Pastiche as an artistic principle

By : Niels Egebak

Henrik Bjelke has always been viewed as a slightly bizarre writer. And this is hardly likely to change after the publication of ‘Nattens Budapest’ (The Budapest of the Night). It may well appear to some that he is somewhat exotic, a phenomenon one has taken a hesitant attitude towards, and has only lately gained the recognition that is due to him. This may be explained partly by his peculiar narrative mode and whole attitude to narration, partly by the material he adapts and revises, and which is obviously considered by some readers to be repulsive or downright scabby (cf. a curious public discussion a few years ago in connection with the publication of his novel ‘Saturn’, which led some to say that they could not endure this writing.)

His narrative style is richly ornamented, baroque and precious, almost manneristic, with long, tortuous sentences with traces and reminiscences of the authors he has let himself be influenced by, and – as has been pointed out – by his own earlier writing. The style can seem pedantic and overloaded, but is clearly borne along by a distinctively joy in storytelling. Now and then it can also lead one’s thoughts to schizophrenic style, and not for no reason, for Bjelke is without doubt – like so many other modern writers (and painters) – fascinated by psychotic modes of expression, the madness which with great energy and logic he seeks to research in his narrative praxis.

The title story ‘Nattens Budapest’ begins, for example, with a careful description of a Hungaria rococo hotel which, noted in parenthesis, may remind one of a corresponding hotel in Robbe-Grillet’s film ‘Last Year in Marienbad’ – yet another reminiscence – perhaps also a Kafka reminiscence. But very quickly the reader is led into a peculiar universe, the hotel alters character, strange things happen, and at last the whole thing glides over into a nightmarish condition. It dawns on the reader (and the narrator) that what is involved is a dream whose point of connection with reality is that he has just returned home from a visit to Budapest. It is not a description or an account of a dream, but a writing-through of a material, which through the mode of narration becomes dream and nightmare. Something similar happens in the story ‘Time Out’, where the sense of time and the character’s anchoring in reality fade. ‘…it may be that I am something someone else has dreamed’,.the writer says in one passage. Finally the main action in ‘Vilhelm Callesøes testamente’ the detailed story of how a jealous character commits the refined murder of his rival by poisoning him over a number of years with a certain type of cigar from Madagascar, which outside the island is deadly with long-term use – possibly yet another reminscence, from Umberto Eco’s’ ‘The Name of the Rose’, where a similar poisoning procedure takes place. It is also in this story that Bjelke quotes himself. There is thus the reflection of a reflection in a reflection… A typical manneristic feature, which is also found in psychotic texts.

But Henrik Bjelke is not psychotic! There is logical artistic method in the madness, and it is this that makes his writing – and now most recently ‘Nattens Budapest’ – so exciting and fascinating, at any rate for the reader who accepts his artistic premises. He is certainly an unusual figure in modern Danish literature. Some would probably call him an outsider. But there can also be strength in being an outsider.

From Bogens Verden nr. 4, 1989

Translated by David McDuff