You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Tor-Björn Hägglund's scientific production is vast and goes back some 30 years in time. During recent years, his interest, as seen in his writings, has shifted more towards the literary style. His latest book, The Kaleidoscope of Love, consists of essays and short stories written during the last 5 years. The themes are familiar in Hägglund's authorship: creativity, nature, love, civilization, technology, adolescence and ageing. In his recent book, he gives us essays, miniature short stories and instant visions, where nature, on the one hand and philosophical ideas, standing on a firm psychoanalytical ground, on the other hand, form the content. His language is rich and varied, colourful, giving the tale its local taste, picturing the nature in down-to-earth shading. The language can also be clear and distinct and makes the book easily comprehensible, even when the theme is more “theoretical”.
Throughout the book, the question about how the human being can survive and find a creative way of living with a wholeness of the mind, is evident. Man runs the risk of becoming alienated from the closeness to nature, and the body, from manual work and from the creativity of closeness to fellow men. After many years of training, man acquires the skills deriving from technology and bureaucracy. This is the tragedy of narcissism and self-centredness. Only shared creativity and concern help man live in harmony with himself and nature.
There are 8 chapters in the book. The central part is The Kaleidoscope of Love. Here, Hägglund lets us view all the colours of love, endlessly shifting and blending into each other, making new patterns. The picture shows us all the rich varieties of love. The colours and the feelings can be lifegiving, enriching human relationships, art and culture. The kaleidoscope shows us life's piece of art.
The opposite of colourful love is not black or white, but darkness. Darkness is where nothing can be seen in the kaleidoscope. There is only a bottomless em