The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a name given for the tendency for low-performing people to overestimate their performance, and for high-performing people to underestimate their performance. In other words: dumb people see themselves as smarter than they are, and smart people see themselves as dumber than they are. Why this phenomenon has been chosen as the title for this Swedish novel (in English translation this fall by Simon & Schuster) commenting on contemporary culture is not totally clear.
It all starts with a dinner party (or parmiddag in Swedish) where the protagonist mentions Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who has been vocal about the policing of language around trans issues. But because Peterson’s name isn’t followed by a clear condemnatory diatribe, the other guests become uncomfortable. “You can’t possibly mean he has something noteworthy to say” is the response, and just in time for dessert the evening becomes increasingly uneasy. It is this tension that the book is based on.
One could assume it is a joke on the reader, to sprinkle the text full of culture war-laden buzzwords and terms gleaned from Wikipedia articles describing psychological research. But I don’t think it is. I think the writer has immersed himself in this world and let it tumble around in his writerly mind for a while, and the end result is this book, which I don’t think is premeditated or really planned. It is a pretty funny book. I wonder though, to what degree the humour is culture-bound to the Swedosphere (suèdosphère?). I should be in prime position to judge, as I am pretty well-versed in both Swedish and English.
Some parts of the book must be hard to translate, like the Sweden-specific dread around a certain political party, and lots of comments on social customs or Swedish middle class culture. I almost felt embarrassed at times. Stoopendaal dissects the Swedish cultural obsession with consensus and general avoidance of social tension. Several sections of the book deals with current events and cultural upheavals like the metoo movement, and its repercussions on the Swedish literary establishment.
In Swedish there is a word for English terms taken in directly as loanwords without consideration – anglicism. This book is FILLED with them, both intentional and unintentional. A lot of English words and expressions are employed, as if they have slipped through to the Swedish usage. Sometimes they ring very false. This might be an intentional effect, but I don’t know. It has to be nearly impossible to convey this linguistic interplay in the English translation though.
Sometimes i get the sense that Stoopendaal wanted to review a book or just express a fleeting thought, because there are a lot of digressions of that kind. This is common practice in contemporary novels, an autofictive influence. Stoopendaal drones on about Pomeranian dogs (which inspired the choice of cover design), the culture of the ultra rich through a book by Sigrid Rausing, and some notes on writing with Stephen King and Swedish stalwart Jan Guillou.
He also dedicates a chapter to French writer Michel Houellebecq, which invents a story where Houellebecq is visited by an agent of the French Secret Police. This chapter has captured the attention of Houellebecq enthusiasts internationally, and might be a contributing factor to why he book has been picked up for translation. Stoopendaal also seems to have found inspiration in the writing of C.G. Jung, alt-right expressions and computer game lingo. It is refreshing to read satiric treatments on current cultural trends like podcasts, words like “safe space”, New Public Management, and various current thoughts on masculinity, sexuality, class, politics and “just-in-time production”(!).
Another astute observation is the now ubiquitous phenomenon of couples sitting at home each with their own tablet och phone watching separate screens, but sitting next to one another in a sofa. Here is the excerpt (translated by the reviewer):
Something about this situation, this setting, with me in the easy chair with my laptop computer, Maria with her iPad, resting on the sofa, felt very, even brutally familiar. Which it was. It was most certainly a painfully ordinary situation in the everyday lives of millions of people, regardless of where on the globe they lived. Two or more people in a living room, each of which are busy or rather wholly absorbed by their electronic plaything, together and close to one another physically, but at the same time very much solitary. Did Maria need my physical presence in this room? Did I need hers? No, in a fundamental sense neither of us needed the other, not in this situation, not until one of us started to demand something of the other. I could at any moment request Maria’s attention. But why? For her to give me some sort of validation? I didn’t feel any need for such validation, in any case not in this particular situation.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect by Andrés Stoopendaal
All in all, a pretty funny book, with things to say about our current moment which amounts to a good time, with plenty of moments of mirthful recognition. I’m not sure it is meant as a comedy, though. My take is that the book doesn’t have a set purpose, it’s more of an expression of one person living in the early 2020s.
Kinship of all Species 