“Heretics Temple” by Gabriella Håkansson – Swedish Radio

Gabriella Håkansson “sought a new audience” with the brick Alder Mann’s heir last year was no secret. Away with the experiment, in the secret society! In the first part, she sent the young William Alder Mann on a grand tour of Europe, with its Bryske, German tutor. Now they have come home to the early nineteenth-century London and will realize his father’s dangerous dreams. Heretics temple called the new book. Ulrika Knutson read.

art and science bred man? Oh yes, cried Enlightenment men in chorus. Not at all, Rousseau thought sourly. The pursuit of knowledge is an accident that prevents us from living by our nature, in full freedom.

Freedom’s dilemma is a ball as Gabriella Håkansson juggling in his one-man circus of William Alder Mann and the secret society Dilletanti. The trulige William is very similar caricature of today’s asparagus pale yngligar who sit and play “Dota 2″ and give a damn about anything, especially humanity.

This is probably a key to Gabriella Håkansson projects. I am sitting exhausted after 1400 hundred pages and wonder: Who is the target audience? Hardly culture ladies like me. The funny language and Red Bull energy is not enough, we require the depression and psychological development. The man in the moon looking for here. But you get much more.

Against a backdrop of antique infatuation and manbarhetskult Brazilians Håkansson on with secret societies, bizarre ciphers and spirited entertainment violence. Libertarians and moralists like to do up their fists. The best is the pornographic parodies, providing a tender picture of young men involuntary persistence in anticipation of the looming ejaculation.

And if you get tired of sex are little funny animals in the margins, as in Petty and Findus. Eager mice arrows over brothel floor with a piece of cake in his mouth. And suddenly hitting a flock of angels, and leaves behind some bounce and a faint smell of machine oil over Portland Place …

It is a lovely vision in Sweden’s spirit . Something important I have learned, and that is that the reader must put of his grave seriousness in the vestibule before the hen enters the temple of the heretics. Otherwise reveals itself not secret the secret.

It does not always help. Sometimes you want to exclaim with the Bryske tutor Gebhardt: Ach! Langweilig – boring – We are finished with reading, it is time to move on in life

But not until the third part is plowed, I admit.

Ulrika Knutson
ulrika.knutson@sverigesradio.se