Books: Wise Old Lady

THE RING OF THE LÖWENSKÖLDS— Selma Lagerlof—Doubleday, Doran ($3). Selma Lagerlöf (pronounced "Lahgerlef") has a broad, Scandinavian face with a broad thin mouth that is so straight it looks as if it turned down a little at the corners. She wears her grey hair piled up in a plain, old-fashioned pompadour. Her eyes are steely, steady. A little dimple in her left cheek keeps her from looking like a pretty grim old party. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1909). She is the only woman among the 18 "immortals" of the Swedish Academy. Reading one of Selma Lagerlof's books is like listening to the more-than-shrewd conversation of a wise old lady, realistic, worldly, understanding. The tale the old lady has to tell may seem a very homely narrative about very simple people, but before you have listened long you realize she is telling you about Life. Unless you are sure you know all about it, you would do well to listen.

The Ring of the Löwenskölds (pronounced "Levenskelds") is a trilogy, but its three novels are all self-contained. The first two—The General's Ring and Charlotte Löwensköld—have already been published; the new one, Anna Svärd, finishes the story of Karl Arthur Ekenstedt and Charlotte, the girl he was too proud to marry.

Karl Arthur was a bright young man and should have been a credit to the ministry, but he was headstrong and impulsive, and time and again mistook fanatical hunches for divine inspiration. To mortify his pride (and incidentally punish Charlotte) he married Anna, who was beautiful, but only a peasant peddler-girl. Anna was pleased as punch, and quite ready to love her handsome husband, but he wanted them to live like brother & sister. She got over that fence all right, but when she discovered Karl Arthur's platonic friendship with the organist's wife, shy Thea, Anna's native wit was not much help. Thea kept things on a spiritual plane, which baffled Anna considerably. Then Karl Arthur heard a call to resign his ministry and go to preach in the byways. Thea left her husband and went with him. Years later it was wise Charlotte Löwensköld who rescued Karl Arthur from the woman who was dragging him down, persuaded him to go to Africa as a missionary, eventually got Anna to join him there. Like most human arrangements the upshot of these lives was a patched-up compromise; but thanks to Selma Lagerlöf you feel the best has been made of a universally bad bargain. The Ring of the Löwenskölds is the Literary Guild choice for January.