The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren

[sophia_sol]

I was disappointed by this book. I'd heard great things about it! But apparently it is not for me.

It starts strong, with the close relationship between the brothers, and by page 15 I was crying. (uh, warning: this book begins with the childhood deaths of two boys, one by injury and one from chronic illness.)

But then they magically go to the land of Nangiyala after death. And it's like they completely forget about their prior life - for example their mother is never mentioned again, despite her seeming to be a positive presence in their life. Being dead is great! No more worries about real life.

And once they're in Nangiyala the book was just your standard boring un-nuanced boys' adventure story, with an evil tyrant who must be defeated and all.

And then the end of the book happens. The older of the two brothers has been injured in battle with a dragon, and so the two of them kill themselves to move on to the land of Nangilima, which is even better than Nangiyala. The end. WHAT THE FUCK.

Mostly I'm just left with endless questions about how this afterlife situation even WORKS. You can die in the afterlife, which is not really that much different than real life except there are dragons and things, and move on to an after-after-life? I guess? This makes no sense! Explain more please! Is there an after-after-after-life if you die in Nangilima? What happens if Nangilima turns out to also not be the paragon of perfection that was promised, the way that Nangiyala turned out to have its downsides? Why be concerned about your current life, and about death, if death another better version of life? Why didn't everyone in the oppressed Nangiyala just kill themselves to escape to Nangilima, if death is really not that big a deal, and you're already dead anyway? And so on.

But the book mostly cares about the adventure story, which is not that great as adventure stories go.

Also the characterization is PRETTY one-note. Especially the older brother, Jonathan, who is perfect and beautiful and brave and caring and wonderful and never makes mistakes and never even considers doing anything that's less than perfect. I did like that Hubert didn't turn out to be the traitor, but that was, like, the only vaguely nuanced piece of character work in the book.

Also this is another of those stories that's about a disabled main character who gets magically cured. (I mean Karl gets cured by having DIED in the first chapter of the book but still. He then gets to go on all his adventures with a healthy body.)

So yeah. All in all I was expecting better things of this book, given how amazing Ronia the Robber's Daughter is. It's too bad.

Comments

[the_rck]

I think this book was the first thing I ever read that I wanted to throw at the wall. I was maybe eight when I read it, and it made me so very, very angry. I couldn't articulate what it was that got me at the time, but I think you've summed it up pretty well. I don't remember a lot about the middle of the book, just the death at the beginning and death at the end and how that was not what I signed up for.

[sophia_sol]

I'm glad I'm not alone in my reaction! I do wonder what my reaction would have been as a kid though, whether I'd have read it the same way I did now.

[calvinahobbes]

Nooo!

In all seriousness it's funny you're reviewing this now, as I am just about to finish the Danish-language biography of Lindgren. Apparently your reaction is not new; lots of people criticized it in the 70s when it came out.

The Lindgren canon is an established part of my childhood, and I used to really love this book, which was also a Swedish-language movie. I think what's so remarkable about it is that it's a book about death and grief for children, and as a grieving child it definitely meant a lot to me.

According to the biography Lindgren wanted to establish an alternative life-after-death narrative to comfort children who were not brought up to believe in God and Heaven. Apparently the conflict in Nangiyala is inspired by the civil revolutions of the 70s, and Jonatan is supposed to represent Ultimate Good - "If everyone were like Jonatan there wouldn't be any evil in the world at all." So a kind of socialist pacifist goal.

Anyway, that doesn't really address your legitimate frustrations with the book, sorry for the info dump, just thought it was interesting.

[lotesse]

That's really interesting - to me, anyway, I can't speak for sophia - because I was not brought up religiously, and absolutely adored this book as a child. Looking back, I remember it for the same kind of isolated gorgeous imagery you get from Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, which I was also massively into as a little kid. Something about Scandinavian lit!

[sophia_sol]

You know, I absolutely didn't notice a single bit of gorgeous imagery in the book, which might be part of why it didn't click with me personally - I'm not a very visual person, and I usually find myself skimming past descriptive passages because I find them boring since they don't evoke much for me! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much though.

[sophia_sol]

You know, to me it really doesn't read as a book that's about death and grief though - it feels like it's making every effort to pretend it's NOT about that even though death is what bookends the plot! And I've definitely read other kids' books with death/grief themes so it's not alone in that (although I'll agree it's not super common). I'm glad this book was there for you when you needed it as a grieving child though.

Thank you for the background information! It's interesting to hear what Lindgren's intentions were, and see how much I personally feel like she didn't actually succeed in what she was trying to do.....

[sylvaine]

I knew this book was about death, so even though it was one of the few Lindgren books we actually owned when I was a kid, and I read virtually everything else by her, I always refused to even touch it. Looks like that was a warranted reaction, oh dear.

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, I mean, clearly for some people this book really worked, but in my opinion at least it was a good call on your part to skip this one!