The Eternal Smile: Three Stories

by Pär Lagerkvist, Erik Mesterton (Translator), David O'Gorman (Translator)

"Det var en gång några döda, de satt samman någonstans i mörkret, var visste de inte, kanske ingenstans, de satt och pratade för att få evigheten till att gå."

Genres: Fiction, Scandinavian Literature, Literature, Short Stories, Nobel Prize, Swedish Literature, Classics

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Lagerkvist was born in 1891 in southern Sweden. In 1910 he went to Uppsala as a student and in 1913 he left for Paris, where he was exposed to the work of Pablo Picasso. He studied Middle Age Art, as well as Indian and Chinese literature, to prepare himself for becoming a poet. His first collection of poetry was published in 1916. In 1940 Lagerkvist was chosen as one of the "aderton" (the eighteen) of the Swedish Academy.

Lagerkvist wrote poetry, novels, plays, short stories and essays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951 "for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind."

Reviews

[AiK · Rating 3 out of 5]

"В чем смысл жизни?" - спрашивают мертвые в книге Пера Лагерквиста "Улыбка вечности". Начиная со значительности, перебираются все возможные смыслы жизни. Мертвые возроптали и решили найти Бога, и предъявить претензии о никчемности жизни, которую он создал, о страданиях, бремя которых люди вынуждены нести всю жизнь . Какая прекрасная мысль - высказать Богу свое "фи", тем самым переложив ответственность на его плечи! Ещё одна замечательная мысль, что бог оказался простым, добрым старичком, назвавшем себя тружеником, и он ничего такого не планировал, а сделал, что смог, просто чтобы людям не довольствоваться пустотой.
Почему-то эти слова подействовали на толпу, преодолевшую тысячелетия пути, чтобы узнать ответ, зачем были их страдания в жизни, и успокоили ее, хотя, под давлением людей неслышавших слов бога в дальних рядах, к нему послали умерших малышей, которые потянулись к деду. Зачем он создал детей, они мертвы! О чем он думал? Оказалось, ни о чем не думал.
И все почему-то удовлетворились ответом. В общем, люди, желавшие переложить ответственность на Бога за свои никчемные жизни и проделавший долгий путь, приняли это объяснение.
Какая-то нелогичность в поведении умерших людей ломает цельность идеи и делает ее неубедительной для меня.

[Sidsel · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS!

The Eternal Smile. I never found out exactly who smiles eternally, but that does not bother me so much. This little novel has change my life a little bit. Not in a huge way that now I have changed my way of behaving, but I feel like I have been enlightened on the meaning of life. Yes, it is about something as big as that. It is a collection of dead people's stories. They sit in the darkness of dead and tell each other about their lives and deaths and perspectives on life. It left me with a gloyfied feeling like I had truly been let in to see what life is like after death. It is simply incredible in a subtle and poetic way.

[Anna-Sofie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Pär Lagerkvist is like reading a long and beautiful poem. You cannot really capture why the words touch you or why the stories speak to you on a deeper level.
There's not much plot, not much drive,but a philosophical quest of a group of deaths setting out to hold God responsible for the life he created. The grande finale isn't grand at all, but still leaves you feeling uplifted and a little bit wiser :).

[Andy Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Waow. Et så grundlæggende spørgsmål som livets mening rundes i denne roman med utrolig smuk lyrik. Let og elegant vender siderne sig selv. Klart en af de bedste og mest dybsindige bøger, jeg har læst.

[Cloglover · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do Not have this book, I have a different version of Eternal smile & other stories but w/e. Incredible. Loved it. Never once been let down by Lagerkvist.

[Monty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently I remembered reading Barabbas, The Dwarf, and this book of short stories/novellas during my college years in the early 1960s. I decided to revisit The Eternal Smile and fell into a swoon getting lost in the details, depth and undertones of Lagerkvist, a remarkable storyteller and Nobel winner in 1951. His stories always feel unrushed, though there were times I wanted to find out the ending, forgetting that the power of his prose is in more in the telling than in the ending. I may re-read Barabbas (a novel about the thief who was pardoned to make room for Jesus on the cross; this book was made into a movie in 1961 and can be viewed for free on Netflix) and The Dwarf (a novel that takes place in a castle during the Renaissance where the king's dwarf, defining himself as non-human due to his stature, feels free to criticize humanity.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three haunting tales-- parables maybe-- of death in life. An infinite mass of souls spend eternity kibbitzing about their now mostly-forgotten lives. Recollections of a young life lived under an unspecific existential threat. & a drunken horde trade macabre stories drinking with a (mostly) silent executioner. Good stuff.

[cindy sisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grand parable. The souls of heaven discuss their life on earth, question, rage, search. A beautiful myth of why we are here.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories in one book. The first is about the dead reminiscing about their lives when they were among the living who decide to confront God to ask what it was all about, The second is about a boy who grows up in an extremely religious family and how he begins to lose his belief as he grows older and the third takes place in a tavern where an executioner is drinking and the other patrons trade executioner stories.

[Bria · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We began to talk about one thing and another, odds and ends, what fine weather it is, and how hard it may be to flay an elephant alive, the kind of thing you talk about when you don't know what to say."

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark as hell!

[Maximus · Rating 4 out of 5]

О животе драги, од свега што се не може схватити само тебе схватам!

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ I remember the small rattling pebbles at the water’s edge. But the gale above all, drowning the other noises, the roaring gale, with all the great clouds over the water. And I remember the quietness, the unmoving quietness, the complete silence around me.
The sea, that is the only great thing down there. Down there it is eternity. I lived by the sea. I had a house close to the shore with a view over the unfashionable depths. In one of the windows stood a little dried pot plant which I always forgot to water. I don’t know why I remember it; it played no part in my life. I lived by the sea. Yet I remember it very well. I remember that it was still there when I was going to die, and how I thought to myself, if it were not that I was going to die I ought to get up and give it a little water. I recall, too, that as I lay and looked at it I thought it strange that it should outlive me. Poor thing. However, it played no part in my life. I lived by the sea.
I was a man of great importance. As far as I know there was no one in my time like me and no one so important. At least I never noticed it. I didn’t meet other people very much either. I lived alone by myself. I listened to the gale and to the quietness. I was already in my lifetime a living, struggling man. I felt within myself everything that really is. I was greater and more than anybody else. In point of fact, so far as I know, there was no one besides myself.
I was simply made to die. That is not true of everyone, of course. But I had the proper dignity and weight. Living really consisted in me. I could die secure. I needed only to die.”

[Anetq · Rating 3 out of 5]

De døde fortæller hinanden om deres liv og død. Det kan på sin vis minde lidt om Boccaccios The Decameron.

Utroligt påfaldende er de døde kun mænd og i alle historier er det mænds liv og oplevelser der skildres. Kvinder og piger findes kun som objekter for mænds interesse og følelser eller en slags ejendele, når det kommer til koner [til gengæld får vi som regel en grundig beskrivelse af faconen på deres bryster - det er næsten lige som hos Murakami, som jeg heller ikke holder af?!]
Godt nok er det en ældre bog, men så gammel er den jo heller ikke. Kvinder fandtes også i 1920 (faktisk var de relativt påfaldende lige på den tid og ville have rettigheder, så på den baggrund virker det eksta reaktionært nærmest at udelade dem?) Det gør det faktisk lidt svært for mig at gide at interessere mig for alle de mænd... Af samme grund har det taget mig længe at komme igennem en lille sag på kun 100 sider.
Nåmen efter forskellige mænds fortællinger rejser de døde sig for at opsøge gud og kræve at få meningen med det hele at vide. I bedste Monty Python stil kommer de langt om længe frem og gud saver brænde og har ikke mange svar ud over "Jeg har gjort det så godt jeg kunne".

At temaet for bogen også er religiøst - klinger heller ikke hos mig, så det her må vist erklæres som en slags nitte i nobellæsningen, selv om jeg godt kan se at det fortællemæssigt sikkert er fint. Især hvis man er mand og/eller religiøs.

[Karoline · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Det evige smil’ er en roman, der er svær at beskrive. Der er ikke et egentligt plot, der driver romanen frem. Snarere er det en art gentagende, lettere fragmenteret, refleksion over livet, døden og meningen med ‘det hele’. Lagerkvists sprog er på én gang bevidst repetitivt og nøgternt, men også inviterende, ja nærmest fortryllende. Det er mit første møde med Lagerkvists prosa, men faktisk var det på mange måder som at læse poesi.

Jeg tror ‘Det evige smil’ tåler mere fordybelse og opmærksomhed, end jeg har budt den ved denne første læsning, så det er sikkert en bog, jeg vil vende tilbage til flere gange.

[Shane Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every once in a while I try to read something with literary merit. This time I regretted it. These three stories all had philosophical and spiritual themes that were obvious, but I struggled to extract any meaningful ideas that could be applicable anywhere else. Also, reading them wasn't at all enjoyable. Maybe I lack some necessary cultural context or philosophical education to make sense of them.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Allora mi parve di capire il significato di tutto. Capii che la vita vuole soltanto se stessa. [...] La vita ha amore per te, albero, per te, uomo, per te, fiore; per te, erba che ondeggi - soltanto quando la sua intenzione si posa su ognuno di voi. Quando più non le servite, essa più non vi ama: e vi cancella." (p. 59)

[Άννα Μακρή · Rating 4 out of 5]

Με κάποια διηγήματα έπαθα τέτοια πλάκα, που, όχι πεντάστερο, αστέρια στο άπειρο έβλεπα. Αλλά δεν ήταν όλο το βιβλίο τόσο καλό.
Το διήγημα "το αιώνιο χαμόγελο" ήταν κάπως περίεργο. Καλό, αλλά το παρατράβηξε, νομίζω, και ανεβοκατέβαινε.
Πολύ μου αρέσει αυτός ο Λάγκερκβιστ.

[Burcuuuuuuuuuuuuu]

https://www.hemengeliriz.com.tr

[Karla Lind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Den kunne jeg godt li! Handler om en masse mennesker der fortæller om deres liv efter de er døde. Den gjorde mig glad indeni:)

[Bryan Heck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eternal Smile 4/5
The Executioner 3/5

[Mathilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that love isn't everything. But life is everything Yes, life is everything.

[Phuong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Di solito i libri brevi e allegorici, come è questo, non incontrano il mio favore, ma stavolta ne sono rimasta piacevolmente impressionata. Rimane troppo breve perché possa dire che mi sia piaciuto molto, ma ho comunque apprezzato lo stile semplice e lo sviluppo della "trama" (tra virgolette perché è troppo statica per essere definita una trama vera e propria): prima l'esposizione dei vari modi in cui i morti guardano indietro alla vita e poi, al momento giusto, quando tale esposizione rischia di diventare monotona, l'improvviso smuoversi da una situazione che sembrava di totale immobilità e la "ricerca" che viene dopo. Utile l'introduzione all'inizio del libro (ma rigorosamente letta per ultima) che mi ha aiutato a focalizzare certi aspetti che altrimenti mi sarebbero sicuramente sfuggiti.
Voto: 7

[Rasmus Festerling · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Er livet da altid kun én af os? Er det aldrig os alle, noget der er så sikkert, at vi alle kan hælde vore hoveder imod det og være lykkelige? Er det aldrig så enkelt og ensartet? Er det aldrig enkelt, som en gammel mor, som hver dag siger de samme ord til sine børn, men hvis kærlighed bare bliver dybere og dybere for hver gang?"

Pär Lagerkvists forfatterskab har til alle tider været både anklageskrift og forsvarstale for mennesket - med Det Evige Smil retter han sit blik væk fra mennesket over på Livet i sin helhed. Fænomenal er bogen i al fald; den efterlod mig med en smuk, blomstrende smerte, der ikke vil forsvinde.

[HrCristobal]

danish trans.: Det evige smil

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bogen er en glemt perle! Et mesterværk! Bogens tematik, om hvad og hvem der er vigtige, er stadigvæk aktuel i dag, selvom bogen næsten er 100 år gammel.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend:
The Basement
The Hangman