The Circus by Jonas Karlsson

First published in Sweden in 2017; published in translation by Hogarth on January 28, 2020

The Circus lies somewhere on the border between surrealistic and realistic. It might best be categorized as a psychological mystery that challenges the reader to decide whether the evidence supplied by the narrator supports the conclusion he has drawn. The plot revolves around the disappearance of a man at a circus — he apparently entered a mirror, and like Alice, left this dimension and entered some secret realm. Or did he?

The narrator is invited to the circus by his friend, Magnus Gabrielsson. They haven’t spoken in a year and the narrator regards their meeting as a social obligation he needs to get out of the way. A circus magician announces that he will make a member of the audience disappear. Magnus volunteers. When the magician directs Magnus to walk behind the mirror, the narrator can see Magnus’ reflection in the mirror but cannot see Magnus. The act ends when the magician removes the mirror. The narrator expects to find Magnus at the intermission but Magnus cannot be found. Nor can he be found in the days that follow. Nor can rumors about his disappearance be confirmed.

We learn that the narrator was a friendless child until he met Magnus. The narrator spent his school hours listening to music on his Walkman (he was more fond of synth than hard rock). When he noticed Magnus hanging around the periphery of the school playground, he struck up a conversation about music. They bonded, although the narrator did most of the talking. Magnus absorbed the narrator’s music lectures, learning as much as possible about the bands Magnus recommended.

At some point, the narrator realizes “there was another life outside the claustrophobic little world Magnus and I constructed.” He imagines himself befriending a popular kid named Dennis until Dennis steals his Walkman. So much for the wider world.

As an adult, the narrator’s only friend is Jallo, who he met at a summer camp. When the narrator tells Jallo about Magnus’ disappearance, Jallo suggests an address the narrator should visit. The narrator is surprised when, after some false starts, he finally visits the correct address, but the surprise brings him no closer to solving the disappearance of Magnus.

Soon after Magnus disappears, the narrator begins to receive telephone calls from someone who never speaks. Is it Magnus? Or perhaps the ghost of Magnus? Music sometimes plays in the background, but is it music that Magnus would play? Sometimes the narrator plays music for the silent caller. Near the novel’s end, they carry on a conversation by playing songs to each other, a conversation that gets its content from the song titles.

All of this is strange but intriguing. Those attributes are the signature of a novel by Jonas Karlsson. Thanks to the narrator’s interaction with Jallo, the reader will come to suspect that the truth behind Magnus’ disappearance is quite different than the narrator believes it to be. Yet the ending suggests that even the explanation that Jallo proposes might not be true. Everything in a Karlsson novel is ambiguous because, well, isn’t life?

Reading a Karlsson novel is like taking a break from reality, or at least from the way we are accustomed to perceiving reality. Karlsson’s novels are always grounded in a philosophical view of existence. This one suggests that the world is a circus (or as Shakespeare suggested, a stage) and life is nothing but an attempt to impose order on chaos. Order is an artificial construct, one of our own devising, an unnatural state but perhaps a necessary one if we are to muddle through a life that only has the meaning we assign to it. Whether or not the reader accepts or rejects that philosophy, fiction that tells an absorbing story while inviting the reader to consider life from a different perspective is always worthwhile. And in the case of a Karlsson novel, it is always entertaining.

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The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson

Published in Sweden in 2011; published in translation by Hogarth on July 12, 2016

If Kafka had a sense of humor, if he had been less dark and gloomy, he might have written The Invoice. The novel imagines a scenario in which irrational rules are imposed and people have no choice but to follow them without understanding why. But unlike Kafka’s Josef K, the bureaucrats in The Invoice are only too happy to explain his obligations to the novel’s narrator, although in terms he can’t possibly understand. Of course, every time the narrator meets with the bureaucrats, his efforts to make things better only worsen his predicament.

The Invoice is Jonas Karlsson’s latest contribution to the field of absurdist literature, following The Room. While The Room is darkly amusing, The Invoice is brightly amusing. It is a novel that reminds us to value all the small things that make us happy, notwithstanding the bureaucrats who make a mission of impeding joy.

The unnamed narrator of The Invoice receives a bill for 5.7 million kroner. He doesn’t know what the bill is for, but he is confident that he didn’t incur the debt. He also knows he doesn’t have 5.7 million kroner. After he gets a second bill, he calls the number on the invoice and after a long wait, speaks to a live person who tells him that he is being billed for the experiences that have made him happy. It seems as if Sweden has a happiness tax, although it’s actually being implemented worldwide. An interesting idea, although in the United States an anger tax would probably generate more revenue.

The narrator’s problem is that he isn’t angry often enough, and so has incurred a huge debt for the things (like sunshine) that make him happy. With a job in a video rental store and no girlfriend, it doesn’t seem as though he should have accrued such a large debt. He’s so desperate for female companionship, in fact, that he develops a crush on the administrator he keeps phoning to discuss his inability to pay the debt. One of the novel’s points, I think, is that it’s possible to make a connection with another person under even the most unlikely circumstances.

Like The Room, The Invoice pokes fun at cabined, bureaucratic thinking. But it also sends a life-affirming message. The narrator really doesn’t realize he’s happy, even denies that he’s happy, because he has chosen not to take advantage of opportunities to be happy. He is a slave to habitual behavior. He lacks the spontaneity to seize the moment. He goes with the flow. He envies people who have the ability to “look after themselves and sort things out.” Forced to think about his easy, uneventful life, he concludes “it’s pretty damn tragic.”

At the same time, it is exactly those traits that have caused his tax debt to mount. He doesn’t crave money. He doesn’t care that he has a dead-end job. He doesn’t worry that he has too few friends. He came through a break-up without feeling bad about himself. He’s content when he eats a combination of mint chocolate and raspberry ice cream, when he breathes in the mild summer air. To other Swedes, the narrator might seem dull and unambitious, but The Invoice seems to suggest that those traits are worth cultivating if they help us appreciate the joy of life’s simplest pleasures.

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The Room by Jonas Karlsson

Published in Sweden in 2009; published in translation by Hogarth on February 17, 2015

Björn, an ambitious new employee at the Authority, is a manipulative, narcissistic, anti-social jerk who nurtures his own sense of superiority while belittling everyone around him. But, as the reader soon learns, he is more than that. Just what additional labels should be applied to Björn -- paranoid? delusional? dangerous? -- is open to debate, but if ever a person deserved labeling, it is Björn. He is the sort of co-worker who makes people abandon the workplace in favor of working at home.

Björn stumbles upon an unoccupied room in his office building and comes to regard it as his lair, using it to give a private scolding to the worker who sits across from him and to enjoy an ambiguous assignation with the receptionist during an office party. He eventually comes to believe that the room does not fit within the confines of the building, a belief apparently confirmed by measurements showing that one side of the hallway is longer than the other.

Björn's co-workers perceive Björn to be standing in the hallway, staring at the wall. They say there is no room. Björn, on the other hand, believes himself to be the victim of a conspiracy to deny the room's existence. Bjorn believes he is "the only person who can see the truth in this gullible world."

Entering the room gives Björn a restful sense of freedom where "everything messy and unsettling vanished." We all need a room like that. On the other hand, we might want people like Björn to go inside their peaceful room (imaginary or not), lock the door, and stay there.

To the dismay of his co-workers, Björn's unconventional thinking also makes him well suited to the primary task of his office. His ability to "think outside the box" gives him an edge that co-workers lack. So how should the Authority deal with a supremely capable employee who is widely perceived as "a nutter"? Especially one who does his best work inside a nonexistent room? That is the key question posed by Jonas Karlsson's intriguing novel.

As irritating as Björn might be, his co-workers seem incapable of empathy or sensitivity. It is easy to forgive them for that -- nothing is more annoying than when annoying people achieve success -- but their insular and cliquish behavior actually lends support to Björn's paranoid sense that he is being persecuted. I think Karlsson is making the point that not everyone sees the world in the same way and that we need to make room for people who annoy us. Easier said than done but the lesson is a good one. The Authority needs to decide whether to take the good with the bad. Whether it makes the right decision in the novel's delicious ending is a question for the reader to ponder.

Karlsson's story is layered in subtle ways. It moves quickly, paying little attention to the development of characters other than Björn. The Room is a fresh, provocative novel, but it won't appeal to readers looking for straightforward storytelling and likable characters. It works well as a parable (although it is more complex than a typical parable) but it can also be taken as an entertaining work of absurdist or philosophical fiction.

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