Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

In Sweden it is a question of balancing your feelings and spreading them out over the year: not too much and not too little. The Swedes have a special word for this – lagom. They pride themselves on this word being totally Swedish, and claim that it doesn’t exist in any other language. In Sweden you need to be lagom. A Swede rations his or her experiences. Only somebody who is lagom can keep their cool.

But in recent years Sweden has started to lose its footing. Lagom is getting a bit wobbly. Lagom has sprung a leak. Swedes are beginning to lose their minds.

It began back in the 1950s and 1960s with American cultural hegemony: a magnificent flood of sitcoms with canned laughter. Historians will come to see that it was Lucille Ball and her The Lucy Show that disturbed the equilibrium for all time. A red-haired dame in black-and-white TV, with conical breasts and a crazy laugh – it was simply hilarious, yet still attractive and human in some way. In and out through doors, up and down stairs. What was this? And why was it funny? How could the meek Swedes ever be the same again after this experience?

Then came the immigrants with their weird spicy food and hot feelings, which they liked to serve with joyful voices and wild gestures. They started to call each other and the Swedes ‘pal’, ignoring the fact that it actually takes a lifetime to acquire a friend in Sweden. And as if to really bowl these lagom -Swedes over, they started to mix all cultures any old how, their own as well as that of the Swedes: kebab on pizza, cinnamon in coffee, sprinkles on strawberries!

Other cultural imports that have created sensory distortion are Poetry Slam and Spoken Word. They are stage actors, poets, authors and stand-up comedians who in various ways perform on stage so that their texts will reach the public. There are no rules. The one who reaches them best, wins the public’s hearts. You can be funny, sincere, political, ironic, in fact anything at all that arouses emotions and makes the public feel they are an important part of a large, loud and weird world.

Summer meets autumn. Euphoria meets depression. The calendar has reached 6 September. This evening is the Spoken Word Festival, a party evening for brilliant texts. Not quite so geared to hysterical laughter as stand-up comedy, but just as memorable and entertaining. The best talents in the country are gathered here, and even the odd legend from abroad has been invited to join them.

When Titus Jensen gets to Södra Teatern, Stockholm’s alternative crowd has already started to meet up in the square outside the theatre. They hug one another and laugh. Hair in all colours of the rainbow, tattoos and piercings, funny clothes, new clothes, ragged clothes. Emotions and life. Nothing lagom as far as the eye can see.

Titus, however, is not especially colourful when he stumbles on the steps to the entrance. The black-clad figure with his shaved head is obliged to make use of the railing to ascend, a sight that is all too familiar. The pathetic Author with a capital A has come to provide entertainment for the people. And he looks just as sloshed as usual.

Not everybody thinks Titus Jensen is pathetic. Halfway up the steps he is stopped by an enthusiastic young couple. Both of them just as black-clad as Titus. They are bobbing up and down as they stand and both talking at the same time.

‘Oh, Titus, can we have your autograph? We love you. We got together when you read Manual for Housewives at the Peace & Love Festival last year. Like, without you we’d never have become a couple. You gave us love. Do you get it? You are the greatest!’

Titus stares at them. This has never happened before. Nobody has ever, in all of his career, expressed their love or admiration in such an unrestrained and direct manner. He takes the felt-tip pen and writes his name on their arms. The blood rushes to his cheeks and he feels the blush spread. A weird sensation. Somebody likes him. Indeed, two people like him. The couple bounce along further up the steps and Titus follows them with his gaze for a moment before moving on.

Inside the foyer, the marble floor makes the background buzz especially loudly. The intense theatre atmosphere is so strong you almost think you can hear a chamber orchestra tuning its instruments despite the fact that many a year has passed since there was an orchestra pit at Södra Teatern.

On the left, some young wardrobe attendants are leaning over the counter with nothing to do. It is still too warm for overcoats. Besides, wardrobe fees are not included in the budget for today’s young public. Instead, they slowly pour in through the doors to the right, up the staircase and towards the bar. No active cultural experience without stimulants. Titus follows along with the flow and wonders if he too will have time for something before his entrance. For the last few days, the very thought of performing has made him feel uncomfortable, even though his performance doesn’t necessitate a single minute’s preparation. He only has to be himself, to treat them to himself, he has tried to convince himself. As Eddie X sometimes shouts out when he introduces him on the stage: ‘Everybody has a bit of him in themselves. Yet there is only one Titus Jensen – and that is TITUS JENSEN!’

But nevertheless, today it doesn’t feel as simple as it usually does. Something important is absent.

When Titus gets to the top of the stairs and is about to enter the bar, somebody puts a hand on his shoulder. A strict voice:

‘Ticket please!’

Titus whirls round.

A big smile. Brilliant white teeth, velvet-brown eyes that can melt glaciers.

‘Nice to see you, Eddie,’ says Titus with a slight nod of his head.

‘You are late,’ says Eddie and puts his whole arm round Titus’ shoulders, giving him a half-hug. ‘It doesn’t matter. Come on in, we’ve time for a beer in the green room before we get started. Great to see you!’

Today Eddie X is wearing a knee-long batik tunic in various shades of purple. Down below, a pair of creased grey-black and rolled-up linen trousers stick out. On his feet, some shabby ox-blood coloured Dr Marten boots without laces. His dead straight Indian hair with orange and blue streaks is twisted into an erect ponytail. At the very top, his hair bushes out like a fountain above his head. There is something elevated about Eddie when he glides through the premises. He greets the public and shakes hands with a lot of them. Now and then he puts his left hand over the handshake as if to seal a lifelong contract of mutual love and fidelity.

It could be a magical evening.

Being drunk can be exhausting. But pretending to be drunk is even more of a drain on one’s resources.

Nervousness, abstinence and anxiety are riding Titus Jensen. At the moment he has the main role in the stage play of his life. Every single nerve is at maximum tension and at the same time that he is sweating profusely he must smother yawn after yawn. It is as if his body is screaming at him to fill up with oxygen. Everything to retain control of the situation.

He hasn’t got much more work left on his masterpiece and no way is he going to allow Eddie X to destroy anything. Eddie can go on thinking that Titus is a boozy has-been, but when the book is published, that love evangelist will be crushed once and for all. He will be crumbled into bits. The future belongs to Titus Jensen and The Best Book in the World.

In the green room Lenny is sitting and swigging a beer. He has thrown up one leg over the arm of his armchair and his foot bobs up and down in time with his shoulders which twitch now and then. He is all charged today; he is going to accompany Eddie’s text-reading with an amplified contrabass. Just him, Eddie X and a large stage. Today there won’t be any of the big band twitches from The Tourettes.