August Strindberg

[Stiffelio]

I think both Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith played Miss Julie back in the 60s; it seems like ages ago but they were young then and looked smashing.

[Eric]

Yes, the 1960s are a few years ago now.

As Harry suggests, I haven't keep up with all the young ladies in acting roles of late.

[Eric]

I see that the London Review of Books bookshop is advertising a new translation of Strindberg's "The Red Room", translated by the Scottish translator Peter Graves:

http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php...&cat=11&page=1

[liehtzu]

At the beginning of the XX century there was a mania for translating Strindberg, and most of those translations (plays, novels, autobiographies, miscellany) are available on archive.org, along with so much other magnificent stuff.

[Eric]

Strindberg has the German language to thank for his fame abroad. It was the German translations of his works that led the way, followed by some interest in France, because Strindberg took to writing in French for a while, partly to access a foreign audience. I'm not sure whether the first translations into English were done from German or directly from Swedish.

Anyway, despite the fact that the Swedish state were very late and reluctant to fund any Strindberg activities, they are now popping up all over the place in Sweden, though a few activities are pseud, such as dancing a ballet to fairly random Chinese words, because Strindberg once learnt a bit of that language. Though there are some normal renderings of several of his plays as well.

It can, at times, seem a bit robotic to only celebrate an author during the anniversary of his death for a year and then go back to ignoring him afterwards.

Strindberg was multi-talented, but his best things are his plays, especially his late ones, and his satirical prose. The problem, however, with satire is that you have to know something about what is being satirised before you appreciate the bite and humour of the satire.

[Eric]

More than half of the celebratory year marking Strindberg's death in 1912 has gone by now. Have any of you been encouraged to read anything by him this year?

[kpjayan]

I have started reading his collection of plays now. It has nothing to do with his death centenary, though.

Also, Bangalore theater Festival, starting this Saturday, is staging "Miss Julie" , by some amateur group.

[Eric]

Interesting to see that Bangalore is staging a Strindberg play.

Sweden started this year badly. The state didn't want to subsidise the celebrations or commemoration. But things picked up, because individual theatre groups and municipalities did things. By now, I'm getting a bit sick of seeing the same photos repeated in the newspapers.

I will perhaps read something by Strindberg next year. Personally, I prefer his late plays, such as "To Damascus" and "A Dream Play", to "Miss Julie" because as he grew older, Strindberg mellowed a good deal and examined more metaphysical things. His misogyny grew less (though I cannot understand how a misogynist could get married to so many women), and instead of continuing to be an anti-Semite, he wrote a primer to teach people Biblical Hebrew. But he certainly had his weird and half-mad sides, such as when he dabbled in alchemy and especially when he had his so-called Inferno Crisis, at a time when he really did lapse into a state of paranoid insanity - but he wrote about it in a sane way!

All in all, Strindberg is definitely one of the most interesting authors Sweden has ever had. Although he was born and bred in Stockholm, of Swedish parents, there is something most un-Swedish about him. One of his wives was Austrian, another Finland-Swedish (i.e. from the Swedish-speaking minority in neighbouring Finland). And he even write some of his prose works in French, which he had learnt to a high level, while living in Paris. And he used to mix with writers in Germany, such as the Pole Przybyszewski, who wrote in German. So Strindberg was very cosmopolitan.