Synopsis

Axel Sandemose’s book “A Fugitive Covers His Tracks” begs us to ask one question of ourselves: are we fugitives, and how do we cover our tracks?

Axel Sandemose lived between 1899 and 1965. Few people read his books these days, or so I am told. We live in busy times and often rush between deadlines and places. We have little time for introspective, psychological work these days.

Axel himself lived a life that seemed to mirror the life of his protagonist, Espen Arnakke.

Espen killed a man, John Wakefield, seventeen years before the tale was told. John Wakefield had seduced the girl he loved, and he wanted revenge.

The murder itself forms a small part of the narrative. The ghost of John Wakefield lives with Espen and seems to live within him. This is almost like the ghost of Michael Furey who lives in Gretta in James Joyce’s story, ‘The Dead’.

However, there are differences. Espen speaks at lengths of his life in Jante, the fictional town where he lives. He speaks of ‘The Ten Laws of Jante’, which oppress people. They oppress children in particular.

Many Danish people around the time Axel wrote this book, identified with these laws. These laws are more universal than we realize. I live in India and I see shades of these laws in today’s India.

They never caught Espen for his crime. He escaped with his wife and children to start a new life elsewhere. However, the ghost of his past does not leave him. Neither does the ghost of Michael Wakefield.

Does he ever become a whole man?

My Review

Axel Sandemose, according to some sources, was not a pleasant man. Did he project some of this onto Espen? He seems to have projected some of his own life’s incidents and psychoses onto Espen, but I cannot gauge how much.

The book itself makes for some depressing reading. Ordinarily, I may have given up halfway, especially when reading about the way people bullied and mocked during his life. However, there are some searing observations of human nature.

Once I killed a man. His name was John Wakefield and I murdered him one night seventeen years ago in
Misery Harbor. Many there were who became murderers in those days. The World War was raging, but that
was legalized murder and meritorious slaughter. It was probably all one to the victims whether their murder had
been legalized or not, but not so to the murderers.
Then, there is this

How shall a child see ahead to the fact that life’s goal is the making of money? His ambition is to sneak in a few
of the pleasures he finds his fellows enjoying.

And this

In the newspaper there on the table you will find an article headed: “How Long May We Claim Our Children?”
As a matter of fact, we may not claim our children at all; we do not own them and we never have. And the
child, in his own way, realizes this. His heart is a volcano of revolt long, long before his elders even surmise it.

I will accept that when Axel wrote these words; he had his own experiences in mind. Yet, when I read them, I see humanity reflected in them. For instance, we all believe that we ‘own’ our children. Do we? Do we mould them in our light, or do we allow them to become the adults they seek to be?

The book seeks to explore how our childhood experiences—pleasant or repressive—impact our lives powerfully

When we commit crimes—or even if we don’t—we are often fugitives from our past. I will wager that all children and adolescents have harboured violent thoughts in their lives. They have all struggled violently with the chains of expectations, just to break free. Some do.

Some don’t and spend the rest of their lives on the run, whereas the ghosts of the past haunt them in ways they don’t understand.

This is a deep, haunting and disturbing book. ( )