October 21: On
this day in 1833, Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm. Nobel's great wealth, and
the prizes which he established with them, seem directly related to the
conditions of his upbringing. His father had some success as an inventor and a
businessman, but at times his sons were selling matches on the street corners
of Stockholm. Whether marketable (land mines) or madcap (coffins with a device
so that those mistaken for dead could save themselves), the father's inventions
inspired in Alfred an interest in explosives and innovation. His 300 patents
included a blasting cap for nitroglycerine, as well as dynamite and other such
refinements, from which he would build a fortune.
From his father Nobel may have also acquired his lifelong
fear of being buried alive, and in his will he left instructions to have his
arteries cut after death, just to be sure. To the surprise and dismay of those
near him, his will also left the bulk of his wealth to establishing his famous
Foundation. Nobel was not only unmarried but, as he describes himself, "a
nomadic condemned by fate to be a broken shipwreck in life," one excluded
by work and temperament from "love, happiness, joy, pulsating life, caring
and being cared for, caressing and being caressed." He regarded friendship
as something found "at the cloudy bottom of fleeing illusions or attached
to the clattering sound of collected coins."
Why such an unromantic semi-recluse and
borderline misanthrope should leave his money to those who "shall have
conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and, in literature's case, to
moving mankind in "an ideal direction," is something of a puzzle.
Some think that Nobel was partly motivated by a journalistic error on the
occasion of his brother's death eight years earlier. Ludvig Nobel was also
successful, but in oil; one newspaper's obituary confused the two brothers, and
reported that not Ludvig but Alfred had died, labeling him the "merchant
of death" for his 90 dynamite factories. One theory is that Nobel was so
horrified by this glimpse at his legacy that he did all he could to combat it.
Daybook is contributed by Steve King, who teaches in the English Department of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. His literary daybook began as a radio series syndicated nationally in Canada. He can be found online at todayinliterature.com.
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