Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Strindberg’s Works, by I. E. Poritzky
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terribly he suffered during the period of his first marriage.
So much so, indeed, that he had to write this book before he
could face the thought of death with composure. Doubtless,
a man for whom life holds no longer any charm would give us
a genuinely truthful account of his inner life, and there is no
denying that a book which takes its entire matter from the
inner life is of vastly greater importance and on an
immeasurably higher level than a million novels, be they written ever
so well. The great importance of The Confession of a Fool
lies in the fact that it depicts the struggle of a highly
intellectual man to free himself from the slavery of sexuality,
and from a woman who is a typical representative of her sex.
Apart from this, it is an intense joy from an artistic point of
view to follow the “confessor” through the book, as he looks
at himself from all sides in order to gain self-knowledge; that
he conceals nothing from us, not even those deep secrets
which he would fain keep even in the face of death. One
sees Strindberg brooding over his own soul to fathom its
depths. He plumbs its hidden profoundnesses, he takes to
pieces the inner wheels of his mechanism, so as to know for
himself and to show us how he is made and what is the cause
of the instinct which drives him to confess and to create.
He opens wide his heart and lets us see that he carries in his
breast his heaven and also his horrible hell. We see angels
and devils fighting in his soul for supremacy, and the divine
in him stepping between them with its creative Let
there be!
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