Myren och moderniteten : om natur, tid och plats i Sara Lidmans roman Hjortronlandet

Sammanfattning: With this essay I aim to illustrate the simultaneous tension between and entanglement of narratives of mire and modernity in Sara Lidman’s novel Hjortronlandet. Both mire and modernity are understood wide concepts; as temporal as well as spatial markers relating to nature. Through the theoretical frame of Kate Soper’s What is Nature?, Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place and Doreen Massey’s Space, Place and Gender I explore how concepts of nature, time and place are conceptualized, discussed and rewritten in the novel. The analysis shows that nature, time and place are simultaneously understood through narratives and through the intimate experience of material surroundings. Narratives are thus discussed and rewritten when applied to new material surroundings, and the natural surroundings are experienced through already established narratives. Hjortronlandet explores the lives of poor settlers in northern Sweden during the first half of the 20th century in their attempt to convert their allotted wetland to farmland. Throughout the novel the propaganda narratives of the Swedish state clash with the settlers’ intimate experience of place and natural surroundings. All the while, the settler project is undertaken on behalf of the state and plays a part in the creation of a unified modern state. I argue that though an exploration of the perceived dichotomy of mire and modernity presented by the state the entanglement of the two concepts is made visible in the novel. By examining ostensibly contrasting positions I conclude that the novel exposes the untenable approach of the modern state to material surroundings.