Chapter 23 “Where horror abides”: Re-Reading Selma Lagerlöf’s Jerusalem in Jerusalem

Abstract

This chapter suggests a reading of the novel Jerusalem which, despite the different setting, relates it to the tradition of the Scandinavian novel of emigration to America, with its emphasis on the positive physical and moral contribution of the immigrants to the receiving country. In Lagerlöf ’ s novel, it is not biblically fostered conceptions of a heavenly Jerusalem that help the Swedish farmers survive and thrive in the real, conflict-ridden Levantine city, but their native, earth-bound values of hard work, cleanliness, and simplicity.