“Happiness is mom dad children and money”
“Johan Kling portrays a bleak time.”
“Lars Gustafsson’s short story collection Lucky people from 1981 is a survey of the different forms of happiness with a mixed collection of individuals. Everyone is happy in their own way, not least the reader who occasionally lyckliggörs of the language. Johan Klings novel, Happiness is a distant, younger cousin of Gustafsson’s book, but here, the language is loyal to the lack of happiness that is portrayed.”
“We meet David, a writer living from hand to mouth, despite the fact that he works in an office with something unclear. At the same time, or on the side, he is freelance, but what of his writings is all about remains hidden. He lives on Kungsholmen in stockholm, has a daughter at half-time, the Fia five years, and is divorced. He is alone, though not without friends. When he does not have the Fia or is in the office to pass his time with long walks and reflect on the weather and admire the views from the city’s bridges.”
“the Relationship with the Fia is creaking a little, she has been bored with the dad, which relieves pain. But without money or friends with children in the girl’s age it becomes not so fun for her, reason he. Their friends try to pull him in social life is not working well, somewhere comfortable he is with the privacy. When he meets Daisy, an old acquaintance, maybe flirt, and it turns out that she is a little interested in him, ridden by anxiety and dreams. But he chooses her away, most, convinces himself, for the Fia’s sake.”
“What does it consist of, happiness? Money? Honor? Respect? Love? Children? Wealth is hardly the answer, money only solves financial problems and makes possibly some other problems less burdensome. The honor is the extinction of the dinosaurs and the respect is in a day is reasonably a currency with a low exchange rate. Love and children, in David’s case, mainly the love not only to, but just as much from the child is here it that appears to be sufficient for his happiness.”
“the Strength in the language is how the little gray David depicts his life with an equally gray language. The boredom and the limited living space feels in every sentence to the point that you wonder how his friends really stands out with him, than more what it is that makes the beautiful Daisy to fall for him.”
“But it is this that is the point, how the new middle class in the Stockholm city centre in a silent, collective agreement decided that happiness is a condominium with mom dad children and a good economy. But it is not the usual svenssonlivet, but a life in which the child is declared to be holy.”
“What makes David most happy, it is when he receives Fia recognition. Without the opportunities that money and the right social life to give these acknowledgements get, but sufficient for David’s happiness. In this way, he is, despite the choice to keep themselves out of middle class ideals, a victim. The love from a child costs money.it is a unhappy time that Johan Kling portrays, which gives so little space for the largest of feelings.”
