5 h 44 minAudiobook3 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 44 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does getting ahead cost when the place you call home is someone else's source of power?
In Molok's Smile, Daniel Berg brings private lives into the pressure of money, work and housing. This Swedish social novel explores ambition in a changing society, where the wish to rise meets the struggle for a home. Shelter is also property, and ownership gives some people power over others.
The title draws on Molok, a figure traditionally linked with sacrifice. Here, that name points toward a hungry social power that takes what people hold dear. Berg gives space to place, habit and conversation, inviting you to consider the human cost of climbing higher rather than rushing toward easy answers.
What you’ll discover
- A home under pressure Explore the tension between a home as shelter and property as a source of power.
- Ambition and its price Consider what the desire to rise can demand from the people caught in its pull.
- Private lives, public forces See how money, work and living conditions press upon the lives a social novel follows.
- The meaning of Molok Discover how the title's image of sacrifice frames questions about what society consumes.
- Room to look closely Settle into a calmer pace that leaves room for place, conversation and your own conclusions.
Who will love it
For readers who love social fiction, Scandinavian literature and stories about class, money and the places people call home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A society built on striving
- Housing as a source of power
- The hidden cost of getting ahead
- How to read it today
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La sonrisa de Molok
by Daniel Berg
The hunger for success and property shapes ordinary lives, revealing who pays the price of getting ahead.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Molok's Smile is a Swedish novel by Daniel Berg, a writer who belonged to the generation of Swedish authors who looked hard at the changing society around them. It belongs to the tradition of the social novel, a kind of fiction that follows private lives while showing the pressures of money, work and housing.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A society built on striving
Social novels of this kind begin with a world in motion. Towns grow, work changes, and many people want to rise above the conditions they were born into. Berg wrote in a Sweden where such change was easy to see.
In that setting, ambition is not only a private feeling. It shapes how people treat each other and how they judge their own worth. A reader of this type of book meets characters who measure life in advancement.
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What is Molok's Smile about?
It is a Swedish social novel by Daniel Berg that deals with ambition, housing and the cost of getting ahead. It looks at how the hunger for success and property affects ordinary people.
Who was Daniel Berg?
Daniel Berg was a Swedish author who died in 1937. He wrote in the period when Swedish fiction paid close attention to class, labour and the conditions of everyday life.
What does Molok mean in the title?
Molok is the name of an ancient god linked in the Bible with child sacrifice. Writers use it for any power that demands human lives or happiness in return for gain.
The author
Daniel Berg
1887–1937 · Writer
Daniel Berg was a Swedish translator, writer and journalist. He was born in 1887 and died in 1937. His work included translation, literary writing and journalism. Molok’s Smile is listed among his writings.
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