Lewi's Journey [Hardcover]

You wouldn't think that a novel dealing with the rise of the Pentecostal movement in Sweden would be so gripping. But the cooperation and later clash of two larger-than-life men as they built the church in Stockholm from its humble beginnings on Azusa Street in Los Angeles to its position as a major competitor to the Lutheran state church in Sweden is true drama on an epic scale. And from Stockholm, Lewi Pethrus went on to spread his form of the gospel all around the world. (The Pentecostal church in Brazil now numbers over 30 million members.) This riveting yet also philosophical tale delves deep into the source of religious feeling in general, and is a worthy successor to Enquist's magnificent THE ROYAL PHYSICIAN'S VISIT. Both flawlessly translated by Tiina Nunnally.

Attending in 1982 to the burial of Ephraim Markstrom, a former acquaintance, Enquist discovers the Christian diary (lebenslauf) this man kept all his life. An unusual kind of diary, exceptional in itself, since not the usual "closed" autobiography, but a great open question mark into the (true) story of the Swedish Revivalist movement.

The writer realizes that, with this death, a piece of the history of XX century comes to a close, a story that is both the story of Christian Revivalism, of the transformation of Swedish society in a modern society and the tale of a single conscience, a soul, with his mix of contradictions, grieves, doubt and faith, religious and political.

In particular, the diary focuses on that bleeding wound (the question mark) represented by the conflict inside the Pentecostal movement between Lewi, its historical founder, and Sven Lindman, one of its most revered voices, a disagreement that threatened to destroy it and in the end changed completely its aspect.

The open, recurring question is WHY all this happened?

A struggle for power? A struggle on matters of faith? Or a deep disagreement between two former friends?

Possibly all of them and maybe none of them.

If the story can be described with a single adjective, this is definitely "dense".

Lewi is unquestionably the leading role: like David he fight an uneven war, like Peter he feels to be the foundation of a movement, like Moses and like Christian of the Pilgrim Progress he is walking in an uncharted and unsafe land. He feels pain in struggling, he questions his soul and looks for justification from his God, he is at loss when it comes to explain... and at the same time the struggle changes him in the deep: no more Christian of Bunjam's "Pilgrim Progress" (whom he identify with) wandering in the uncharted land of sin... or maybe more like him... when it comes to call for the comfort of his faith and identify others like sinners (more like particular sins than particular souls).

The more he feels grace and salvation of God, the more he feels confident... but what happens to the others...?

The individual can only maintain absolute faith in the grace of an inscrutable but ultimately merciful God in the hope of salvation. Sinners must be repelled, kept outside the movement, no matter human pain and grief involved.

Peace is not now, peace is after, when everything will be over, when Christ will arrive.

Do not seek to be happy, seek to be deserving of happiness.

This is not at all an easy read, not the book you can flap now and then in a Sunday afternoon...

And definitely it's not easy to explain why this work is so interesting - and, in the end, so beautiful.

Possibly, again, because of its "denseness".

There is the magmatic European conscience, the poverty of the early century, the sense of urgency of the `30s and the gradual transition to freedom from want.

There's the attempt to understand the phenomenon of a hugely popular religious revival, of strict Lutheranism, often conflicting with "modern" attitudes... but none the less relevant aspect of XX century history.

Enquist is not formulating a judgement.

The participation of the writer is more sentimental (with an all pervading sadness) that rational: he does not judge, neither he tries to explain the religious experience, a kind of choice, a definitive choice, that goes well beyond right and wrong categories. But the description is consistent and the painting of early XX century very well rendered.

The style and rhythm have a distinct northern European flavour - the influence of Kierkegaard's existentialism, with his sense of tragedy, suffering and salvation, the pietistic sensibility and his sense of urgency and hard necessity (almost a re-interpretation of "Pilgrim Progress") - with a sprinkle of the great American novels of the '30 and '40 (Steinbeck especially).

The story ends leaving open questions about philosophical and political themes still debated today: the nature of community, the meaning of solidarity, the implication of faith in human relations, fundamentalism vs. tolerance, and in the end the ultimate meaning (not just interpretation, but fundamental sense) of human actions...

Possibly a true essence is to be found in delicate and recurrent metaphors (like the iceberg, the tombstones, the travel,...), hinting that every man - builder of empires included - is alone, lives alone and, in the end, dies alone, totally unable to communicate and share with others his inner self but by rare and unexpected glimpse.

A loneliness that is not confined to taste or feeling, but becomes tragically a parable of every life.

Lewi is undeniably alone. Alone, fragile and possibly saved by his faith.

As he says in his last speech:

"God saves each one, one by one.

It is in the single meeting with God, that you can find salvation".

One by one.

Before our Lord.

I just finished reading a remarkable novel and want to tell the whole world about my discovery. I see that a few other astute readers (perhaps from other nations?) (or sort of religious people with lots to say about religion?) have beat me to it, but the book has been out since March only, and I'm sure in years to come people will look back and say, "I took LEVI'S JOURNEY and Kevin Killian, you were sort of our John the Baptist who gyided our footsteps and pointed out the way to the door of Per Olov Enquist!"

Enquist is famous already in his native land, Sweden, and a previous book apparently won him some fans in the USA. But this book has a quality that will remind sensitive readers of some of the novels of Sigrid Undset, and for others it will take them right into the world that Marilynne Robinson opened up for us in GILEAD. Note, this is not a novel that throws the baby out with the bathwater. It's modernist, yes, but it is bold in its approach to the shadows and light of the pentecostal movement, showing that, while run by men in Sweden, it wouldn't have gained 250,000,000 converts without appealing to women too. The two men who fight head to head for the future of Pentecostalism are Pastor Lewi Oethrus and Brother Ephraim. In one dramatic chapter, Lewi conducts an experiment on a poor woman (Lydia) refusing to treat her by western medical standards, and letting God be the doctor. Ephraim goes along with this strange dogma up to a point, than he explodes and really lets Lewi have it, right between the eyes.

It's a heated battle, the kind you see in courtrooms or in Stanley Kramer pictures such as NOT AS A STRANGER or GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? I wish Kramer was still alive for he would immediately see the picture possibilities in LEWI'S JOURNEY, and I'm afraid for the rest of us it will sit there, a torpid, undigested mass of quasi-Christian Science, on the library shelves and why? Because people don't want to read another book, no matter how rewarding or life-enriching, about men battling over the bodies of women. As Enquist notes, "The Pentecostal movement was a mystery. It was not compassion that exalted the masses, or the battle for the poor, the most destitute, the lowly." And a bit later, "Somewhere within the radical pietism there was an alarming core that was not entirely theologically housebroken . . . Was there a God besides the Benefactor, Jesus Christ? Or was He all alone? Had radical pietism quietly abolished God and the Holy Spirit?"

It's a fun book with some haunting questions at its base. And the characters are well drawn enough to make you wish Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra were alive to play them (in the American version). Kudos to Tiina Nunnally for her sensitive translation of which I have given you glimpses. (And yes, there are two i's in "Tiina," unless I'm seeing double.

Handsome, religious, and proud, Enquist is a modern Tolstoy.