The Swedish Cavalier: A Novel

By Leo Perutz

Brimming with deceit, betrayal, and redemption, this adventurous tale of a war-ravaged Europe offers a unique blend of history and fantasy.
 
A thief and a nobleman, both down on their luck, cross paths on a bitter winter’s day in 1701. One is fleeing the gallows, the other, the young Christian von Tornefeld, has deserted his station in the Swedish army. Neither will reach his intended destination. Sent with a message to secure aid for von Tornefeld, the thief falls in love with his companion’s secret fiancée. He resolves to win her love for himself, and through a clever ruse, exchanges his fate for the other man’s. Risking everything to attain the woman of his dreams, he becomes the Swedish cavalier, staying one step ahead of his own demise. Later, he sacrifices everything to keep his secret past hidden from his daughter.
 
Austrian novelist and mathematician Leo Perutz—admired by Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Ian Fleming, and Graham Greene—creates a visionary world of barons and brigands, swashbuckling dragoons and spurned lovers, gentleman farmers and masked robbers, as well as lucky parchments, magic spells, and mystical visions in this stunning work of high adventure and literary craftsmanship.
 
“Written in the style of an 18th-century adventure . . . High drama and broad comedy enliven the tale, which takes a number of twists.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Though Perutz died in 1957, his fiction’s unique blend of history and the fantastic place it in the vanguard of its genre. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781628725063

Leo Perutz

Leo Perutzis the author of eleven novels that attracted the admiration of such writers as Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges. He was born in Prague in 1882 and lived in Vienna until the NaziAnschluss, when he fled to Palestine. He returned to Austria in the fifties and died in 1957. Perutz'sMaster of the Day of Judgment, andSt Peter's Snoware also available from Pushkin Vertigo.

Reviews for The Swedish Cavalier

[diefledermaus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a seemingly straightforward tale of switched identities. A world-weary thief and a spoiled nobleman are on the run together – they exchange places. The thief is in love with nobleman’s cousin and takes his identity in order to marry her, but his past catches up with him. The prose is simple and effective and the plot clips rapidly along, nicely dwelling on some episodes, then moving forward some months or years. Though it’s a historical novel, there’s no wallowing in sumptuous detail (not knocking wallowing) - not some thousand page thing. But the atmosphere is very memorable.The novel is historical fiction – the forward presents it as a true story, describing an odd episode of the Swedish cavalier who seemed to be in two places at once. The denouement is given in this first section and it certainly becomes obvious how it was accomplished soon on, but all the details, the years, the emotions that go into the finale only become clear on reading the whole book.The other oddness is of a metaphysical sort. It’s never as explicit, as, say, the supernatural in By Night Under the Stone Bridge, but good and evil perhaps personified by the hellish miller, who recruits people to work in the bishop’s mines, and the angels of the thief’s dream or delusion. Even this is not clear cut - the dreams seem self-justifying and the miller’s deal can be a refuge or one of those turn your life around experiences. Of course the thief is caught between these two poles – between his former identify and his new one, between lawlessness and a lawful life. Which is the real Swedish cavalier – and who is the better one? Both good and bad in those who take on that role. Shifting identities clearly seen in the thief’s progression and repeated encounters - also he is never given a name. There’s also a question of whether the end was fated to happen. Several implications that it was preordained appear in the book. Also, while the actual events of the end are quite clear, the meaning is ambivalent. Is it satisfactory or cruel? Appropriate or ironic? There is certainly a symmetry and link to the beginning. A short and seemingly simple book, but quite interesting and well-done.