This was one of the most unsettling and bizarre books I've ever read, and I don't really know what to make of it. It's one of those books for children that have you thinking "would I be able to recommend it to any kid?" and the answer is probably no. But I know people who absolutely loved this story when they were children and they weren't disturbed by it at all. That's probably because when you're a child you see things differently and what is disturbing for me as an adult, might appear innocent, or even brave to a child's eye.
So, what's so strange about this book?
It's the story of two brothers. Rusty is the youngest and is ill. Jonathan is the older, he is handsome and kind and brave like a hero in a saga. When Rusty finds out he will die soon, his older brother Jonathan reassures him. When he'll die he will have a marvellous time, in a place called Nangiyala, somewhere on the other side of the stars. Nangiyala, Jonathan tells Rusty, is where all the sagas take place, there he will have incredible adventures from morning till evening, and he won't have to lie down on the sofa and cough all day.
One day, though, a fire sweeps through their building, and Jonathan is killed in the attempt of saving his little brother.
Then Rusty is left alone, waiting to die, so that he can be with his brother again in Nangiyala. When this happens Rusty is transported magically into this mythical and idyllic world. There he meets his brother, who lives in a lovely white cottage with a stable, in a place called Cherry Valley. He gets his own horse and eat delicious food and think that he has everything he ever wished for. Soon though, he learns that the valley next to theirs, Wild Rose Valley, are oppressed by an evil tyrant, called Tengil, and Jonathan, who's being fighting with the rebels, is the hero of the resistance against him.
The whole book is the story of how Jonathan, with a little help from his brother, manages to defeat ruthless Tengil and bring peace into Nangiyala again.
Which is all nice and good. Nothing highly original or earth-shattering. It did bother me a bit that the Big Bad was completely one-dimensional. He was just evil, full stop.
The good were good and the bad were bad, with nothing else in between. Which I guess it's ok in a story that wants to evoke the days of camp-fires and sagas.
It's the ending that brings on the unsettling feelings, but I can't talk about it without giving it away....
So here it goes. Jonathan saves the day by killing the evil dragon, but he gets hit by her poisonous fire, paralising him irreversibly. Then he tells his brother about another world called Nangilima, where everyone's happy and there's no cruel ruler to fight. And all they have to do to get there is die. So what's the final, brave thing that Rusty does? He grabs his brother and let himself fall with him into the abyss.
He kills himself, and his brother! How creepy is that?
Now, I'm all for the right to euthanasia, when there's obviously nothing else to do. I'm also not religious, so I don't want to criticise the book's reincarnation ideas from that point of view. I might even welcome the idea of another life after this, it's not that. But to show children that the way to have an adventurous life is to die, either waiting for death to come, or even going towards it by basically committing suicide, is something that makes me feel very uncomfortable.
And I'm not happy to say this because I love Astrid Lindgren, or at least I loved Pippi Longstocking. It's still one of my all-time childhood favourite. So I was very excited when I found this in Bookworms' Heaven a.k.a. Hay-on-Wye, because I had never heard of it. I was prepared to love it too. But this suicide thing was just too much to accept.
Friday 19 September 2008
The Brothers Lionheart - Astrid Lindgren
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5 comments:
That is a bit disturbing, yes. It's probably the sort of thing that most kids don't think twice about, but as an adult you can't help but consider the implications.
Wow, Valentina - that does sound bizarre! I'd have been taken aback by that ending, too. Creepy!
It reminds me a bit of a German children's book my friend's husband had as a kid, where the little boy is told not to pick his nose or some evil little man will cut off his fingers or his hands or something. Then the parents go out to run errands and leave the boy alone, and of course he picks his nose, and suddenly there's the creepy little guy, looking like a dwarfish Freddy Kruger, and off comes the little boy's fingers, with spurts of blood and all. Ick!
Kind of makes you wonder what they'll look back on in children's books years from now and be baffled by!
Nymeth, it's also very strange for me to read other people saying it's a sad but uplifting story. Definitely not!
darla, glad to know you agree!
That german story sounds even creepier, OMG! i would have had nightmares for years and years!
I was wondering if the comment system still worked after all these years, but anyway:
The story has two different layers, a children's interpretation and an adult interpretation. In the children's story they do go to another world and all which happens there is real.
On the other hand...
Throughout the story in Nangijala, there are references to the stories told by the bigger brother and songs sung by their mother (you can compare this to the movie version of the Wizard of Oz, where many characters from the real world are also in Oz, and in the end it was all a dream). It is all the stories and songs combined into a fantasy story experienced by the younger brother as he is extremely ill and near death. The ending is his acceptance of his own death and he moves on. This is why the movie version ends with the real world grave of the two brothers. He doesn't commit suicide, he just finally accepts his own death, which is why he sees the light.
It's a bit similar to the many "purgatory" stories, in which people haven't realised that they are dead or dying (Jacobs ladder is an example of this). The entire story is about a child dying!
Whoever you are Anonymous, thank you for this comment! Yes, the ending and the whole story shouldn't be taken literally at all!
I see it as two possibilities: either yes, it was all Karl's dying dream to work through the acceptance of his own death. I find that a bit depressing, but the movie's ending (and let's not forget that Astrid Lindgren herself was involved in the script writing process) clearly suggests that.
Another option though, is the possibility of some kind of Purgatory, where sheltered Karl had to experience different life, see death, suffering of others, evil. He had to grow up. The ending is the story going in circle - we got Jonatan hurt by the fire again, but this time Karl does what his brother had done for him before. It is like if he tries to pay off a debt. Or the feeling of inferiority to his adored brother kept Karl in place; just when he had done exactly what Jonatan did, he felt like he could move on.
ALSO important point is, that the final jump was never really shown - neither in book, neither in the movie. Karl cuts his sentence in the middle before exclaiming about light.
The bottom line of this extended comment is, that not all the books, even these for children, are always as simple as it seems. And Astrid Lindgren's books definitely fall into that category.
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