Hello
Gentle Reader
Last
week the Swedish Academy had released they have appointed a new member to its
ranks: Mats Malm, a literature professor who has a specialization in ancient Nordic
languages. Professor Mats Malm, becomes the newest recruit for the Swedish
Academy, and will be formally elected during a ceremony on December 20th,
whereby he will take his seat Chair No. 11, along with two other newly elected
members: Justice Eric Runesson, and poet and author Jila Mossaed. Dramatist,
poet, and novelist Niklas Rådström, is said to have received a request to join
the Swedish Academy as well, but it appears has turned the offer down. Pro
Tempore Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Anders Olsson has stated
that Chair No. 13 formally held by Sara Stridsberg, will most likely remain
vacant for the remainder of the year. Anders Olsson believes the Swedish
Academy has found greater stability with the election of the three new members.
Anders Olsson had stated the goal is to host an election in the early spring to
fill Chair No. 13.
The
situation and predicament of Katarina Frostenson has once again been raised.
Anders Olsson stated it all depends on how, Frostenson responds to the request
she voluntarily resigns. In the event she chooses not to resign from the
Swedish Academy, she will be investigated with regards to the accusations and
allegations of her breaking the statutes of secrecy, as well as the statute of
conflict of interest. Otherwise, the situation of Katarina Frostenson remains unchanged;
as it sits in the precarious purgatory of ambiguity.
Despite
the waters of the Swedish Academy calming, back to their reflective glassy
sheen, a few grumbles and bubbles escape the recently restored façade:
In
an interview with the Times Literary Supplement Horace Engdahl commented on the
situation of the Swedish Academy and called the times dangerous. He linked the
recent social media movement (#MeToo) to the Reign of Terror in
post-revolutionary France. In this same interview Horace Engdahl, rejected the
depiction of fraternization he apparently had with Jean-Claude Aranult, the man
recently convicted and associated with the erupting scandal for the Swedish
Academy. During this interview Horace Engdahl also depicted himself as a causality
of the movement and accusations against Arnault, and firmly stands by the fact
everything he has stated and acted on, was done in with the hopes to sustain
and maintain the Swedish Academy through the crisis. Though I do believe Horace
Engdahl has in previous years always kept the Swedish Academy’s interests aligned
with his own; the events of the scandal and his behavior would be questionable as
to whether or not Engdahl was completely objective in his attempts to maintain
the reputation of the academy; or perhaps lost the objectivity to the twirling
swirls of the emotional undercurrents, as he sought to protect his friends:
Jean-Claude Arnault and Katarina Frostenson. During the scandal, Horace Endgahl
made churlish and bullheaded public accusations against the former Permanent
Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, as well as other members who
left the Swedish Academy in the wake of the crisis. It became apparent that
Horace Engdahl played politics during the crisis of the Swedish Academy, and he
was publicly tried in the court of public opinion, where he was found guilty.
During this time, Horace Engdahl was not interested in facilitating any
dialogue with any member of the public of the time or the Swedish Academy
itself, instead Engdahl dictated his interpretation of the facts, and propagated
them with propagandist zeal. With regards to himself depicting himself as a
victim during the situation, who had been unjustly been convicted—it would not
be insufficient to state the grounds of his appeal are meritless. To this day,
Horace Engdahl showcases and states implications he finds the conviction of
Jean-Claude Arnault baffling, and even unwarranted. He lambasts and decries the
treatment of Katarina Frostenson as unsavory and disagreeable, stating since
the scandal and conviction of her husband she has always been referred to in
the context of either the situation or as the wife, never as a prominent and
groundbreaking poet of her generation. On these grounds, Horace Engdahl states,
history will judge Katarina Frostenson with greater light, in which it will
highlight her poetry over her marriage and the scandal of the Swedish Academy.
Though
I do not necessarily disagree with everything Horace Engdahl has stated in his
interview, it is easy to see how he erupted with such scolding venom during the
scandal. I must concede that I do agree that the social media movement (#MeToo)
has begin to lose its own merits, where it believes it can curtail the
procedures of justice and the principles and pillars of a fair trial, whereby
it seeks to publicly deface, slander, tar and feather the accused without any consequence
to their own actions, and without providing any evidence other than
accusations, allegations, with no to little testimony. With regards to Katarina
Frostenson, I retain my stance that Frostenson had by all legal definitions—as
well as definitions of reasonable common sense—would see that she had behaved
and acted without moral probity or a sober ethical perspective in mind. Together
with Jean-Claude Arnault (her husband) she had accepted financial assistance from
the Swedish Academy, to help run the club Forum, again with her husband. This
proven allegation, states alone she should have been expelled from the academy;
but alas thanks in part to the machinations of Horace Engdahl, Sture Allen and Göran
Malmqvist, the academy (by majority—with former member Sara Stridsberg abstaining)
voted to allow Katarina Frostenson to retain her seat, and the subsequent
scandal ensured, leaving the academy in its current predicament. Despite her
lack of business acumen as well as probity and sober moral conscious, it is a
shame that the poetry of Katarina Frostenson is now considered a secondary
feature of her character, within the reflection of the current scandal and
situation. Before the scandal, Katarina Frostenson was considered a
revolutionary and striking feminist voice of poetry during the late seventies
and eighties in Sweden. She would later be elected to the Swedish Academy in
the early nineties; yet her poetic endeavors have not diminished during her
appointment to the academy, where she began to write and produce experimental
dramatic texts and plays. In two-thousand and sixteen she would receive the
Nordic Council’s Literature Prize, for poetry collection: “Sånger och former,”
(English: “Songs and Formulae,”). Yet as someone once told me: shit sticks
longer then honey—and unfortunately it appears to be the case here for Katarina
Frostenson and her poetry.
All
of this However, my dear Gentle Reader is all rather old news. Most of it took
place a week ago, or more. During that time, I suffered a terrible bout of
influenza and was not able to report on these events as they had occurred and
for that I do apologize. Finally: I am on the mend and am happy to report the
above information. I suspect now and moving forward, Gentle Reader, the Swedish Academy will fall back into its usual routine, whereby all inquiries will be met with stony silence or indifference.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
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