No comments about The Son of the Sun is dead: a commemoration of Nils-Aslak Valkeapaa.(Obituary): An article from: Scandinavian Studies.

No comments about Kinfolk: Tracing the Footsteps of My Scandinavian and German Ancestors from Minnesota to Washington.

No comments about Childhood.

No comments about Mathilda Wrede.

2 comments about Biography of Danish Literary Impressionist Herman Bang (1857-1912) (Scandinavian Studies, Vol 2).

1. When I posted a review of Vivian Greene-Gantzberg's Book "Biography of Danish Impressionist Herman Bang" last year i severely criticized all the short comings of that book. I have not changed my mind about it in the meantime but I have learned that the author, whose earlier work I admire very much, died before being able to revise the manuscript. Under these circumstances I find a review as harsh as mine unfair to the late author. Clearly the publisher is to blame here. I would therefore like to say that the book is not as good as it could have been but it's still the most detailed account of Herman Bang's life as well as the longest piece of literary criticism on Bang's work available in English. I recommend it to anybody who wants to know more about this fascinating author and cannot read either Danish or German.



2. Herman Bang is one of many Scandinavian authors who do not receive much attention outside the north of Europe. Writing a biography in English about this most intriguing and skillful Danish writer may well be a way to attract more interest in his work. I am myself working on a ph.d-thesis about Bang and therefore began to read Greene-Gantzberg's book with great interest - even more so because I had enjoyed her previous book "Herman Bang og det fremmede", an insightful report on Bang's stays abroad, brimming with information and only some slight mistakes to discover in it (like the incorrect list of Bang's works in German translation). Unfortunately I was soon to realize that despite its title this new book was not a biography but contained nothing but some rather short remarks about Bang's life followed by some criticism on his works. The content was more or less a superficial resumee of the Bang criticism of the last 50 years or so (up to the late 1980s), the only (questionable) benefit being that it is now available to English speaking readers. The English of the book itself is very poor though - probably due to a lack of proof reading which resulted in many "little" words like articles and prepositions being left out - very annoying to read even for a non-native speaker like me! Evidently Greene-Gantzberg's Danish proof readers who took care of "Herman Bang og det fremmede" did a much better job! Where the content is concerned I have to say that I was not only disappointed to see that the author had obviously based her book entirely on rather old (if not wrong) findings and decided to ignore the latest research completely, I was also shocked by the fact that she often makes no mention of her sources (Some remarks in Steffen Steffensens article on Thomas Mann and Scandinavia are almost quoted word by word, yet the article itself is never mentioned). The bibliography at the end of the book is conspicuously short and lists just a couple of standard works. I could go on like that for quite some time but I'd better leave it at that. Greene-Gantzberg has not written a biography of Herman Bang, she doesn't even come close to Jacobsen's achievement (who wrote the 4 volume Danish biography of Bang in the 1960s) and her book lacks elegance (aswell as correctness) of language just as much as the declaration of her sources!(Obligatory for any kind of literary criticism that wants to be taken seriously!) Again: the only thing that could be said in favour of the book is the fact that it may help to draw some attention to Bang in the English speaking world.

No comments about Edith Sodergran: Modernist Poet in Finland (Contributions to the Study of World Literature).

1 comments about Boganis: Letters from the Hunt.

1. Wilhelm Dinesen, father of Karen Dinesen (later Karen Blixen) comitted suicide by hanging himself in Copenhagen at the age of 49 on March 28, 1895, only a few weeks before his second oldest daughter Karen's tenth birthday (April 17).
   
   It is a well-known fact that the death of a parent at a young age, between the age of nine and fourteen in particular, is devestating to a child, and one that often continues to haunt the person for the rest of their life. William Styron is one famous example; his mother died from cancer when he was fourteen, and her death and his unresolved emotions stemming from the grief was partly responsible for the severe depression which came close to driving him to suicide many years later when he was around sixty.
   
   Karen Blixen did not make a secret of how much her father had meant to her or that his death had a profound effect on her, but it was not until she became a writer/story teller that she truly dealt with her emotions. Pain turned into art, as she herself stated.
   
   When reading her father's - in Danish literature - classic "Letters from the Hunt", one is given a marvelous key to Karen Blixen. When I read it (in my native Danish) I was immensely moved by his love of nature, his respect for it, and I was also delighted by his sense of humor. His personality and charm comes across so vividly today, more than a century later that I found myself seeing himself through the eyes of his wife Ingeborg and his daughter Karen, and fully understanding their undying love for him.
   
   A note: Wilhelm most likely had extramarital erotic escapades. They were common and almost expected, and many men contracted various VDs from mistresses or prostitutes, but his love of his wife Ingeborg was by all accounts genuine, depite their different personalities. And: we cannot judge a late 19th century marriage (1881-95) by today's standard. Besides, things have not changed much since then. The only difference now is that both men and women engage in seeking sexual "spice" ouside marriage.
   
   Ingeborg was left with five children to raise (with the help and support of family and household staff), but with her deep Unitarian faith and staying busy with homemaking, she seems to have survived with remarkably few emotional scars, although she was not a person to wear her heart on her sleeve and most likely grieved in private. Karen on the other hand never fully recovered from the loss. Ingeborg knew this and recognized her late husband's spirit and personality in their daughter. (In Blixen's "Letters from Africa" there is a wonderful letter from Ingeborg to Karen's brother Thomas in which she writes of this)
   
   Karen did not search for a father figure in a partner, but for someone who could give her the same gifts that her father had given her when he would take her for walks around Rungstedlund, the garden and woods and meadows surrounding their home of the same name north of Copenhagen.(the area is one of the most beautiful parts of Denmark) He was often away in Parliament, on trips, or hunting with friends, but when he was home, she was clearly his favorite child and the one he felt closest to, despite the fact that he had two sons, Karen's younger brothers, who were mere toddlers at the time.
   
   His writing is that of a natural born writer; it seems to come easy to him (he himself is said not to have thought of writing as more than a hobby). The descriptions of the Danish and Swedish scenery are lyrical and yet wonderfully straightforward, as if he is painting a picture for us. Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen would later paint pictures for her readers of Africa, Denmark, and other places in much the same manner.
   
   Wilhelm Dinesen's respect for the American Indian (he lived for three years in a cabin in Wisconsin and made friends with the native Americans there who named him Boganis (hazelnut - the name he later chose as his author pseudonym), for animals, and his love of women and admiration for soldiers (he fought in several European wars as a young man) are all a joy to read. And in our politically correct times, a note: Yes, he was a hunter, but he was not a reckless, vain, boastful one.
   
   The book (which in fact is comprised of his two collections of Letters from the 1880s and 1890s)) is a beautiful and sublime volume which offers the reader more than just a glimpse into the mind of a remarkable man and a vital key to his daughter Karen who became a world famous writer. He would have been proud.
   
   Karen Blixen found Wilhelm's equal in Denys Finch Hatton (they met in 1918, four years after her arrival to Africa; he died in 1931), and like her father, he too died well before his time, although perhaps Blixen herself, with her strong belief in fate, believed that their time had in fact come?) Fortunately, both of these larger-than-life men live on through Karen's life story and her writing, and for Wilhelm's part, also through his love "Letters" to nature and to life.
   
   A must for anyone with more than a superficial interest in Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen.
   
   Note: I have not read the book in translation, but sincerely hope that his words were not butchered in the process!

No comments about Out From the Darkness; an Autobiography, Unfolding the Life Story & Singular Vicissitudes of a Scandinavian Bartimaeus.

No comments about Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy (Studies in Medieval Mysticism).

1 comments about Early Kings of Norway.

1. This is it, it is very illustrous book with a lot of detais, facts, names, relations and so on. Highly recommended to anyone who likes Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Vikings and middle ages.