Hedenvind och Boccaccios kock

Abstract

Conny Svensson, Hedenvind and Boccaccios kock (The Cook of Boccaccio). It is here argued that in the novel Boccaccios kock (1954) by the Swedish author Gustav Hedenvind-Eriksson the narrative strategy aims at creating expectations as to literary genre, which are never fulfilled. Thus, the prelude offers obvious associations to the classical historical novel in the tradition of Walter Scott, but then historical illusion is abandoned by means of anachronistic allusions to the author's own time. Existential questions concerning life and death are formulated as in a philosophical dialogue, but answers are never provided in the conversations. Instead this novel turns out to be an Allkunstwerk combining different genres, and also a metaliterary text about itself and conditions of literature in general. Paradoxes frequently recur; events are timeless as well as time-bound, man is immutable and changeable at the same time. The title of the novel suggests this double nature of man being earth­bound like the cook but also a dreaming visionary like Boccaccio the poet