I read and enjoyed the short novel The Löwensköld Ring earlier this year, and was looking forward to following the second installment of this ghost story. But what I got was something pretty different. Taking place a generation after the first book, this is a story of love, duty and dark misunderstandings, where the supernatural is barely hinted at.
Charlotte is of the noble family Löwensköld, but of a branch that has fallen from grace. She is living with relatives, an elderly minister and his wife, in the country. She’s engaged to the young, promising cleric Karl-Artur, but he’s too obsessed with living in poverty and piety to even plan for marriage. When the rich foundry proprietor Schagerström proposes to Charlotte on a whim, Karl-Artur goes completely mad with jealousy. It doesn’t matter that she said no, he breaks off the engagement and vows to propose to the first girl he meets as he storms out. Which happens to be the wandering sales woman Anna Svärd. Not a very fitting party.
What follows from there is a winding, constantly interesting plot – at times heartbreaking or infuriating. As a reader you never know where things might go next (and with the ending of the first book in fresh memory, you know for sure that Ms. Lagerlöf won’t hesitate to let things end badly either… ) Selma Lagerlöf is often seen as a bridge between gothic, early realism and modernism in Swedish literature, and it’s very true here. For this book feels very old-fashioned in a way. But the way it’s told, with deep insights on the flaws, pettiness and humanity of the characters, lots of inner monologues and some great stylistic tricks, it becomes something that is original and exciting. Like Schagerström, who hardly recognizes he has everything because of his obsession with his own ugliness. Or Karl-Artur, so full of love towards humankind, but so quick to believe everyone of the worst. Or Thea, who is so eager to be in the presence of greatness she sells all honesty. Or the colonel’s wife, oblivious of how she constantly outshines her children. Or Charlotte herself, vain, ill-tempered and full of gloom. A great, complex cast populating a story where it’s unclear to the very end how things will turn out. This could well be Lagerlöf’s masterpiece – I don’t even miss the general’s ghost one bit! ( )

Deze roman vertlet een aantal gebeurtenissen rond de titelfiguur, een weesmeisje dat verloofd is met een dweepzieke hulppredikant die ze verlaat om te trouwen met een oudere weduwnaar. Een parade van uiteenlopende karakters.