Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I will post questions once I am done with the book, most likely somewhere between November 5 and November 8. It might also not be a bad idea to have a listen to Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248).

Thank you. I will listen to Bach's Christmas Oratorio before I begin reading.

This is next on my list after the current book that I just started.
I tried the Bach but three hours of classical music is a big ask for me ;)

Rosemary wrote: "This is next on my list after the current book that I just started.
I tried the Bach but three hours of classical music is a big ask for me ;)"

You could spread the listening experience over 6 days, just like in Bach's time, one cantata at a time.

Questions (finally...)

Obviously, it was impossible to find ready-made questions for this book, so maybe it could be a world first! However, I only did my best and I could probably not answer these questions myself... Also, I read the French translation, so sorry in advance if I have used different name spellings.

1. Bach's Christmas' Oratorio contains six parts, each part a cantata corresponding to a feast day of the Christmas period and an episode (not necessarily chronological) in the story of the birth of Jesus.

- Christmas Day -> Birth of Jesus
- Annunciation (December 26) -> Annunciation of the shepherds
- December 27 -> Adoration of the shepherds
- New Year's Day -> Circumcision and naming of Jesus
- First Sunday after New Year -> Journey of the Magi
- Epiphany -> Adoration of the Magi

"Coincidentally", Tunström's novel contains six chapters (plus Sidner's journal). Are there any parallels/links/antitheses to be drawn between the Oratorio's parts and the novel's six chapters?

2. Compare and contrast the grieving reactions of Aron and Sidner following Solveig's tragic death.

3. Discuss the possible biblical references of the following characters: 1- Aron; 2- Solveig; 3- (Marvelous) Birgitta; 4- Tessa.

4. Female perspectives are pretty much absent throughout the novel. Specifically, why do you think the author has not offered Eva-Liisa's perspective of the novel's events and of her mother's death?

5. What does the appearance of famous Swedish people, like Selma Lagerlöf and Sven Hedin, add to the context of the story?

6. What is the role and meaning of Sidner's journal about caresses in the overall story?

7. What is the deeper motivation of Aron when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?

8. What is the deeper motivation of Sidner when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?

9. Considering that the novel is generally bleak, why do you think Tunström attached this story to a more festive historical work such as Bach's Christmas Oratorio?

1. Are there any parallels/links/antitheses to be drawn between the Oratorio's parts and the novel's six chapters?

I don't know. It would probably be possible to find some, but I would feel I was forcing it.

2. Compare and contrast the grieving reactions of Aron and Sidner following Solveig's tragic death.

Both of them are deeply affected, but Aron has no one to help him through it (or won't allow anyone to help him through it), so he starts having hallucinations and imagining Solveig has come back in the form of Tessa, while Sidner finds the perfect friend in Splendid who talks about Solveig's death in a matter of fact way and so saves him.

3. No ideas.

4. Female perspectives are pretty much absent throughout the novel. Specifically, why do you think the author has not offered Eva-Liisa's perspective of the novel's events and of her mother's death?

This is so true! We have Tessa's perspective in her letters, and a little bit later, but mostly the female characters are presented at second hand.

I didn't realise until I saw this question how little we hear of Eva-Liisa, but she is hardly there at all. Of course she is younger than Sidner when their mother dies, but she's not a baby (I don't remember how old she is, but she talks in full sentences and challenges her brother). Aron thinks she is young enough to forget her mother, but no child is unaffected by the loss of a parent.

Perhaps the author is not very interested in Eva-Liisa because she seems to be pretty normal? Is he only interested in the characters who are more or less crazy?

5. What does the appearance of famous Swedish people, like Selma Lagerlöf and Sven Hedin, add to the context of the story?

Fanny is the link to both of these people. Oddly, it made her seem less real to me as a character, instead of grounding her in the real world as I might have expected. I felt as if her knowing these famous people was a fantasy, but of course it wasn't - other characters meet them too.

I felt that Fanny was straddling two worlds and was only half in the world of the novel, the town where the other characters lived. She had a link to another world, the world of famous creative people. The descriptions of the inside of her house added to this, and the way she withdrew with Victor and cut him off from Sidner. There was a "witch in the forest" element to Fanny.

6. What is the role and meaning of Sidner's journal about caresses in the overall story?

After his mother dies, Sidner seems to have no physical contact with anyone except for some brief experience of sex. He only seems to become aware of this after his father leaves. Then he writes about it to his son, who is just a small child. I think he is saying that men (or boys) need women, and maybe he is justifying that he has allowed Fanny to monopolise Victor.

7. What is the deeper motivation of Aron when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?

Openly, he is going to meet Tessa, with whom he has been corresponding. Secretly he believes that Tessa is Solveig, or represents Solveig, so he is going to join Solveig. But Solveig is dead, so he will have to leave his life to join Solveig.

8. What is the deeper motivation of Sidner when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?

Openly he is going to try to apologise for his father never arriving - or something like that. But he stays even after he finds that Tessa is nothing like he expected, and his explanations are unnecessary. Maybe he thinks that he can have a better relationship with his son by sending him letters, since Fanny comes between them in person. But of course Fanny blocks those too. Yet he doesn't seem particularly angry about that...

9. Considering that the novel is generally bleak, why do you think Tunström attached this story to a more festive historical work such as Bach's Christmas Oratorio?

I didn't think the novel was that bleak. The beginning certainly is, and parts of the middle, but the ending is quite hopeful. Most people except for Aron come out of things okay and find some happiness. Perhaps the link with the Christmas Oratorio (or the feast of Christmas itself) is to make the point that we have the opportunity for joy even in the bleakest midwinter of our lives when the ground is hard as iron, as one of our carols says.

1. Bach's Christmas' Oratorio contains six parts, each part a cantata corresponding to a feast day of the Christmas period and an episode (not necessarily chronological) in the story of the birth of Jesus.

The book aims to be an epic story and certainly the cantatas that Bach wrote reflect an epic tale. The cantatas use musical themes from previously written pieces and in some cases the actual music from previously written secular works. In this way he has overlaid the words of joy and hope of the Christmas story unto works he originally wrote for royalty. Tuntröm builds a story through the various voices of Aron, Sidner and Victor and although the overall story is only slightly less depressing than the individual stories, there is definitely a way in which the individual tales can stand alone and are augmented by the others in the complete arc. However, I think the author mostly wanted to tie the theme of music to the story of the individuals and used a well known and well loved and almost impossible to stage piece to do so.

2. Compare and contrast the grieving reactions of Aron and Sidner following Solveig's tragic death.

Aron comes undone completely, refusing to let go of Solveig, and losing everything that used to be part of her world. He leaves his farm, he more or less abandons his children and he stops having anything to do with music. His journey to NZ was really only to find Solveig and not to meet a new love interest. When he realized he could not find Solveig in this world he exited. Sidner, on the other hand, doesn't hang on to his mother but he also can't seem to hang onto himself either. The loss of such a key person in his life more or less encases him in his own thoughts and nothing else, but these thoughts are so claustrophobic that he really loses his way.

3. Discuss the possible biblical references of the following characters: 1- Aron; 2- Solveig; 3- (Marvelous) Birgitta; 4- Tessa.

Okay, I will just make it up: Aron is the brother of Moses and leads Israel to the promised land. Aron in the book is the founding father. He courts and wins a woman that he is in no way equal to. He does not lead his family but he at least points them in the right direction to get to both NZ and to music, particularly sacred music. Solveig then becomes the Christ figure, being sacrificed for the good of the journey. Brigitta is the Mary Madeline, hopelessly compromised but nevertheless able to transport poor Torin to salvation. Tessa, is the redeemer and the redeemed and she redeems Sidner. However, you have to pull in Odysseus in order to figure out Victor and Fanny....who knows.

4. Female perspectives are pretty much absent throughout the novel. Specifically, why do you think the author has not offered Eva-Liisa's perspective of the novel's events and of her mother's death?

One gets the impression that Eva-Liisa is a very grounded and sane person who was obviously hurt by the loss of her mother but not crippled by it. It probably wouldn't have been a particularly exciting or depressing tale to tell.


5. What does the appearance of famous Swedish people, like Selma Lagerlöf and Sven Hedin, add to the context of the story?

It does ground it in a Swedish way of being. Selma's most famous work is also a series of cantata's (stretching here) that come together to tell one story of Gosta Berling. However, the one story of Gosta Berling reflects Swedish myths and folk tales.


6. What is the role and meaning of Sidner's journal about caresses in the overall story?

Sidner wants to capture something to pass onto his child. However, it does not reflect a childish point of view. It reflects an obsessive and out of control way of being. I think he was trying to give his child a touch of the truth, which he was not there to explain to him.

7. What is the deeper motivation of Aron when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?


Aron is searching for some version of Solveig that does not really exist and he has courted, through his letters, a poor women that doesn't know that she is supposed to be another woman entirely.

8. What is the deeper motivation of Sidner when he decides to leave Sweden for New Zealand?

Sidner wants to shake off the family guilt, or what he perceives to be the family guilt for leading this poor woman on and then abandoning her. He thinks that if he can close the door on this episode he can then find a way to get some kind of real life back instead of one haunted by caresses or lack of caresses.

9. Considering that the novel is generally bleak, why do you think Tunström attached this story to a more festive historical work such as Bach's Christmas Oratorio?

I think that the practical nature of the Oratorio being very hard to stage was part of his interest. I also think that he thought that the joy and hope inherent in the Christmas story would be a good contrast and a good compliment to his story. Solveig is full of the joy in being a part of the Oratorio and when she dies the Oratorio is not even performed. It takes the multi generational journey to get Victor to bring the music to that part of the world.