8 /10 1 Votes8
4/5 Adlibris Original title Den allvarsamma leken Published in English 2001 Originally published 1912 Page count 422 Adaptations A Serious Game (2016) | 4/5 Bokus 3.9/5 Goodreads Translator Eva Claeson Publication date 1912 Pages 422 Publisher Albert Bonniers förlag Country Sweden | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Serious Game (Swedish: Den allvarsamma leken) is a 1912 novel by Hjalmar Söderberg. It tells the story of a man and a woman who fall in love when young, and remain in love, but stay separated and marry others.
Three Swedish films based on the book have been produced: Den allvarsamma leken (1945), Games of Love and Loneliness (1977) and A Serious Game (2016).
Reception
The book was reviewed in Publishers Weekly in 2002: "Söderberg manifests a keen painterly eye for settings: Arvid and Lydia's affair plays out against a backdrop of serene Stockholm parks, crowded newspaper offices full of workaholic journalists and the spare bedrooms where their trysts take place—and in each locale, the details offered are just enough to create a world of sensations. Feminist readers may take umbrage at the male domination of Arvid's milieu—women get little or no air time, although they would seem to determine the course of the novel. Söderberg creates psychological suspense worthy of Dostoyevski, as Arvid's internal moral conflicts achieve the gravity of physical pain."