I was surprised to find that this book was available in the US. It's one of the classic Swedish novels, Söderberg is in known for his fine, poetical and elegiac prose, I judging from the other review the translator managed well!
The story is simple but very moving. I sometimes felt that parts of it was dated, but at the same time it is also very update, love doesn't change does it?
Söderberg is also the master of portraying the city of Stockholm, regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
This is a fine piece of writing, which I can recommend to anyone who wants read a moving story about love and loss and anyone interested in Swedish literature.

I was not expecting much, and what did I find? Strindberg! Excruciating dilemmas a sensitive person faces in his/her intimate relations as he/she grows into adulthood and a place in the world. Sweet tender love distracting the mind; discoveries about self and other as the fatal plunge works through its effects, destroying happiness and self regard and faith in the good will of the Other whom one has loved. Strindbergian anguish. And yet withal an honest tale true-told, that leaves the reader not depressed ...but released. The experience has been cathartic. One feels grateful, even fond: sadness, even fondness for the man who drew so honestly and fully upon his own life experience to create art.
And a word for the translator: Bravo! I particularly appreciated the cleanness, the unwordyness of the prose that gives it a modern ring in the good sense of the word.

"Doctor Glas" (1905), by Hjalmar Soderberg (1869-1941), is the philosophically conflicted diary of Tyko Glas, a young medical doctor in Stockholm, Sweden's largest city, in the form of his personal written diary. He tells us he is just thirty years old and looking for adventure, a progressive and aesthetic intellectual in a conservative city. He disdains the many requests he receives for abortions, invariably turning them away, not of his own beliefs, but because he fears Sweden's hypocritical society would ostracize him.

One day a young lady named Helga provides his life a twist, coming to his examination room, pleading for him to declare she has an "infection of the womb", so her husband of six years, Pastor Gregorius, will not touch her sexually. In truth, she has another man in mind. Glas knows Gregorius personally, and despises him for his own reasons, but after some moral agonizing, the young doctor takes the bull by the horns, "diagnosing" Gregorius with a "weak heart", telling him sex could kill him. This medically-enforced chastity drives Gregorius mad, and he "rapes" his wife out of frustration one night. To diffuse the elevating tension, Gregorius takes a brief trip to another town, during which his wife openly appears in public with her lover back home on Stockholm's streets. Glas, the first-person narrator of this book, reflects on the meaning of life, recalling the young girls he knew earlier in life, admitting he has never held a female in an embrace, and finding himself falling in love with Helga himself.

In his diary, Glas wonders if abortion and murder are not similar, in the sense that both relieve a burden of life. Glas wonders if Gregorius could justifiably be killed to relieve the "burden" upon his wife Helga. He reflects on morality, love, sex, and religion, his thoughts become increasingly feverish. He debates the issue through his diary, turning through various twists of logic, trying to find a relative position which is simultaneously moral and expedient. He even goes so far as to prepare two tablets of potassium cyanide, one for the pastor, and one for himself, should his plan go badly. He clearly loses mental clarity with his obsession over this issue.

Will he actually try to kill Gregorius? Will he woo Helga for himself? Will he drop the entire issue, and snap back to reality? Will he accomplish the impossible reconciliation between morality and his impulses? The resolution will be an interesting one, but Glas will offer only one insight: "Life, I do not understand you."

The book itself is nicely written, the prose lovely of description, polite, high-toned, and at times romantic, and the subject matter frank, from schoolboy wonderment and embarrassment, to "husband's rights" and the moral place of abortion, euthanasia, murder, love, sex, infidelity, and unrequited love in society. The narration is elegant, and this brief novel (150pp) is actually surprisingly substantial. The tone is thoughtful throughout, and an interesting book to read.

(Note: Some readers might have some fun knowing there is a very interesting website, created by a fan, which features this book's various Stockholm locales posted in photos.)