Humorn i stadens mångstämmiga rum. En läsning av romanen Markurells i Wadköping av Hjalmar Bergman

Drawing on philosophical reflections about humour, laugh and smile (mainly Simon Critchley and Mikhail Bakhtin), on narratology (again Bakhtin and Leo Spitzer), and on the vast scholarship dedicated to the writer Hjalmar Bergman, one of the great classics of modern Swedish literature, the article proposes a new reading of the novel Markurells i Wadköping (The Markurells of Wadköping). In particular, it examines the way in which the narrator's voice conveys the small-town 'choir' of voices and opinions, producing tragicomic effects. Furthermore, the article reflects upon the possibility, or not, of translating humour to other languages, bearing in mind that Markurells i Wadköping is Bergman's only novel translated in Italian.