News from nowhere

This is the original Swedish edition of P C Jersild's post-apocalyptic novel “After the Flood”. It's one of Jersild's most well known novels, and used to be one of the more widely read. It's still in print. The newest edition is dated 2011. By contrast, the English translation seems to have been out of print for years!

The novel was written as the protests of the peace movement against American nuclear missiles reached their height. Jersild was a member of a Swedish peace group. “Efter floden” is a pessimistic story about the aftermath of a nuclear war. Most of humanity has been killed by nuclear strikes, plagues, floods and remaining radioactivity. The population of Sweden seems to be entirely wiped out. The scattered survivors from other Nordic countries have formed war-bands who mostly roam at sea. Homosexuality is rampant, since women are scarce. The plot of the novel is set about 40 years after the war on an island in the Baltic Sea. The island is ruled by ex-cons who left their prison facility during the chaos after the war. They maintain an uneasy truce with a “Catholic” convent. A mysterious zombie-like cult lives in the interior of the island. Life is nasty and brutish, but surprisingly long, most of the islanders being in their sixties or older, suggesting that they remember the world before the “flood”. The sole exception is Edvin, the clueless narrator and main character of the story, who was born after the war.

For a novel written to support the peace movement, “Efter floden” is surprisingly apolitical. We never learn who started the war or why. The survivors refuse to talk about it, and most of the religious people blame themselves or the general sinfulness of humanity, rather than any specific political actors. This, of course, is a deliberate ploy from Jersild's side to avoid discussing partisan politics. However, it also makes the novel unconvincing. Surely, the first thing survivors of a nuclear holocaust would like to know is who did it, and find anyone remotely associated with that cabal! One of the characters, the cynical philosopher Petsamo, is probably the author's alter ego.“Efter floden” ends on an ultra-pessimistic note, with the islanders (who finally manage to create something resembling an ordered community) being murdered by Sami invaders. The Sami in their turn succumb to a plague, and in the last chapter, the island is taken over by rats. It's implied that the rest of the human species is gone, too. Nature, by contrast, survives. Some species, such as gulls, actually thrive in the post-apocalyptic world.

I never read “Efter floden” when it was first published, and I don't know if it would have spurred me to join the peace movement, or simply twisted my mind into fits of despair. Today, the novel feels pass its pull date, since the threat of an all-out nuclear war receded considerably after the end of the Cold War. The scenario would make more sense, if projected centuries into the future, after devastating climate change has reduced the Earth's population and people refuse to think about the old world since it's seen as evil. But even then, I doubt that existential angst will be the main feeling present in homosexual war bands…