He reflected under what circumstances the theatre ministered to one's pleasure. It was amusing to see children, especially sons, defrauding their parents, more particularly when the parents were thrifty, good- hearted, and sensible; it was amusing to see wives deceiving their husbands ; especially when the husband was old and required his wife's care. Besides this he remembered having laughed very heartily at two old men who nearly died of starvation because their business was on the decline, and that to this day all the world laughed at it in a piece written by a classical author. He also recollected having been much amused by the misfortune of an elderly man who had become deaf ; and that, together with six hundred other men and women, he had shouted with laughter at a priest, who tried, by natural means, to cure his insanity, the result of self-restraint; his mirth had been particularly stimulated by the hypocrisy displayed by the wily priest in order to gain the object of his desire.

Why does one laugh? he wondered. And as he had nothing else to do, he tried to find an answer. One laughed at misfortune, want, misery, vice, virtue, the defeat of good, the victory of evil.

This conclusion, which was partly new to him, put him into a good temper; he found a great deal of amusement in playing with his thoughts. As the management still remained invisible, he went on playing, and, before the lapse of five minutes, he had come to the following conclusion: In a tragedy one weeps at just those things which in comedy make one laugh.

This cited passage comes from "The Red Room," written by one of Sweden's greatest authors, dramatists and painters of all time, August Strindberg. The book is a poetic revue through the heart of late 19th century Stockholm, as seen through the perspective of the young stroller Arvid Falk. Together with Arvid we get to meet a variety of characters, each one representing a political, artistic or philosophical ideal. Strindberg, through a masterful naturalistic literary style, investigates the mechanisms of the modern society, waging an intellectual war against class capitalism, Christianity, bureaucracy, commercialism, and state patriotism.

"The Red Room" is partly a pun on the wave of socialism that struck Sweden at the time, actualizing the need to protect the worker's rights during an age of economic exploitation. Strindberg was sympathetic with the workers and shunned the corporate elite who fooled their stockholders and manipulated the media for their own selfish ends. He reveals the hypocrisy behind the charity work of the Christian church, and defends the originality of true artists, launching an angry attack on the commercial copy-cat industry. The whole book is an intelligent, sharp critique of the exact same society we are living in today. To say the least, Strindberg was heavily influenced by Nietzsche. In fact, they regularly exchanged letters, and Strindberg was one of the few people who was still in contact with Nietzsche during his insanity.

It is hard these days to find an English hard copy translation of this book, but an older translation is still available as etext, following the link above. It is a highly suggested read for anyone who's interested in the man who was a consistent influence on the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman. In this book, Strindberg is possibly at his sharpest, intense mood ever, and his societal reflections encompass an entire modern worldview, bankrupt to its very core. August Strindberg is still today an internationally recognized artistic genius, and this is one of his greatest works ever made.