Boken om lille-bror: Ett äktenskaps roman

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

28473

Title

Boken om lille-bror: Ett äktenskaps roman

Language

sv

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

A poignant memoir by Gustaf af Geijerstam, this novel chronicles a family's idyllic summer life on a Swedish archipelago before tragedy strikes. Blending lyrical prose with raw emotion, the narrative explores themes of love, mortality, and the enduring bond between a father, his wife, and their three sons. It is a tender yet heartbreaking account of a father's struggle to protect his family from death, culminating in the loss of his beloved wife and the profound grief that reshapes his...

Summary up to 500 words

In *Boken om lille-bror: Ett äktenskaps roman*, Gustaf af Geijerstam presents a deeply personal meditation on love, mortality, and the fragility of life. The narrative begins with a writer reflecting on a period of profound happiness shared with his wife and their three sons: Olof, Svante, and the youngest, Sven (nicknamed Nenne). This idyllic existence is centered around a final summer spent in a dilapidated manor on Lidingö, a setting chosen to provide the wife with the nature she cherished. Initially filled with renewal and joy, the atmosphere is soon shadowed by an underlying tension: the wife suffers from a chronic illness, and the father harbors a growing dread of death, a fear that the intuitive young Sven seems to sense. Sven is uniquely fascinated by death, having seen a depiction of the 'Death Train' and witnessed Death in a play, often asking if the figure in the picture is sad to die. The tranquility shatters when the wife's condition deteriorates violently. She falls into a deep coma, and the father watches helplessly as her life fades, haunted by her earlier assertion that she would die like Sven. In her final moments, she struggles to speak, eventually whispering her enduring love for her husband and children before passing peacefully. The father is left in a state of shock and guilt, realizing he failed to let her go sooner. He arranges her funeral in Sven's room, dressing her in her white gown surrounded by flowers, fulfilling her last wish to be buried in her son's space. The book concludes with the father reflecting on his journey from a man who feared death to one who has faced it directly. He acknowledges his defeat but refuses to be ashamed of his grief. The narrative serves as both a love letter to his lost wife and a meditation on the inevitability of loss and the enduring power of love to transcend death. Through the innocent yet perceptive eyes of little Sven, Geijerstam transforms private sorrow into a universal meditation on the human condition, exploring how love remains the only constant even as life inevitably yields to death.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28473.epub.noimages

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data/epubs/pg28473.epub

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2026-07-05 21:02 UTC

Categories

• Romance
• Fiction