Jac the Clown
There are books that you know you should read. Someone mentions a book and you make a mental note of it. Or you stumble on a review on a blog, or it’s considered one of the classics. This book was one of the former, mentioned to me long ago, but not really as a suggestion.
My friend Sven Holmström used the internet handle Mac Tracbac for a while in the late 90s. He said it was from a book about a clown, so when I found Jac the Clown in the library I picked it up because I recognized the main character’s last name Tracbac. But Jac isn’t Mac, so I thought Sven was wrong. It turned out I was.
Jac the Clown was written in 1930 by the Swedish author Hjalmar Bergman. He was a troubled man that died alone in a hotel room in Berlin on New Year’s day of 1931. He was 47 years old and burnt out on alcohol and stimulants. Jac the Clown was his last work, originally presented as a radio theater. The book is very funny, with a quick dialogue and witty remarks from the author. The characters are all interesting and are given enough space to each have their own storylines. The story switches between kafkaesque situations and realistic studies of happiness and guilt. In my version from 1985 it says that all Swedish plural verb forms have been updated to singular, which makes the text seem more modern. The text feels surprisingly modern, and the themes of guilt, responsibility and relationships explored are timeless.
It tells the tale of Benjamin “Benbé” Borck, a young Swede, that goes to America to meet his wealthy relative Jonathan Borck, or Jac the Clown. Jac is an incredibly famous and influential clown. Each of his performances is sold out as soon as it’s announced. His trademark is anxiety and fear; the more scared he is on stage the more people laugh at and love him. Benbé brings a gift from mutual relatives in Sweden that makes the clown confess he has an illegitimate child back in Sweden. He tries to reconnect with his child, while he prepares for his next tour where he wants to come clean on why he’s famous and what really happened to his clown partner Mac.
You see, as Jac started in the clown business he partnered up with a man called Mac Tracbac. Mac was the best acrobat of the two, and used to walk on tightropes without a safety net. The two partners didn’t like each other, but put work before personal feelings. But Jac was anxious and afraid that Mac would fall and hurt himself, so he constructed a safety rope for Mac to wear. Mac thought Jac wanted to make his act less frightening to get the audience’s attention himself, but with the help of the police Jac forced Mac to wear the safety rope.
Something went wrong. The first time Mac tried it and was jumping between two platforms in the roof of the circus tent the safety rope wound itself around his neck. He fell and was promptly hanged, before his body fell to the ground. The audience was shocked, Jac also, but the circus director forced Jac to go on as nothing had happened. Circus workmen removed the body. As Jac ran with terror in his eyes, jumping around like a monkey, clawing in the air, people began to think it was all part of the act. Finally Jac collapsed and the workmen carried him out as well.
From that day terror was Jac’s way of getting laughter from the audience. Until his final tour when has grown tired of it all. He wants to redeem his dead partner, the dead clown Mac Tracbac, that my friend Sven borrowed his handle from. No more fear for Jac, until the child he’s never met arrives from Sweden.