Brødrene Løvehjerte: Update One

In the opening pages of Brødrene Løvehjerte it became clear that this book would be just as genre confused as Mio Min Mio, which is to say that were it a human, it would probably have some serious gender identity issues.

"Det er nesten som et eventyr, syns jeg, og litt som en spøkelseshistorie også. Og likevel er det sant alt sammen. Men det vet nok ingen andre enn Jonatan og jeg."

My translation: "It is almost like an adventure, I think, and a little like a ghost story too. And just the same it is all true. But no one knows it except for Jonathan and I."

I am now five chapters in. So far, I am struck by the similarities with Mio Min Mio. I'll talk about those at the end. But first, a recap of what I have read so far.

A young boy starts off narrating. He wants to tell us about his brother. Okay, so the narrator's name is Karl, and he is dying. He lives with his mother and brother in a small apartment. His father went off to sea when they were young and never returned, and every night their mother sings about him and about him returning to her after death in the form of a snow white dove. (A really sad song).

And now Karl is dying too, but at least Jonatan is perfect, almost "som en eventyr-prins" - "Like a fantasy prince". Everyone thinks so, and everyone pities Karl who has crooked legs and coughs all the time and is wasting away. But Karl doesn't know that he is actually dying, not until here in this chapter, when he overhears someone saying it. And then -

"Jeg ble lei meg, naturligvis, og så forferdelig redd, og det ville jeg ikke at mor skulle se. Men jeg snakker med Jonatan om det da han kom hjem.
"Vet du om at jeg skal dø?" sa jeg og gråt.
Jonatan tenkte seg om en liten stund. Han hadde kanskje ikke lyst til å svare, men til slutt sa han, "ja, det vet jeg."
Da gråt jeg enda mer."

My translation:

"I was upset, naturally, and so frightfully afraid, and I didn't want mother to see. But I spoke with Jonathan about it when he came home.
"Do you know that I shall die?" I said and cried.
Jonathan thought for a moment. He perhaps didn't want to answer, but finally he said, "Yes, I know."
Then I cried even more."

In other words, a very cheery beginning to the story. But don't worry, it gets much worse before the next chapter is over. :D We're still in chapter one, though, and Jonathan tells Karl, who he calls Kavring, that it's not so bad to die, because when you die, you go to Nangijala. Now this is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's distinctly non Christian. Not saying that I expect Scandinavian books to be strongly Christian, but it's not frightfully common for older, western Children's literature to fly so strongly in Christianity's face. Another reason is - why does Jonathan know about Nangijala, and no one else? I could split this last into a few more, but you'll probably think of them yourself if you ponder it for a moment. Karl isn't instantly comforted, I'm not sure he believes in Nangijala 100%. Jonathan is up with him late into the night, telling him all about Nangijala and how beautiful and exciting it is, that people can have adventures night and day.

Then chapter two, which begins very ominously, having read the previous chapter.

"Nå kommer jeg til det vonde. Det som jeg ikke orker å tenke på."

MT: "Now I am coming to the painful part. The part I can't bear to think about."

My thoughts at this juncture: In chapter one, we had a poor, miserable family of three, a lost at sea father, a lonely mother, a dying child, and his brother comforting him with some strange story about the afterlife. And -now- we're coming to the painful part, the part our narrator can't bear to think about? Uh oh.

This is what they mean - we go from slow misery to savage fire. Kavring is home alone when his apartment catches on fire. Jonathan is on his way home from school and sees the building burning. He runs inside before anyone can stop him, and the staircase collapses underneath him. But he reaches his brother, and takes him onto his back, and then jumps out of he window. He dies, of course, and this is our comfort, that the newspaper says he dies 'almost instantly'. The almost was bad enough, I thought, but at least it was almost instant. I imagined him being knocked unconscious instantly, at the very least.

This section brought me so many internal questions. I really struggled with it. I still do. Jonathan had his whole life ahead of him, a good life, too, it looked like, and he was the only person his mother had left in the whole world. But he threw away his own life and made his mother's already bad life even worse in order to give his brother about one more week of coughing and wasting away.

We can say what we want about the heat of the moment, about sibling bonds, about the fragility of life, about destiny - the truth is that it may make me evil, but I am almost certain I wouldn't have done what he did. If it had been on the first floor, maybe. On the third floor, no. It's close, I mean, it comes down maybe even to which floor, but it's too much, too much for too little.

But for the purposes of the book, I have come to terms with the scene. It gives an interesting effect, burning away and almost cathartically cleansing the misery that hung over the first chapter in "En voldsom brann" - "An intense fire". And I guess that Jonathan's action is half to establish him as perfect, and half to:

A.) Show the audience that he was not afraid of death, most likely because of Nangijala.

B.) Have him help Kavring see that he was not afraid of death, and that Kavring needn't be.

C.) Both A. and B.

Lingering problems remain the fact that it doesn't help Kavring with death, not really, he just adds a guilt complex and a lot more crying to his last week, and the issue of the mother, who is still a person, despite not being a child. I'm greatly surprised if she isn't institutionalized or doesn't kill herself after this.

And that Jonathan didn't really die instantly.

"...mens vi lå på bakken etter at vi hadde hoppet. Han lå nesegrus først, men det var noen som snudde på ham, og jeg så ansiktet hans. Det rant litt blod fra den ene munnviken, og han kunne nesten ikke snakke. Men det var likevel som om han prøvde å smile, og han fikk til et par ord. 'gråt ikke, Kavring, vi ses i Nangijala!'...
Bare det sa han og ikke mer. Så lukket han øynene, og folk kom og bar ham bort, og jeg så ham aldri igjen."

MT: "...While we lay on the ground after we jumped. He lay facedown first, but someone turned him, and I saw his face. A little blood ran from the corner of his mouth, and he almost couldn't speak. But it was as though he tried to smile anway, and he managed to say a few words. 'Don't cry, Kavring, we'll see each other in Nangijala!'...
Only that he said, and nothing else. Then he closed his eyes, and people came and carried him away, and I never saw him again."

And then there was the heartbreaking letter than Jonathan's teacher wrote to the newspaper after the accident:

"Kjære Jonatan Løve, burde du ikke egentlig hete Jonatan Løvehjerte? Husker du da vi leste i historietimen om en modig engelsk konge med navnet Rikard Løvehjerte? Husker du at du sa da, 'tenk å være så modig at det står om det i historiebøker etterpå, så modig kunne jeg aldri vært.' Kjære Jonatan, selv om det ikke kommer til å stå om deg i historiebøker, var du likevel modig nok i det avgjørende øyeblikk, du var en helt så god som noen. Din gamle lærerinne kommer aldri til å glemme deg. Klassekameratene vil også huske deg lenge. Det blir tomt i klassen uten vår glade, vakre Jonatan. Men den gudene elsker, dør ung. Jonatan Løvehjerte, hvil i fred!"

MT: "Dear Jonathan Lion (Last name), should you not really be called Jonathan Lionhearted? Do you remember when we read in history about a brave English king named Richard the Lionhearted? Do you remember that you said, 'think of being so brave that it stood in the history books afterwards, I could never be so brave.' Dear Jonathan, although you may never come to be in the history books yourself, you were just as brave in that crucial moment, you were a hero as good as any. Your old teacher will never forget you. Your classmates will remember you a long time as well. It is empty in our class without our happy, beautiful Jonathan. But whom the Gods love, die young. Jonathan Lionhearted, rest in peace!"

Another pagan comment, interestingly. But a very sweet letter, it almost made me cry.

But surely this is all that chapter 2 can fit? Nope, not at all. After a few pages of Kavring's guilt and angst, the dove from mother's story comes, and Kavring knows it is Jonathan, coming to visit him. And then he can hear Jonathan's voice, telling him to hurry up and come to Nangijala. And then Kavring feels good and writes a note to his mother,

"Gråt ikke, mamma" Vi ses i Nangijala!"

MT: "Don't cry, mama! We'll see each other in Nangijala!"

And then he dies. And then he is in Nangijala.

Jonathan is still a lot bigger and prettier and more perfect. But Jonathan is no longer sick, and he can swim now, and the brothers already have a house in Nangijala in a beautiful place called Kirsebærdalen (Cherry Valley). We get a lot of description about this and happy moments between the reunited brothers, and they have rabbits and horses.

But there are hints that not all is perfect outside of their valley... or maybe, just maybe, even within it.

"Ja, akkurat," fortsatte han, "en ung og frisk og god tid som det er lett og enkelt å leve i."
Men så ble han mørk i øynene.
"I hvert fall her i Kirsebærdalen."

MT: "Yes, exactly," he continued, "A young and fresh and good time when it is easy and simple to live."
But then he went dark in the eyes.
"In any case, here in Cherry Valley."

Btw, I don't like how Cherry Valley sounds, so I'm just going to say Kirsebærdalen from no on, because otherwise it sounds like I am describing the backstory to Candy Land.

We meet a woman named Sofia, neither young nor old, and a man named Gullhanen who owns a tavern-inn and seems friendly enough, and an odd guy named Huburt. But something is strange about Sofia, even though she and Jonathan seem to be friends. And Jonathan is keeping something from Karl (They decided he doesn't have to be called Kavring anymore, now that they are in Nangijala... :S), and Karl doesn't really mind, but Karl pesters Jonathan about when they are going to start having good adventures, and Jonathan says,

"Du kan tro at det fins spennende ting som ikke burde vært til."

"You can believe that there are exciting things that should never have been."

A strange thing to say. But now let's play Compare and Contrast with Mio Min Mio.

What do both books have?

- A main character who lives in our world and is unhappy.
- A back of the book which only really concerns our real world.
- Travel to a new world and getting away from certain miserable conditions found in our world.
- A main character who gets a new name in the new world.
- Two boys, the main character and a boy who knows more about the new world than him.
- Lavish, beautiful descriptions of the new world.
- Hints of darkness in the seemingly perfect new world.

I actually keep waiting for them to mention the EVIL KNIGHT KATO. Ah, I'm going to miss typing that. XD But... what is different about Brødrene Løvehjerte?

It is quite a bit darker and more serious than Mio Min Mio. Instead of an escape via genie from disinterested foster parents, we have death and the afterlife. The rumours of darkness come more quickly, and with a slightly more sinister tone. Don't get me wrong, THE EVIL KNIGHT KATO was plenty evil, he was just childishly, rediculously, stereotypically evil. I mean, come on, the earth trembled to hear his name. We don't yet know the nature of the evil in Brødrene Løvehjerte, but it seems slightly more... adult. And fitting in with these, the book is also a bit harder to read than Mio Min Mio. Not by a lot, but I have come up against several tricky sentence structures, a few words natives have told me they have never used, and an equal number of words to look up, even though I recognize many, many words from already having read Mio Min Mio.