Private Confessions

November 4, 1996
Sweden in the 1920s is the locale of this intense novel by the famed Swedish film director. Feeling imprisoned in a 12-year marriage to a man she no longer loves, Anna Akerblom betrays her frequently absent husband, Henrik (a pastor), by engaging in a passionate, at times live-in liaison with his best friend, Tomas, a young theology student. Her admission of this scandalous affair poisons the atmosphere in which her children grow up. Bergman bases this lyrical, charged autobiographical novel on his parents' relationship and his troubled childhood, terrain explored with ruthless candor in his first two novels, The Best Intentions and Sunday's Children. Anna, his vital, wayward heroine, oscillates between joy and guilt, faith and doubt, rebellion and moral confusion as Bergman explores his lifelong themes: loneliness, the search for God, sin, salvation, free will, the mystery of death. Structured as a series of five "conversations" that reveal Bergman's mastery of dialogue and gift for setting scenes, the story jumps ahead to 1934 as Anna, who has jettisoned her illicit lover, visits the deathbed of the priest Jacob, her cancer-ridden father confessor. It twists back ironically to 1907, when Jacob warns 17-year-old Anna, just before her first communion, against infamies committed in the name of love. One senses that this dark gem of a novel, set in resonant prose as elegant as a classical sonata, is a catharsis for Bergman.

January 1, 1997
Unmistakably the work of acclaimed director Bergman, this slender novel, set in 1925, portrays a young pastor's wife who has committed the unforgivable sin of falling in love with a young friend of her husband. She confesses the situation to her uncle (also a pastor), her husband, her mother, and her best friend. Her conflicting emotions of revulsion toward her husband, joy in the pleasure of her love, concern for her children, and guilt are explored in these conversations. As in his last novel, Bergman (Sunday's Child, LJ 2/1/94) again bases his story on the relationship of his own parents; his skill at capturing honestly the vivacity and willfulness of Anna, the neurotic tendencies of Henrik, and the passion attenuated with guilt of Tomas is compelling. Though the story is told primarily through conversations, the visual picture is very clear. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.--Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.

January 1, 1997
Since he retired from filmmaking in 1986, Bergman has approached his art's touchstone--his parents' unhappy relationship and their relationship to him--in novels that adopt a variety of angles. In his latest, headstrong Anna, who insisted on marrying dour, neurotic minister Henrik against her mother's wishes, then betrayed her stifling marriage in a passionate affair with a younger man, seeks help in dealing with the guilt this scandalous situation produces through five conversations. The first, with her childhood confessor, precipitates the second: Anna's confession of her infidelity to Henrik. In the novel's third segment, Anna talks, two years later, with her mother; Henrik is recovering from a breakdown and terrorizing Anna with passive-aggressive behavior. The fourth conversation travels back in time to the lovers' first tryst and the help that Anna received from her schoolmate Marta, a missionary. The fifth conversation brings Anna back to talk with her confessor as he nears death, while an epilogue/prologue, 27 years earlier, looks at the basis for Anna's confidence in her confessor. A probing examination of choicelessness. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)