Joe Martin's translation of Bjørneboe's drama Semmelweis is finally in print. Having been "in press" for a number of years, English-language readers have despaired of ever seeing it. Luckily our fears proved unfounded. The play was released in January, 1999 and is published by Sun and Moon Press.
This chilling tale is classic Bjørneboe material. Based on the true story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, the play shows the intelligent well-meaning individual pitted against the ignorant and inhumane forces of the faceless institution and small-minded peers. Semmelweis, an Austro-Hungarian physician, is today lauded as the father of modern antiseptic theory. During his lifetime, however, he was ridiculed, maligned, fired from his position, and driven to madness. The first to make the connection between the plague of childbed fever, which killed countless women, and medical students' trips between the morgue and the maternity hospital, Semmelweis found himself to be a voice crying in the wilderness. Doctors and medical students did not want to believe that they themselves could be the carriers of disease. They therefore branded Semmelweis a heretic and created a martyr to truth. In his preface to the work, Martin states: "As often is the case in Bjørneboe's work, disease is also a metaphor for the prevailing consciousness of an age. The 'doctors are the disease' here -- and so is the hierarchical form of society upon which they sit near the top rungs. Meanwhile anyone who pursues an inconvenient truth in such a society is paradoxically seen as 'sick.' That is, he is not normal because he is not part of the prevailing disease."
Class and gender politics are evident, as doctors seem unmoved by the deaths of the poor women who come to the lying-in hospitals. The disinfectants found in the janitor's closet are deemed inappropriate tools for the gentleman professional. Our tragic hero Semmelweis and the unfortunate patients are undone by the physicians' refusal to simply wash their hands - or even to engage in the scientific experiment of determining if such an act could make a difference in hospital mortality rates.
Martin's lively translation conveys the excitement and despair of this story of misunderstood genius. Bjørneboe himself deserves high praise for bringing this tale to life for modern readers, and for casting more light on our own human condition. This challenging emotional drama is not to be missed. ISBN 1557 133508 $10.95 paperback.