From the Creaturely Sublime to the Solastalgically Sublime in Kerstin Ekman's novel "The Wolf Run" ("Löpa varg")

Abstract

Building on Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of the patriarchal myth of nature as a hunting ground and Ursula K. Le Guin’s rejection of the hero story as a killer story, the article examines how these hegemonic narratives of nature’s domination are critically revised in Kerstin Ekman’s novel The Wolf Run (Löpa varg, 2021). A close textual analysis shows how the protagonist’s encounter with a wolf transforms into an experience of the creaturely sublime, radically challenging his instrumental relationship with nature. On the one hand, he mimetically aligns himself with nature, moving as a wolf in ways that defy rational comprehension; on the other hand, he comes to recognize his complicity in the destruction of the forest ecosystem. The guilt-laden experience of environmental destruction and loss takes the form of the solastalgic sublime, ultimately empowering him to advocate for the preservation of healthy ecosystems. The article concludes by exploring how this shift reshapes his understanding of masculinity through the lens of eco-masculinity.