself too jaded to live.
“The Surprise” about a widower and her young son’s trip to visit her dead husband’s family. Despite knowing the cold if not utter hostile reception they’ll receive, they prepare a surprise they hope makes it all better, with shocking consequences. This one will tear your heart out.
“Men of character” tells of a man’s affair with the wife of a local school teacher and the ramifications it has for their lives in a claustrophobic town where everyone knows everything. Lust, betrayal, and no redeeming characters. Yet in the hands of this author, so incredibly tragic.
“Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?” is the final story and perhaps my 2nd favorite along with “The Surprise”. It tells of a man returning to his village from Stockholm for the funeral of his father. As we slowly discover more about him, we learn of his insecurities, lies, and irresponsibility. He is a man who knows he is barely holding himself together and yet dealing with the death of his father, is unable to stop himself from falling apart. It was physically painful to see the self deception and abuse this man subjected himself too. Surrounded by what seemed like decent loving family members, he nonetheless is intent on self destruction.
This is a painful and heartrending collection, as beautifully written as any short stories I’ve ever read. Highly, highly recommended.
June 3, 2015
Niet elk verhaal vond ik 4 sterren waard, maar eindeloos veel sterren voor het kortste verhaal in de bundel: 'Een kind doden'.
Onwaarschijnlijk mooi, misschien wel het beste wat ik ooit gelezen heb.
Onwaarschijnlijk mooi, misschien wel het beste wat ik ooit gelezen heb.
January 22, 2014
"Dagerman wrote with beautiful objectivity. Instead of emotive phrases, he uses a choice of facts, like bricks, to construct an emotion."
—Graham Greene
Stig Dagerman's fearless, moving stories should be placed alongside the short fiction of such luminaries as James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver. You'll find yourself holding your breath in wonder as you read, grateful to Dagerman (and Steven Hartman) for the gift of these stories.
—Edward Schwarzschild, author of The Family Diamond
—Graham Greene
Stig Dagerman's fearless, moving stories should be placed alongside the short fiction of such luminaries as James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver. You'll find yourself holding your breath in wonder as you read, grateful to Dagerman (and Steven Hartman) for the gift of these stories.
—Edward Schwarzschild, author of The Family Diamond
October 12, 2025
1954’de 31 yaşında intihar eden İsveçli Stig Dagerman’ın 12 öyküsünden oluşan bu derleme, temaları bakımından hüzünlü ama çok güçlü metinlerden oluşuyor. Özellikle yalnızlıkları, masumiyetleri, güvensizlikleri ve bazen de acımasızlıklarıyla çocuk pskikolojisini çok iyi yansıtıyor. Genelde taşrada yaşayan, kaybeden, yoksul karakterler çoğunlukta. Okuduğum en iyi, çarpıcı öykülerden biri olan sadece dört sayfalık “To Kill a Child” (Bir Çocuğu Öldürmek / okullarımızda ve ehliyet sınavlarında okunması zorunlu kılmalı bence) ile başlayıp, yine çok iyi bir kaybeden hikayesi olan, yaklaşık 60 sayfalık boyutuyla bir novella tadındaki “Where’s My Icelandic Sweater” (İzlanda Kazağım Nerede) ile bitiyor. Öykülere üzücü bir hava hakim olsa da, incelikli bir merhamet duygusu adeta her sayfasına sinmiş. Yer yer umut kıvılcımları da eksik değil. İsveç’in Sait Faik’i belki de Dagerman. Kısa ömrüne sığdırdığı kitaplarının bazıları dilimize kazandırılmış. Savaş sonrası Almanya izlenimlerini benzersiz empati ve dürüstlükle yansıttığı Alman Sonbaharı gibi. Umarım bu öyküleri de yakında Türkçe’ye çevrilir.
October 7, 2021
More like 3.5. Quite glad I fell upon this one although I already don’t remember how. Also somewhat stumped as to how I’ve never heard of this person before, given how renowned he seems to be in certain circles. He ended his life so early. There is a young energy to the stories for sure but also a sense of control immaturity that is pretty remarkable. I am hard-pressed to remember a more naturalistic voice in a short story collection. An impressive stylist who created Stories here that are less memorable for me personally for the actual blood but more so for the feeling of being swept away in a current.
December 4, 2023
Hit-or-miss insights (some masterful) into national character: cheap, mean, drunk, gossipy, passive-aggressive, and repressed Swedes slinging poison at each other while drawing up their own personal ledgers of accountability.
October 22, 2025
The book I bought on a cold autumn night is a collection of Stig Dagerman's best short stories. The book is translated by Steven Hartman. While reading these stories for the second time, I had a better chance to step back and look for commonalities, patterns, themes, and, in general, to understand the author's philosophy better. To address this, I'd look at stand-out stories as an independent entity. These stories are written at various time points; therefore, it is reasonable to represent the concerns of the author:
To Kill a Child:
The inconspicuous nature of the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The accident is the scene of sacrifice. The victimhood of innocence before the ignorant eyes of the static machinery of the mundane.
In Grandmother's House:
An immaculate encounter with Death. The absence of a loved one. A beautiful line is from the grandmother, hearing the voice of the grandfather in the form of a grunt and whisper coming from beneath the gravel:
"He says to go inside. He says he's not sleeping, he's just resting. He'll move on in a minute."
The Surprise:
This one deserves its spot as the first of the series. It is truly heartbreaking. A plot slowly progressing to a dim climax in a setting as harsh as a Swedish winter. The notion of poverty, loss, and bereavement, and a crude patriarchy exercising cruelty on a widow and the child. All the sadness gets worse when you, as the reader, see the brutal experience from the innocent POV of a child.
Men of Character:
Chauvinistic view in this story. A series of mistrust, betrayal, adultery, abrasive manners and men and women so engaged with their self-interest. But as the story evolves, layers of pathological chauvinistic undertow unfold. This is a story of guilt and sin and an emotional fracture. But mostly it pictures coarse masculine hubris. As the author put it fabulously, this story depicts "men pregnant with their own honor."
The Stockholm Car:
Again, the rural vs urban, the city vs village, the rich and the poor, come together in an unsavory manner. The subtly hidden in each manner and movement of the gentleman from Stockholm. It is one image that is among the most violent pictures in modern literature, without uttering a word, without raising a hand, and with no gun. The simple neglectful behavior is what hurts the kids (and me as the audience) the most.
Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?
Alcoholism and manipulation are the main themes. The storytelling follows a pattern that was later categorized as a stream of consciousness. Herein, however, we are dealing more with unconsciousness than consciousness. Curiously, the protagonist stirs a variety of emotions in me: from anger to pity, and even sometimes I felt sympathy as the man is afflicted with PTSD of his wife's betrayal. This story is as dark as it gets, and curiously, it is the last in this series.
In my mind, Dagerman is a genius and these short stories are oeuvres of a writer/journalist whose lens captured the agony of twentieth-century mankind. There are plenty of literary assets that he denied us beyond his published works. The repeated themes are human regret, the entrapment of existence, being sentenced to lose gradually while poorly equipped to cope, and financial destitution:
1. Existential Burden:
"Time does not heal the wounds of a dead child, and it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who forgot to buy sugar and who sent her child across the road to borrow some. And it heals just as poorly the anguish of a once cheerful man who has killed a child."
2. Fragile Foundation of Being:
Again, the story To Kill a Child is the prime picture of this notion, which is palpable in Dagerman's works.
3. Nordic Despair and Cold Family Ties:
Parts of the stories resemble the existential dread in Ingmar Bergman's movies. The Nordic existential despair in the Winter Light movie. The conflict of belief and the utter solitude we endure throughout existence. For example, in the story The Surprise, a family function and a milieu which traditionally evoke warmth and bond, we read a most heartbreaking and harsh, steely hierarchy:
"His grandfather looked up from the paper, and his aunt let the ladle slip from her hand.
"If it ain't the widow," said Hakan's grandfather. "What you got in the bag? Not a present, I'll bet.""
4. Misogyny:
A prime example, as mentioned above, is the brilliant "Men of Honor". Rarely is a story better titled!
5. Poverty and Social Injustice:
And of course, poverty has a ubiquitous presence in the stories, sometimes married to the children's innocent behaviors in a heart-wrenching fashion:
"Like all children with poor mothers, he was ashamed at first and pretended that he didn't know her. He crossed the street with his friends, parted company, and then timidly made his way back. His Mother sensed his anxiety, and she did not take his hand until they were completely alone on the street."
In conclusion, reading Dagerman leaves one with no surprise why he has been labeled as a Swedish Camus. The writings reek of existential philosophy.
To Kill a Child:
The inconspicuous nature of the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The accident is the scene of sacrifice. The victimhood of innocence before the ignorant eyes of the static machinery of the mundane.
In Grandmother's House:
An immaculate encounter with Death. The absence of a loved one. A beautiful line is from the grandmother, hearing the voice of the grandfather in the form of a grunt and whisper coming from beneath the gravel:
"He says to go inside. He says he's not sleeping, he's just resting. He'll move on in a minute."
The Surprise:
This one deserves its spot as the first of the series. It is truly heartbreaking. A plot slowly progressing to a dim climax in a setting as harsh as a Swedish winter. The notion of poverty, loss, and bereavement, and a crude patriarchy exercising cruelty on a widow and the child. All the sadness gets worse when you, as the reader, see the brutal experience from the innocent POV of a child.
Men of Character:
Chauvinistic view in this story. A series of mistrust, betrayal, adultery, abrasive manners and men and women so engaged with their self-interest. But as the story evolves, layers of pathological chauvinistic undertow unfold. This is a story of guilt and sin and an emotional fracture. But mostly it pictures coarse masculine hubris. As the author put it fabulously, this story depicts "men pregnant with their own honor."
The Stockholm Car:
Again, the rural vs urban, the city vs village, the rich and the poor, come together in an unsavory manner. The subtly hidden in each manner and movement of the gentleman from Stockholm. It is one image that is among the most violent pictures in modern literature, without uttering a word, without raising a hand, and with no gun. The simple neglectful behavior is what hurts the kids (and me as the audience) the most.
Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?
Alcoholism and manipulation are the main themes. The storytelling follows a pattern that was later categorized as a stream of consciousness. Herein, however, we are dealing more with unconsciousness than consciousness. Curiously, the protagonist stirs a variety of emotions in me: from anger to pity, and even sometimes I felt sympathy as the man is afflicted with PTSD of his wife's betrayal. This story is as dark as it gets, and curiously, it is the last in this series.
In my mind, Dagerman is a genius and these short stories are oeuvres of a writer/journalist whose lens captured the agony of twentieth-century mankind. There are plenty of literary assets that he denied us beyond his published works. The repeated themes are human regret, the entrapment of existence, being sentenced to lose gradually while poorly equipped to cope, and financial destitution:
1. Existential Burden:
"Time does not heal the wounds of a dead child, and it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who forgot to buy sugar and who sent her child across the road to borrow some. And it heals just as poorly the anguish of a once cheerful man who has killed a child."
2. Fragile Foundation of Being:
Again, the story To Kill a Child is the prime picture of this notion, which is palpable in Dagerman's works.
3. Nordic Despair and Cold Family Ties:
Parts of the stories resemble the existential dread in Ingmar Bergman's movies. The Nordic existential despair in the Winter Light movie. The conflict of belief and the utter solitude we endure throughout existence. For example, in the story The Surprise, a family function and a milieu which traditionally evoke warmth and bond, we read a most heartbreaking and harsh, steely hierarchy:
"His grandfather looked up from the paper, and his aunt let the ladle slip from her hand.
"If it ain't the widow," said Hakan's grandfather. "What you got in the bag? Not a present, I'll bet.""
4. Misogyny:
A prime example, as mentioned above, is the brilliant "Men of Honor". Rarely is a story better titled!
5. Poverty and Social Injustice:
And of course, poverty has a ubiquitous presence in the stories, sometimes married to the children's innocent behaviors in a heart-wrenching fashion:
"Like all children with poor mothers, he was ashamed at first and pretended that he didn't know her. He crossed the street with his friends, parted company, and then timidly made his way back. His Mother sensed his anxiety, and she did not take his hand until they were completely alone on the street."
In conclusion, reading Dagerman leaves one with no surprise why he has been labeled as a Swedish Camus. The writings reek of existential philosophy.
April 29, 2021
Written with tenderness, vulnerability and psychological insight.
October 24, 2013
A preface of great interest by Alice McDermott, twelve short stories by Dagerman translated with care by Steven Hartman: congratulations to you, becoming reader. All of the stories with kids and young people in focus. Having read these stories in Swedish several times, they now also oscillate in the American-English dress. Amazing how this translation/interpretation also can open old readings in retrospect. Thank you Master Hartman and Master Godine.
July 25, 2014
This collection is worth picking up just for the first story: To kill a child. It's such a small piece, and impactful because of its brevity. It gives a sense of futility, and more than a mild regret for a life which is lost because of so many small aberrations stacked up against it.
October 30, 2014
Stark, bleak, and haunting stories. Dagerman says so much, using few words; his stories are filled with evocative description and atmospheric sadness.
May 23, 2015
These stories have claws and teeth that pull and gnaw your heart until it is pulp. Bleak but very beautiful.
February 9, 2014
The saddest book I have ever read.
April 4, 2014
4.5 Mostly great...there were a couple of stories toward the end that weren't quite as good as the rest.
June 26, 2018
‘Sleet’ has quickly become among my favorite short stories.
June 10, 2020
a lonely little tale that i enjoyed whilst it lasted
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews