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Viel Glück, Tonnie
Gjennom artikler, petisjoner, skuespill og romaner var Jens Bjørneboe en av de fremste talsmenn for fangenes rettigheter i et byråkratisk og middelaldersk fengselsvesen. I denne romanen om Tonni, Rødtopp og alle de andre, får hans anklager en ny, forsterket form. Bjørneboes etsende kritikk kombineres med hans suverene dikteriske kraft, og Den onde hyrde har på mange måter betydd det samme for fengselet som Jonas for skolen.
247 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1960
5 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Jens Bjørneboe
63 books184 followersJens Ingvald Bjørneboe was a Norwegian writer whose work spanned a number of literary formats. He was also a painter and a waldorf school teacher. Bjørneboe was a harsh and eloquent critic of Norwegian society and Western civilization on the whole. He led a turbulent life and his uncompromising humanity would cost him both an obscenity conviction as well as long periods of heavy drinking and bouts of depression, which in the end led to his suicide.
Jens Bjørneboe's first published work was Poems (Dikt) in 1951. He is widely considered to be one of Norway's most important post-war authors. Bjørneboe identified himself, among other self-definitions, as an anarcho-nihilist.
During the Norwegian language struggle, Bjørneboe was a notable proponent of the Riksmål language, together with his equally famous cousin André Bjerke.
Jens Bjørneboe was born in 1920, in Kristiansand to Ingvald and Anna Marie Bjørneboe. He grew up in a wealthy family, his father a shipping magnate and a consul for Belgium. The Bjørneboe family originally immigrated from Germany in the 17th century and later adopted their Norwegian name. Coming from a long line of marine officers, Bjørneboe also went to sea as a young man.
Bjørneboe had a troubled childhood with sickness and depressions. He was bedbound for several years following severe pneumonia. At thirteen he attempted suicide by hanging himself. He began drinking when he was twelve, and he would often consume large amounts of wine when his parents were away. It is also rumored that he drank his father's aftershave on several occasions.
In 1943 Bjørneboe fled to Sweden to avoid forced labor under the Nazi occupation. During this exile, he met the German Jewish painter Lisel Funk, who later became his first wife. Lisel Funk introduced him to many aspects of German culture, especially German literature and the arts.
Bjørneboe's early work was poetry, and his first book was Poems (Dikt, 1951), consisting mainly of deeply religious poetry.
Bjørneboe wrote a number of socially critical novels. Among those were Ere the Cock Crows (Før Hanen Galer, 1952), Jonas (1955) and The Evil Shepherd (Den Onde Hyrde, 1960). Ere the Cock Crows is a critique of what Bjørneboe saw as the harsh treatment, after the Second World War, of people suspected of having associated in any way with the Nazis (among them the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Knut Hamsun). Jonas deals with injustices and shortcomings of the school system and The Evil Shepherd with the Norwegian prison system.
His most significant work is generally considered to be the trilogy The History of Bestiality, consisting of the novels Moment of Freedom (Frihetens Øyeblikk, 1966), Powderhouse (Kruttårnet, 1969) and The Silence (Stillheten, 1973).
Bjørneboe also wrote a number of plays, among them The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne, 1966), Semmelweis (1968) and Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970), a collaboration with Eugenio Barba and the Danish theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.
In 1967, he was convicted for publishing a novel deemed pornographic, Without a Stitch (Uten en tråd, 1966), which was confiscated and banned in Norway. The trial, however, made the book a huge success in foreign editions, and Bjørneboe's financial problems were (for a period) solved.
His last major work was the novel The Sharks (Haiene, 1974).
After having struggled with depression and alcoholism for a long time, he committed suicide by hanging on May 9, 1976.[2]
In his obituary in Aftenposten, Bjørneboe's life and legacy were described as follows:
"For 25 years Jens Bjørneboe was a center of unrest in Norwegian cultural life: Passionately concerned with contemporary problems in nearly all their aspects, controversial and with the courage to be so, with a conscious will to carry things to extremes. He was not to be pigeonholed. "
Jens Bjørneboe's first published work was Poems (Dikt) in 1951. He is widely considered to be one of Norway's most important post-war authors. Bjørneboe identified himself, among other self-definitions, as an anarcho-nihilist.
During the Norwegian language struggle, Bjørneboe was a notable proponent of the Riksmål language, together with his equally famous cousin André Bjerke.
Jens Bjørneboe was born in 1920, in Kristiansand to Ingvald and Anna Marie Bjørneboe. He grew up in a wealthy family, his father a shipping magnate and a consul for Belgium. The Bjørneboe family originally immigrated from Germany in the 17th century and later adopted their Norwegian name. Coming from a long line of marine officers, Bjørneboe also went to sea as a young man.
Bjørneboe had a troubled childhood with sickness and depressions. He was bedbound for several years following severe pneumonia. At thirteen he attempted suicide by hanging himself. He began drinking when he was twelve, and he would often consume large amounts of wine when his parents were away. It is also rumored that he drank his father's aftershave on several occasions.
In 1943 Bjørneboe fled to Sweden to avoid forced labor under the Nazi occupation. During this exile, he met the German Jewish painter Lisel Funk, who later became his first wife. Lisel Funk introduced him to many aspects of German culture, especially German literature and the arts.
Bjørneboe's early work was poetry, and his first book was Poems (Dikt, 1951), consisting mainly of deeply religious poetry.
Bjørneboe wrote a number of socially critical novels. Among those were Ere the Cock Crows (Før Hanen Galer, 1952), Jonas (1955) and The Evil Shepherd (Den Onde Hyrde, 1960). Ere the Cock Crows is a critique of what Bjørneboe saw as the harsh treatment, after the Second World War, of people suspected of having associated in any way with the Nazis (among them the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Knut Hamsun). Jonas deals with injustices and shortcomings of the school system and The Evil Shepherd with the Norwegian prison system.
His most significant work is generally considered to be the trilogy The History of Bestiality, consisting of the novels Moment of Freedom (Frihetens Øyeblikk, 1966), Powderhouse (Kruttårnet, 1969) and The Silence (Stillheten, 1973).
Bjørneboe also wrote a number of plays, among them The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne, 1966), Semmelweis (1968) and Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970), a collaboration with Eugenio Barba and the Danish theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.
In 1967, he was convicted for publishing a novel deemed pornographic, Without a Stitch (Uten en tråd, 1966), which was confiscated and banned in Norway. The trial, however, made the book a huge success in foreign editions, and Bjørneboe's financial problems were (for a period) solved.
His last major work was the novel The Sharks (Haiene, 1974).
After having struggled with depression and alcoholism for a long time, he committed suicide by hanging on May 9, 1976.[2]
In his obituary in Aftenposten, Bjørneboe's life and legacy were described as follows:
"For 25 years Jens Bjørneboe was a center of unrest in Norwegian cultural life: Passionately concerned with contemporary problems in nearly all their aspects, controversial and with the courage to be so, with a conscious will to carry things to extremes. He was not to be pigeonholed. "
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 2, 2016
After Jonas this is the second book by my favorite author from Norway that has its focus on a failed young person. While Jonas basically aims at the Norwegian school system, it is here the justice system and in particular the desolate conditions in the so-called “reformatories” and prisons.
The original title of the book is Den hondre hyrde, which translates to The evil/bad shepherd, and is most likely a reference to the Bible [Psalm 23]. This is the story of Tonnie. He is 21 years old. Ten of those years, he had to spend on and off various children’s homes, youth prisons and finally the “real” jail. This is where we meet him at the beginning of the book, a few days before he’s going to be released after eighteen months for stealing and finally set “free”. Tonnie suffered badly in prison and he resolved to finally live an “ordinary” life, avoid contact with his old “friends”, get an honest job and earn some money. He also hopes to meet again with his girlfriend Kari, who was an anchor during the long and fearful nights in his cell.
One can think early on that Tonnie’s plans won’t pan out—otherwise the book would have been quite unnecessary. Tonnie, it seems, is doomed to spend his life on the dark side of society, rejected by everyone who was supposed to give him a chance, after serving his sentence. It is quite shocking to read how this boy who has mentally almost not evolved the last 10 years, is moving in a vicious cycle [what we call Devil’s Cycle in Germany btw].
As in other books too, Jens Bjørneboe draws from his seemingly endless compassion for the losers and victims, for the people in the dead ends of society, from which no return seems possible. For Bjørneboe the whole social system is ill. The wickedness of the individual alone is not enough to explain cases like Tonnie. Both, the oppressor and the oppressed are products of the same inhuman political system.
Lacking any knowledge of the Norwegian language I had to read the German translation of this book. On the whole, I would consider the translation successful. The language people speak in dialogues is rather simple, sometimes not quite correct, which seems plausible in Tonnie’s case. However, I would have liked a little more variability here. Whether this is a problem of the translation, I cannot say though. In addition, I noticed that in some chapters, the main character is introduced, as if he were not yet known to the reader. I found this rather odd. The only explanation I have for it, would be that the novel was perhaps initially published in several parts in a magazine and through this stylistic device even readers who do not know the previous parts could somehow follow the story.
So anyone who likes being brought down by a book should check out Jens Bjørneboe’s “jail novel”. Recommendation!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
July 19, 2012
I'm not a great fan of books dealing with criminals who you are supposed to feel sorry for because they had no choice, it wasn't their fault they ended up like that. The protagonist in this book is obsessed by the idea of who is responsible for his life ending up the way it did, and even though I did end up feeling sympathy for him (which is amazing considering he is both a bit repulsive and incredibly feeble) in retrospect I find that kind of attitude incredibly annoying. But - it's Bjørneboe, and he's kind of my hero.
November 19, 2017
Etter å ha sett "Til lykke med dagen", som var et skuespill Bjørneboe skrev basert på handlingen i "Den onde hyrde", bestemte jeg meg for å lese boka. Det var et eller annet i fortellingen som traff meg.
I Bjørneboes kritikk mot fengselsvesenet følger vi en ung mann, Tonnie, som er dømt for ran og tyveri. Når han endelig blir sleppet ut av fengsel, sliter han med å komme inn i samfunnet, for det ingen som vil ha noe med ham gjøre, han som er tidligere kriminell. Når vi følger Tonnies problemer og vanskeligheter er det vanskelig å ikke få medlidenhet for ham, til tross for det han har gjort.
I Bjørneboes kritikk mot fengselsvesenet følger vi en ung mann, Tonnie, som er dømt for ran og tyveri. Når han endelig blir sleppet ut av fengsel, sliter han med å komme inn i samfunnet, for det ingen som vil ha noe med ham gjøre, han som er tidligere kriminell. Når vi følger Tonnies problemer og vanskeligheter er det vanskelig å ikke få medlidenhet for ham, til tross for det han har gjort.
January 25, 2025
The Evil Shepherd* by Jens Bjørneboe
The Evil Shepherd is a powerful novel that delves into the psyche of a mentally ill individual trapped in a relentless cycle of crime and exploitation. The protagonist, waking up in prison, struggles to reintegrate into society, only to be thwarted by stigma, prejudice, and society's innate fear of the marginalized. Jens Bjørneboe masterfully captures the nuances of a person’s descent into ruin, painting a haunting portrait of societal failure and human fragility. This thought-provoking book is a poignant critique of the barriers to redemption, compelling readers to reflect on justice, compassion, and the power of acceptance. A timeless masterpiece.
The Evil Shepherd is a powerful novel that delves into the psyche of a mentally ill individual trapped in a relentless cycle of crime and exploitation. The protagonist, waking up in prison, struggles to reintegrate into society, only to be thwarted by stigma, prejudice, and society's innate fear of the marginalized. Jens Bjørneboe masterfully captures the nuances of a person’s descent into ruin, painting a haunting portrait of societal failure and human fragility. This thought-provoking book is a poignant critique of the barriers to redemption, compelling readers to reflect on justice, compassion, and the power of acceptance. A timeless masterpiece.
February 14, 2025
An incredibly raw and fascinating work of art.
Bjørneboes compassion for societies “losers” and understanding- mixed with the BOLDNESS to criticize the modern, Norwegian society is what makes him my favorite author.
Bjørneboes compassion for societies “losers” and understanding- mixed with the BOLDNESS to criticize the modern, Norwegian society is what makes him my favorite author.
December 16, 2015
I viewed the protagonists similarly as Rebecka writes in her review. Though feeling slightly more sympathetic, I also found some aspects of him despicable and pathetic (more the latter.) But the character I found most annoying was in fact his mother. In a dialouge with her where she accused him of ungratefulness, and he points out he had not asked to be born.
He doesn't strike me as overtly evil in any way, but he doesn't seem very inherently bright, plus he has been pretty screwed over by circumstances around him which he had little control over. So I think his obsession with revenge on his earlier schoolmaster(or whatever he was), is irrational, but quite understandable.
So if I were to take two things from the book:
1) Don't have kids you can't take of.
2) Don't be lenient with crimminals, but realize that they are often a result of bad genetics and sad circumstances, so we shouldn't lose empathy for them.
He doesn't strike me as overtly evil in any way, but he doesn't seem very inherently bright, plus he has been pretty screwed over by circumstances around him which he had little control over. So I think his obsession with revenge on his earlier schoolmaster(or whatever he was), is irrational, but quite understandable.
So if I were to take two things from the book:
1) Don't have kids you can't take of.
2) Don't be lenient with crimminals, but realize that they are often a result of bad genetics and sad circumstances, so we shouldn't lose empathy for them.
October 6, 2012
Kraftig kritikk av norsk fengselspolitikk.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews