Freddy’s Book

Freddy’s Book by John Gardner (1980). Published by Ballantine Books. 214 pages.

The story of Freddy’s Book starts in modern times, narrated in the first person by a chummy professor named Winesap, open minded and jolly, a professor of something called “Psycho-history. Winesap is a refreshing character, genuinely optimistic and kindly, free from all the overblown vanity and professional jealousy that characterize academic characters in most modern literature. It’s especially noteworthy that he seems to be a champion of the talents of the young: he is easily inspired by the prospect that one of the students he lectures to may be “some young Gibson or Macaulay not yet conscious of how good he is.” At a party, Winesap meets a crotchety, mean-tempered professor named Agaard, a scholar of Scandanavian history whom Winesap admires academically even though he finds him personally repulsive. After accepting an invitation to Agaard’s house, Winesap then patiently sits by and endures a barrage of criticism hurled at him by Agaard: real history should be confined to fact, not fiction and fancy. In Agaard’s eye, Winesap represents a sign of fatal decadence.
Why, then, does Agaard invite Winesap to his house at all? The answer has to do with his son, Freddy. Described by his own father as a monster, Freddy Agaard stands seven feet tall and has voluntarily locked himself in a room filled with books. He shows signs of being a genius, but the real nature of his intelligence remains a mystery because he refuses to show anyone the book he’s written. Agaard knows that Freddy admires the work of professor Winesap, and hopes that Freddy will show his book to Winesap, which he eventually does, dropping it off for him in the dead of night.
The book is called King Gustav and the Devil. The first 57 pages of Freddy’s Book tells the story of how Winesap gets possession of the book on a cold, snowy Wisconsin night and the rest of the novel consists only of the text of this strange story Freddy has written. We never find out what Winesap’s reaction to the book is, we never find out whether Freddy eventually is able to escape his self-imposed isolation. But the framing story of Freddy, Winesap and Agaard does serve to prime our minds for the fact that we’re embarking on a weird journey into a narrative terrain very remote from anything we’d expect from contemporary American fiction.
The story concerns Gustav Vasa of Sweden, an actual historical figure, and his faithful friend, the knight Lars-Goren. Lars-Goren is a taciturn man, who is “considered to be of great intelligence, for though he thought slowly, he thought clearly and soundly, so that again and again his opinions were found to be more valuable in the end than the opinions of men quicker and more dazzling.” Indeed, throughout the story Lars-Goren’s thinking process is so slow that he seems entirely inactive. He basically acts as a passive, but very reflective witness as he watches his friend Gustav Vasa be tempted by the Devil himself into starting a revolution against Denmark for Swedish independence. While the plot is filled with historical upheavals, with insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, conspiracies and military campaigns, all these events occur at such a remote distance to the plot that we get the sense that these are merely a mask for something that is emerging much more slowly: the birth of a new sort of civilization.
The most striking element of the story is the Devil, who walks freely about, takes on all sorts of forms, and often makes no secret as to who he is. His role is always to entice more turmoil and bloodshed. He appears on all sides of every conflict, counseling not only Gustav Vasa but also the Danish King Kristian and the supremely cynical Bishop Brask.
We get the sense that for the Devil, all the constant struggle and change in government actually represents a sort of stasis: as long as people keep sowing conflict, the human spirit can never grow.
And the Devil seems farthest away during the prolonged and serene reveries of Lars-Goren as he turns his back on the business of helping found a kingdom and visits his estate, taking joy in seeing his children going up and reflecting on the duties a feudal lord bears to his peasantry. He is especially touched when he sees Bernt Notke’s statue depicting St George’s slaying of the Dragon, a statue that comes to symbolize for him the notion that the Devil himself can eventually be overthrown.
Although we never see an actual glimpse of Freddy again, his character traits do keep popping up in the narrative of King Gustav and the Devil. For instance, take a look at some of the things Winesap says to encourage Freddy:
“It’s not easy writing books! You know, that’s the one place where all human beings are equal . . . whatever we may seem to be—humpbacked, tall or short, pale or ruddy, never mind . . . when we pick up that pencil we’re all in the same boat . . . A man may say anything when he’s just talking . . . but when he’s writing he ha time to think it over and re-do it until it’s right.”
This description of slow, deliberative thought complements the description of Lars-Goren’s own process of circumspection. And the recollections of Bishop Brask also recall the bookish nature of Freddy:
“When I was young, I was a great reader of books. They were my chief pleasure—my very life. . . But books are expensive and you’d be surprised how easily they burn, if the fire gets hot enough. And so one involves oneself in money-grubbing and politics, even war. For the luxury of reading the gentle thoughts of Plato or St. Ambrose, or sharing the pastoral meditations of the Emperor who turned his back on Rome to run a chicken farm—for the supreme pleasure of musing at one’s ease on the glorious illustrations of the Arabs or the masters of Byzantium—one turns one’s whole attention to manipulating fools full of bloodthirts and ambition . . . crushing underfoot all that God and the philosophers have stood for.”
In the end, Lars-Goren and Bishop Brask are sent out to the frozen waste of Lappland on what appears to be a fool’s errand—they must kill the Devil. During the journey across the vast expanse of land, there is little for them to do but talk, debating lofty issues. Brask seems to dominate the discussion, bolstered as he is by his extensive knowledge of philosophy, but Lars-Goren, the man of few words, is the one who proposes new and challenging ideas—a model for tolerance and universal human decency that challenges Brask’s cynicism.
Interestingly, the opening, modern, section of Freddy’s Book reads very much like a contrivance, whereas the fictional story of Lars-Goren feels far more genuine for all its fantastical elements. A modern reader may well be put off by the long sections of philosophical discussions at the end of the book. I think we’ve all been somewhat entrained to interpret novels as plot outlines for movies and there’s a waning recognition of the fact that they can also serve as a wonderful nursery for meaningful ideas and ways of looking at life. In this book, John Gardner seeks to remind us that great ideas may linger locked away for generations inside labyrinths of obscurity unless we engage that most enlightened and democratic forms of action: careful, patient, open-minded listening.