Evening star., 1943-08-01
Ride This Night
By Wilhelm Moberg. Double


Sweden has sacrificed much On the
altar Of peace, and from American
neWSpapermen stationed there have
come reports of a crisis the world
long knew to be inevitable. The
patience of even traditionally neu-
trail nation may be drawn too tightly
and when it is, a sullen anger rises
bitterly in its place. How long the
fires of Swedish wrath will smolder
before they are resolved in violent
action is not question for report
ers to explore, but for those op-
pressors who feed the flames, here is
a book that hurls defiant answer.
Wilhelm Moberg's Ride This
Night" has been read by a twelfth
of the Swedish population. A SINH
lar proportion in America would
mean the sale of 100000 copies.
But even this tremendous popularity
IS not strange, for Ride This Night"
is more than beautifully written
novel-it is an urgent challenge to a
nation that is anxious to take it up.
Not of our day in it's setting, the
book Is Enthusiastically contempora-
neous in its message Look back to
the roots of your history" Mr.. Mo-
berg has said to the Swedes, land
discover that passive neutrality was
not always Swedish tradition" To
this end he has selected the 10Th
century, a time when freedom was
once more being bartered too cheap
ly for peace. A weak queen had sold
her power to lawless mobiles, and a
German tyrant ruled the people Of
Brandebol,
1t was the young farmer, Ragnar
Svedge, who first rebelled against
the demands of his alien squire.
Svedje wanted security for his farm
and home and for the girl he was to
marry, but he would relinquish all
rather than see justice violated.
When the squire's bailiff came down
from the manor with his men-at-
arms, Syedje stood and fought them
when they became too many, he
took to the woods. Hunted and
alone, he continued to believe him.
self invincible, for to Svedje one free
man armed with righteousness was
equal to all the slaves tyrant could
send against him.
Thus did Svedje become the first
OF two symbols to the farmers of
Brandebol. They might serve the
squire with their labor, give up thei-
crops in taxes and bow their heads
to his soldiers, but they were never a
conquered people so long as the
moss s-trooper" fought in the woods
for their justice. They waited long
in silent anger for the fiery cross
to come, the ancient symbol of Swed-
ish rebellion. Carried from village
to village by swift horsemen, the
charred wood with the emblazoned
morning star would bear message
of revolt: Rise up against tyranny!
Ride this night!' The cross should
have left Brandebol the night it
was received, but a timid and indie
cisive alderman had buried it in
the ground and with it the hopes of
Swedish freedom.
With Svedje in the woods and the
cross deep in the earth, perhaps
the German overload felt himself
secure, but in land that has known
freedom, justice cannot be buried
long. The people stirred, there were
angry uprisings and the cross rode
forth again. Lest any modern over
lord confuse the implication, Mr..
Moberg ends the book with an un-
mistakable challenge:
80 fiery cross goes forth by day
and night, through the years and
the centuries, forth on its momen-
tous errand, bearing from age to
age its message, urgent, noble, su-
preme.
THE fiery cross is going forth!
Ride tonight, tonight"
Moving as social document,
Ride This Night" loses none of it's
stature when judged solely on its
literary merits. The style is some
what foreign to American ears, the
sonorous mysticism and the impress
sive repetition often remind one of
biblical phrasing. Where a lesser
writer might fall too easily into POM
pous harangue, Mr.. Moberg treats
his difficult theme with quiet dig
nifty that loses none of its appeal in
translation. MEL SABRE.