Scandinavian literature summaries - Ievgen Sykalo 2026

Short summary - Return to Ithaca (Strändernas svall)
Eyvind Johnson

The Horror of the Homecoming

Can a man truly return home if the home he left no longer exists, and the man who left has been erased by the machinery of war? In Return to Ithaca (Strändernas svall), Eyvind Johnson transforms the triumphant homecoming of the Homeric epic into a harrowing study of trauma, political cynicism, and the crushing weight of destiny. Rather than a celebration of the Hero's Journey, the narrative presents a homecoming as a descent into a different kind of hell—one where the ghosts of the past are not found in Hades, but in the mirror.

Plot and Structure: The Architecture of Inevitability

The construction of the plot does not follow the linear progression of a voyage, but rather the tightening of a noose. The narrative is split between the stagnant peace of Calypso's island and the simmering political chaos of Ithaca. This structural duality creates a tension between stasis and entropy; while Odysseus attempts to remain frozen in a timeless void to escape his memories, Ithaca is evolving into a cold, calculated political arena.

The key turning points are not the monsters encountered at sea, but the psychological realizations that occur during the journey. The shift from the mythological to the mundane is most evident in the introduction of the Progress Party. By framing the suitors' quest for power in modern political terms, Johnson strips the story of its romanticism. The action is driven not by a desire for reunion, but by a divine mandate that Odysseus views as a sentence. The ending resonates with the beginning by closing the circle of entrapment: he begins as a prisoner of Calypso and ends as a prisoner of his own domesticity and the expectations of a society that demands he be a killer.

Psychological Portraits: The Masks of Ithaca

Odysseus is reimagined not as a cunning strategist, but as a man suffering from profound moral exhaustion. He identifies as a plowman, an agrarian soul forced into the role of a warrior. His central conflict is the struggle between his identity as a human and his function as a tool of the gods. The trauma of killing Astyanax serves as the psychological anchor of the novel; his attempts to distance himself from the act—claiming it was the War that killed the child, not him—reveal a fragmented psyche attempting to survive through dissociation.

Penelope is stripped of her role as the passive, grieving icon of fidelity. In Johnson's hands, she is a skilled political operator. Her weaving and unweaving of the shroud is not merely a stall tactic but a policy of survival. She is a woman who has learned to navigate power in the absence of the patriarch, and her yearning is not for a specific husband, but for the agency and vitality that the war stole from her. Her tragedy lies in the realization that the return of the King does not bring freedom, but replaces one form of patriarchal control with another.

Telemachus represents the death of innocence. He is caught between the idealized image of the father and the reality of the broken man who returns. His journey to Pylos and his encounter with the alcoholic, rambling Nestor serve as a brutal initiation into the truth: that the "heroes" of the past were often just drunkards and murderers. The son's inability to recognize the father underscores the theme of irreversible alienation.

Finally, Eurycleia emerges as the true architect of Ithaca's stability. She is the pragmatic engine of the household, managing finances and political rumors. Her "devoted smile" at the end of the novel is perhaps the most chilling image in the book, as it represents the domestic cage that finally closes on the Wanderer.

Ideas and Themes: The Deification of Violence

The central philosophical inquiry of the work is the nature of War as a Deity. Johnson posits that war is not merely a human activity but a force that demands sacrifice and creates a specific "breed" of men—those who have no time for tenderness. The gods are portrayed as cruel puppeteers who treat human suffering as a game. This is most evident when Odysseus reflects on how the gods prevent humanity from becoming sublime, ensuring instead that they remain instruments of blood.

The concept of Utis (Nobody) is developed as a metaphor for the loss of self. By claiming to be "Nobody," the protagonist attempts to escape responsibility for his war crimes. However, the novel argues that one cannot be "Nobody" when the world demands you be a King. The tension between the private self (the plowman) and the public mask (the executioner) is never resolved; the public mask eventually consumes the man.

The theme of political manipulation is woven through the Ithaca sequences. The "Progress Party" suggests that the greed of the suitors is not an anomaly but a symptom of a society where power is the only currency. The massacre of the suitors is not a restoration of justice but a violent reset that leaves the survivors—including the innocent children of the slaves—in a state of terror.

Style and Technique: The Modernist Myth

Johnson employs a narrative manner characterized by ironic detachment and temporal shifts. He blends the elevated language of the epic with the dry, almost bureaucratic terminology of modern politics. This juxtaposition creates a jarring effect that prevents the reader from slipping into a romanticized view of the setting.

The use of unreliable memory is critical. The scenes where Odysseus recounts his travels to the Phaeacians are presented as a conscious construction of a legend. He transforms volcanoes into cyclopes and whirlpools into monsters to fit the expectations of his audience. This suggests that "myth" is simply a lie told to make the chaos of existence bearable. The pacing mirrors the protagonist's mental state: lingering and lethargic during his time with Calypso, and frantic, blood-soaked, and claustrophobic upon his arrival in Ithaca.

Pedagogical Value: Deconstructing the Hero

For the student of literature, Return to Ithaca serves as a masterclass in intertextuality. It challenges the reader to question the "official" versions of history and the narratives of heroism that societies construct to justify violence. Reading this work carefully encourages a critical examination of the cost of victory.

Key questions for academic inquiry include:

• How does the reimagining of Penelope as a political actor change the moral center of the story?
• In what ways does the author use the character of Astyanax to critique the concept of "collateral damage" in war?
• Does the ending suggest that Odysseus has found peace, or has he simply transitioned from one form of captivity to another?