Anne Marie Løn, b. 1947, whose father was a
veterinary surgeon, grew up in a rural area. There, she experienced the
transition and disintegration of the agricultural community resulting from
accelerating industrialisation in the second half of the 20th century
with all it implied by way of economic and thus human change in the lives of
the rural population. She has brought these experiences to life in large parts
of her oeuvre, for instance in the novel Fodretid
(Feeding Time) (1984), which portrays the farmer Niels Peter’s total bankruptcy
when he is pressed to give up his herd of cattle and change to industrialised
pig production. His ruin is portrayed with the psychological insight and
empathetic intensity that are characteristic of Anne Marie Løn’s unshakable
solidarity with people who for one or another reason have fallen on hard times
or been sidelined as a result of social developments, for instance the
merciless rejection of the financially weak or – in the case of women – because
of hidebound convention.
Anne Marie Løn trained as a journalist, working first freelance until 1979 and then for six years on the
newspaper BT. It was alongside her journalism that she started her career as an
author. Her first book, the novel Hvorfor hvisker I til mig? (Why Do You Whisper to Me?),
appeared in 1977. And then she went on to write poems, books for children,
novels, stories and the biography of Adda
Ravnkilde (1978) – a story of the impossibility, despite both intelligence
and talent, of making your way as a woman writer at the end of the 19th
century. In the novel Veras vrede
(Vera’s Anger) from 1982, Anne Marie Løn wrote of her experiences in the harsh
world of journalism, and it was this novel that came to represent her
breakthrough. It is no coincidence that by virtue of her name, Vera (meaning
“true” in Latin) symbolises the attitude sparking off the main character’s
conflicts with the environment in and around the major newspaper offices.
It is typical of most of Anne Marie Løn’s stories and novels that they spring
from her overhearing a chance remark or reading an announcement in a newspaper
– or indeed even a line on a gravestone that gives her a start. The experience
matures in her mind until one day it breaks out in the shape of fiction – as
was the case with Sent bryllup (Late
Wedding) from 1990. There was a newspaper that told of an old woman who had
lain in the forest after a fall for six days until being found– unharmed and in
good heart. This woman is one of the unobtrusive lives in this oeuvre; her life
is undramatic and unfulfilled, and she tells of her time in the forest in slow,
subdued tones, but with an innate strength and psychological insight that
endows this novel, in which there is no real action, with a dramatic tension
all of its own.
Sent bryllup is thematically related to Willums veje (Willum’s Ways) (1994) and Kærlighedens rum (Room for Love) (2000). Each of them individually
presents a person’s development, in the one case towards a barren existence and
in the other towards an abundant life. Stylistically, there is a
striking contrast between these quiet stories and the major novel Prinsesserne (The Princesses, 1996) and then Dværgenes dans (Dance of the Dwarves, 1998). Here, the
narrative tempo has been noticeable increased, and quietude has been replaced
by grotesque, colourful descriptions of people and environments. Details taken
from many specialist fields indicate extensive research. For instance, behind Dværgenes dans there are studies of
dwarfism, and when the dwarf Thyge trains as an organist, the novel also
provides detailed information on organ types and their construction without the
narrative being at all burdened by this considerable background knowledge.
We all have a dwarf in us, a feeling of insufficiency. And the primary intention
of the novel is to provide a picture of the expanding power of love. Only by
loving does a person find his or her own self, and through falling in love and
loving Thyge overcomes his handicap. Anne Marie Løn is able to liberate her
dwarf from the symbolism and enable him to become a living being. Since their childhood, the two
sisters in Prinsesserne have had to
bear the concealed handicap of being spoiled. Cosseting is a compensatory form
of love, and in contrast to Thyge, who is able to convert his critical
circumstances into harmony and psychological growth, the two beautiful sisters
move monstrously into physical and psychological squalor and waste their lives. The title Kærlighedens rum could stand as the that of the entire oeuvre,
where everything points the way forward to this hothouse which can either
provide a space in which the warmth of love can live and grow – or it can stand
tragically empty. This in brief is the message of this oeuvre – and it applies
both in society and in the life of the individual.
(2001)
