Carolina Setterwall’s debut “Subject: In Case I Die”. Review. – Culture

The brakes screech. It crashes, violently. Dead silence. Then the sirens of the fire brigade and ambulance wail. Onlookers gather at the roadside. Horror and pity mix with voyeurism and greed for sensation. It is similar to reading Carolina Setterwall’s debut “Subject: If I Die”, which appeared in Sweden in 2018 and was quickly sold worldwide. The title of the book is laconic and its style is far removed from the headline style of the Yellow Press, but here and there it is played on a similar keyboard of emotions. In Setterwall’s book, which deliberately avoids specifying the genre and which most likely fits into the category “a true story”, the screeching of the brakes corresponds to the first chapter of the book, “May 2014”. The first-person narrator Carolina is sitting on the sofa breastfeeding her three-month-old son Ivan when she receives an email from her partner and father of the child: “Good to know, in case I give up the spoon: My computer password is Ivan2014. A detailed one List is in document In case I die.rtf. Let’s hope the best! LG Aksel. “

Five months later, on October 27, 2014, still at the very beginning of the book, it crashes. After spending the night with the child in the next room as usual, Carolina goes into the bedroom with Ivan in her arms to wake Aksel. “Ivan is just about to crawl off when I see that something is wrong. You lie there in a way that you never usually do when you sleep. Twisted and crooked, on your side, your face pressed against the pillow.” Suddenly it is clear, “You are no longer there. You are dead.” Later we learn: sudden heart failure.

From this shock of loss, Setterwall develops her story, which lives from its tragic end, but also, otherwise it would not be tragic, from the romantic love between the loner Aksel and the pushing forward Carolina. Cat, apartment, baby, once one has been achieved, the next must happen. There is no pausing or consideration for the partner’s pace. The book also takes its reader with it at this speed. The events pull you under their spell, look away, walk on like you would hardly be able to do in a traffic accident. The reader becomes a voyeur.

Structure and style force one to identify with the narrator. Your self soaks everything in

The first part of the book covers the years 2009 to 2014 and works on the principle of a zipper that was torn from the wrong end and the pages of which must now be put back together. One storyline is about the time with Aksel and the other about the one without him. In April 2009, Carolina and Aksel met at a party. It follows, brutally cut against it, Aksel’s death in October 2014. In the next chapter we read about the first night we spent together in May. Then we jump back into the first hours after his death. Back to the first visit to the parents in June and back to the day of death, on which the deceased’s family has meanwhile arrived. The turbulence of love life, pleasure and frustration of being together: chapter by chapter, hardly one longer than three or four pages, but all with the exact month and year, the two time levels are brought together. In the end we jump back one last time to the night before Aksel’s death: “When I fell asleep last night, in a bedroom adjoining yours, I do so with the belief that we have thousands of days ahead of us. We haven’t. This night is our last. We don’t spend it together. “

The tone is the same in all chapters, the sentences are short stocktaking without adjectives, pictures and comparisons. All are addressed to Aksel in the present tense and in you form. That makes the book haunting. But also monotonous. The style takes you into the lament about a life that has not been lived to the end, a rushed, perhaps a life rushed to death. The reader has nothing else to do but follow the story. Since there are no nuances, no change of perspective, no meta-level, we move between now and then, but remain on the surface of what is being told all the time.

It doesn’t help that the narrator lets us participate in her painful self-questioning about how much guilt she may have for the death of her lover. Having been so focused on the good life, has she overshot the mark? Of course everyone, family, friends, doctors and psychologists certify that this was not the case. And the reader can’t help but follow this reading, it’s the only one the book allows. Despite the self-doubt and the often unsympathetic traits of the protagonist, she can be sure of the sympathy or at least the empathy of the reader. The structure and style of the book are designed to identify us with the sadness, anger, drive and bitterness of the Carolinas. Everything is sucked into the vortex of the suffering self.

The fact that the preparatory work for Setterwall’s book comes from her blog, which she started after her partner’s death, fits well into the overall picture of this book, whose tone is factual, but precisely aimed at emotionalizing the reader. Once you’ve made an autobiographical pact with the author, it’s difficult to keep your distance from her. Their suffering makes them sacrosanct. The funny thing is that the suffering doesn’t affect you. The narrator’s eyes are constantly overflowing. Her face is puffy from crying all the time. Who would blame her? It just leaves it cold anyway. Certainly not every reader. But probably those – and those who expect more from literature than a brightly lit tale of suffering.

Whether marketed as a novel or presented as an experienced life, the material needs the right voice. Setterwall didn’t find it here. Especially the long second part of the book, which spans 2015 and 2016, has a disturbing one-dimensional effect. Now we follow chronologically the suffering of the young woman, whose life now revolves around her child, while the text itself stands still. This lack of literary finesse can hide behind the diary-like style, but that does not save the story from slipping into the colportage-like style.

When Carolina finally falls in love with a man who has lost his wife and has to raise the little daughter alone, she is very lucky. Then she becomes pregnant unexpectedly, he wants the child, she doesn’t. She decides to have an abortion. The relationship has failed until further notice. The fact that the events are autobiographical makes it difficult to criticize what has been read as being too thick. But doesn’t it matter whether it is a novel or a lived life? If the traumatic dimension of the experience does not come into play, but is gossiped in spite of all stylistic straightforwardness, then the text cannot convince as text, not as literature, but remains an echo chamber for emotions that, precisely because they do not point beyond themselves, do not touch.