the inferno (strindberg)

Like most, I imagine, I know Strindberg as a dramatist. The purveyor of gender wars and dreamscapes. The Inferno is a Knausgardian novel, one of those books which are clearly based on personal experience but invite the reader to suspect a literary embroidery of the stated facts. Which are, in themselves, wonderfully bonkers. Strindberg describes the way in which he is assailed by demons, who crop up in the scum left on the side of his bath or manifesting themselves through the strange noises that echo through the walls of his rented room. The demons have got into his head and this is no literary lion swanning around Europe (the book moves from France to Sweden to Germany to Austria and back to Sweden), but a man on the edge of reason and poverty, struggling to keep his head above water. If only our contemporary literary greats had this kind of manic, catastrophic energy. Whilst being assailed by demons, Strindberg turns his hand to alchemy, trying to create gold from chemical compounds. It’s unclear whether he succeeds or not, but he believes himself to have been punished for his audacity. At war with just about everyone, but especially the women in his life, he rediscovers his humanity via the intercession of his young daughter, who helps him to restore peace with his mother-in-law. Even here, however, he finds himself in a pink room which turns black in his presence and harbours more demons. Finally he advocates a return to Catholicism, which the editor’s note informs he would later turn his back on, and finds consolation for his purgatory in the writings of Swedenborg. In short, this is a delirious novel, which has no qualms about explicitly flirting with madness and suicide. The author displays a manic energy which goes beyond any quest for literary success; this is just another stage in his struggle with the reasons for being condemned to this inferno which some call life.