Product Description

"Inferno" and "From an Occult Diary" are for the most part based on a diary that Strindberg kept between 1896 and 1908 - undoubtedly the most troubled period of his life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #499546 in Books
• Published on: 1979-01-25
• Original language: Swedish
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

The Damage Done... by Absinthe
Strindberg is usually known for his plays, but these autobiographical novels are great. He documents a descent into madness and extreme supernaturalism in Inferno. As it says in the introduction it is likely that this was a psychosis caused by absinthe which contains a neurotoxin and was August's favorite tipple.

"From an Occult Diary" shows how nutty he was too, not religious stuff but a weird obsessive relationship with his wife which the book documents.

I found his distorted thinking made him seem lovable and all too human. It may depend on one's experiences and whether the religious stuff strikes a chord in the reader. Particularly Inferno is a clear depiction of madness which makes one wonder about how part of the mind can degenerate while another part is lucid enough to diarize and document all the disturbance. This may be a clear example of someone travelling through the narrow territory between Genius and Madness.

A diary account of a stylisted descent into madness
These two biographical books account Stringberg's growing paranoia in the world around him, a paranoia leading him to picture that satanic forces are colluding to send him insane. The second book is not much more than an edited and improved version of the first one and in someways does lose some of the first books original impact. But both books carry a fascinating power about them which makes them interesting from a empathetic perspective. Although some may find that the absence of strong plot lines frustrating.