Books: King Christina

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CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN—Margaret Goldsmith—Doubleday, Derail ($2.50). When Greta Garbo's latest picture was released this week, cinemaddicts learned an historical fact: there was once a ruler of Sweden named Christina. But Authoress Goldsmith's biography gives a clearer picture of what manner of woman she was than Hollywood would ever dare. Not a first-rate book, Christina of Sweden at least gives U. S. readers a glimpse of one of the lesser-known figures of history. Only child of the great Gustavus Adolphus, Christina (1626-89) should have been a man, for she always acted like one. Short, ugly and unfeminine, she was a bright student and a hard worker. She liked men's company, the more Rabelaisian the better, but the idea of marriage horrified her. When she came to the throne after her father's death, she let it be clearly understood that there never would be a prince consort. Her bedfellow was a lady-in-waiting. Personally popular with her subjects, she soon got into hot water because she imported foreign intellectuals (notably Descartes) to liven up the heavy Scandinavian atmosphere. When she decided that she had had enough of being ruler, she amazed Europe by abdicating, going to Rome to live. There, although she had turned Roman Catholic she was a constant source of embarrassment to the authorities by her loud, eccentric and unladylike behavior. On a visit to the King of France and in the presence of the entire court "she often rested her feet on a chair as high as the one on which she was sitting." laughed at jokes in the theatre which should have made her blush, swore freely whenever she felt like it. When she finally died in Rome she ordered that her epitaph should read simply: "Christina lived for 63 years." Idaho Dreiser