The metaphysical intrigue of the opening chapter didn’t prepare me for the boredom of what followed. ‘Just think how good it would be if you’d gone there first,’ he says, ‘so that it was you who was sitting there fishing.’ As luck would have it, Jonatan does indeed precede Karl to Nangiyala, dying saving Karl’s life in a house fire, and he visits Karl from beyond the grave apparently in the persona of a pigeon (or concealed among the pigeon’s feathers, a prosaic reading that I enjoy less), after which Karl joins him in Nangiyala.

Still, Karl seems to have an acute case of separation anxiety, and doesn’t want to leave Jonatan behind. His older brother Jonatan (Jonathan in the translation, but I’ll stick with the original spelling because it’s sexier) consoles Karl with stories of the afterlife in mythical Nangiyala, a carefree world where you can fish to your heart’s content. Nine-year-old Karl is a sickly boy, and is upset when he overhears a conversation in which it is mentioned that he is dying. More on that later too, and some spoilers. I was particularly keen on reading this book firstly because I hadn’t read it before and secondly because of the controversy it inspired. It was Ilon Wikland’s illustrations that did it, his hair looked so Swedish.įor me, Ilon Wikland is the true heroine of Lindgren’s 1973 book The Brothers Lionheart ( Bröderna Lejonhjärta), which I read in the translation by Joan Tate.

I loved Pippi Longstocking struggling with her pluttification, and more than that even I loved mischievous Lotta, with her piggly bear Bamsie and her sister Mia Maria and her kind brother Jonas, on whom I probably had a bit of a crush. They were probably exotic because they showed a life that was recognisably like mine and yet intangibly different (same as the American books I loved like Maurice Sendak, Treehorn and Peanuts, I suppose). Lindgren was a big deal in my boyhood, her books having a peculiarly Scandinavian exoticism that they shared with Alf Prøysen’s Mrs Pepperpot (rechristened ‘Mrs Pepperbox’ by my ancient Austrian babysitter Lisl).

Not that I haven’t enjoyed reading my way through the EU, but if I did this project again I’d choose exclusively children’s books.

The brothers lionheart