”Man vill gärna berätta”

Man-kerronnan luonnoton luonnollisuus ja Daniel Sjölinin omaelämäkerrallinen Oron bror

• Heta Marttinen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74896

Abstrakti

The Unnatural Naturalness of Man-Narration and Daniel Sjölin’s Autobiographical Oron Bror

Daniel Sjölin’s autobiographical debut novel Oron bror (2002) is about two brothers who are searching for their childhood home. During the journey, the little brother, the I-narrator, recalls detailed episodes from his past. In these retrospective chapters, narrated in present tense, the protagonist is referred to by the indefinite pronoun man. The article focuses on this peculiar narrative feature of Sjölin’s novel. Firstly, the article examines the functions of man in autobiographical context. The analysis of Sjölin’s novel shows that, on the one hand, man functions quite similarly to the more conventional third-person pronoun: the speaker uses man in order to distance him/herself from the person (s)he once was. On the other hand, because the pronoun man can also refer to the speaker, the choice of this particular pronoun highlights the importance of the past and memories in the development of the self and personality. Secondly, the article discusses the nature of man from the viewpoint of natural and unnatural narration. In fictional narratives, the use of man can be understood as odd or unnatural: it is distinctively unconventional and causes invariably an estranging effect. However, it is noteworthy that man can be used in lieu of personal pronouns, which is, for example in Swedish, a common feature in “natural”, spoken language. Due to these opposite aspects, it is problematic to define man-narration as either natural or unnatural. The article poses the question whether narrative devices like man should be defined as “non-unnatural”.