The author and art historian Poul Vad (1927-2003) made his literary debut in 1951 with some poems published in the literary journal, Heretica. His first book, a collection of his poetry titled Den fremmede dag (The strange Day), was published in 1956. Four years later, Vadīs first novel, De nøjsomme (Modest People), appeared. In the following decades came five more novels, a couple of short stories, seven books of art history, four collections of essays and a large number of articles and essays in newspapers, journals and books. In all, Vad has some twenty book titles to his name.
De nøjsomme appeared in several editions and was translated into Icelandic and Russian, while the two-volume novel Kattens anatomi (The Anatomy of the Cat, 1978) came in Swedish and German translations and was reprinted recently. Vadīs novel Rubruk (1972) was nominated for the prestigious Nordic Council Prize in 1972 and Kattens anatomi was awarded the Grand Prize of the Danish Academy in 1979. But the fact is that Poul Vad always has been an author for the literary Feinschmecker and is known to the larger public chiefly as an art historian, mainly through his important 1988 study of the Danish painter, Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916).
Poul Vadīs work falls into four phases. The first, the 1950s, concentrated on poetry, culminating in the appearance of Den fremmede dag in 1956.
After this literary finger-exercise came the second phase with his debut novel, De nøjsomme (1960). Together with the two following novels, Taber og vinder (Loser and Winner, 1967) and Dagen før livet begynder (The Day before Life begins, 1970), these three works may be grouped together because they have a number of characters in common and because they share a certain similarity of style, historical context and range of problem.
The third phase, the 1970s, consists of the novels, Rubruk (1972), Kattens anatomi (1978) and Vadīs novel, Galskabens karneval (Carnival of Madness, 1981). This phase might be characterized as a time of īfantasticī writing. Galskabens karneval is a witty roman-ā-clef-like text which satirizes the world of modern Danish art. Standing as it does with one foot in the world of literature and the other in the world of art history and criticism, it seems to round off Vadīs fictional work and lead to the essayistic and art-historical writing of his recent years - the fourth phase.
This fourth phase of Vadīs work has added considerable to his standing. It consists not only of his grand study of the painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, but also of three books of personal and critical essays: Bristepunkter (Breaking Points, 1992), Knudepunkter (Pivotal Points, 1993) and Det springende punkt (The Heart of the Matter, 1997), as well as the travelogue-cum-literary study Nord for Vatnajøkel (North of Vatnajökull, 1994). The latter has appeared in Norway, as well as in Germany.
Many of Vadīs novels fell outside the dominant literary trends of their day. Thus, Rubruk, which exhibits many similarities to Umberto Ecoīs The Name of the Rose, which appeared eight years later, fell precisely in a period in which the Danish literary climate was dominated by marxism and īkitchen sink realismī. Rubruk did not fit at all into this spirit of the times, so it went often with Vadīs fiction.
The most obvious key terms to describe Vadīs work are grotesque bodily imagery, irony and (black) humour, stylistic pluriformity and ambiguity, confrontation of different levels of discourse within one text, a remarkable interaction of time and space in the texts, and, not least, a genuine nihilistic-absurd vision of existence which seems to resist any kind of ideological standardization.
Grotesque metaphors and carnivalesque forms are already to be seen in his debut, and return in greater or lesser degrees in each succeeding volume. Another tendency which is quite characteristic of Vadīs fiction, is a preference for dissecting reality with a well-nigh microscopic eye for minuscule, apparently trivial, details, shadowy, often overlooked sides and tabooed aspects of daily life. But by his habit of isolating and concentrating upon tiny details with a surgical precision, the everyday takes on a funny, absurd and even demonic character.
Furthermore, Vadīs narrators often find themselves in phases of crisis or on the brink of transition, and, not surprisingly, ītravelī is an important topic in the works of Vad. Thus, the central idea of Rubruk is that of the ījourneyī. That is to say, the movement through time and space is a reflection of the development that takes place in the psyche of the central character, the medieval monk Rubruk.
Kattens anatomi also takes place during a journey, this time a train ride in the 1930s in Denmark, but in this novel the journey functions chiefly as a formal frame and helps to keep clear the complicated sub-narratives, themselves often containing journeys, and so on. The result is a literary version of optical regression in which the reader sometimes loses his bearings.
Another interesting phenomenon in Kattens anatomi is its strikingly visual aspect. In this novel, as well as in the rest of Vadīs work, one can even speak of a tendency toward a pictorial ecriture.
In Galskabens karneval the world of pictorial art itself is highlighted. By its mixing of fictional content with critical intent, this novel stands with one leg in the world of fiction and the other in the world of art criticism and essayism, the areas in which Vad has directed his work since the 1980s. In this new phase of Poul Vadīs versatile talent Nord for Vatnajøkel is the culminating point.
In Poul Vadīs fiction, people are constantly searching for existential handholds and they often seem to find them in the creative and aesthetic experience itself. Thus, Vadīs work reflects his chief artistic goal: literally and figuratively to īenraptureī the reader, by unrestricted aesthetic commitment. In general, Vad remains faithful to his creed, that literature and, art as such, can provide no ītruthī but can only help in the search for it. This pronounced philosophical scepticism, that permeates the work of Poul Vad, is not to be seen as a negative position but as a positive humanistic perspective.
Seen in birdīs-eye perspective, we may conclude, that Vad, never has been one to hew to the literary trends of his time but that he has always oriented himself exclusively toward his personal aesthetic views, with great, subdued, works of art as a result.
(1999)
