Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen

By : W. Glyn Jones

Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen occupies a distinct place in Scandinavian literature. He is the only Faroese writer to achive international best-seller status. This status derives from his sole novel, Barbara: Roman (1939; translated, 1948), which has the added cachet of being one of the few Scandinavian novels to be translated twice into English within the space of fifty years. It was also adapted as a motion picture directed by Nils Malmros in 1997. These facts, together with Jacobsen’s essays, a study of the Faroe Islands published in the guise of a travel guide, and a volume of his letters, are sufficient to suggest that had he lived longer, he would have been one of the outstanding literaty figures in Scnadivavia in the twentieth century. He must moreover be seen in the context of his being one of five Faroese writers, alle born between 1900 and 1903, who represent a remarkable blossoming of literature in i country which had no tradition of literature in a modern sense. Jacobsen, together with William Heinesen, Christian Matras, Hedin Brú, and Martin Joensen, created modern Faroese literature, whether writing in Danish, as did Jacobsen and Heinesen, or Faroese, as did the others.

[...]

Barbara is a bewildering personality who possesses a special charm of her own along with a total lack of moral sense. She is incapable of withstanding her erotic urges, and her only resort is to flee temptation. On repeated occasitons, Poul – a pitiful figure at times – has to accept this, and he is in no doubt as to his own position. As soon as Andreas appears and delights the assembled company, Poul knows he is doomed:

[Barbara] var i dette Øjeblik hans Fjende, det følte han. Det vilde være en haabløs Gerning at gaa op til hende og søge at lokke hende bort fra dette Sted. Han var uden Magt over hende, hun gjorde i et og alt, hvad hun selv ville. Hun var en kat, hun var frygtelig…. Han tiltaltes af Glansen i hans [Andreas’] væsen. Og samtidig vidste han, at dette betød hans egen Ruin.
    Det uundgaaelige var nu ganske nær.

([Barbara] was at that moment his enemy, he could feel it. It would be a hopeless undertaking to go up to her and try to lure her away from this place. He had no power over her; in everything she did exactly as she pleased. She was a cat, she was frightful .... He was attracted by the brigtness of his [Andreas’] presence. But at the same time he knew that it betokened the end for him.
    The inevitable was about to happen.)

He is doomed, and he always has been doomed, as it sugggested when, on the way to Vágar for the first time, Pastor Poul is told the story of an earlier pastor who outwitted an attempt by two elfin women to seduce him in an enchanted mound. The parallel between this story and Pastor Poul’s going to Vágar with Barbara is obvious, but he is not wise enough to escape.
   Jacobsen was an historian by training; he was extremely well versed in Faroese history and understood Faroese society, and the novel thus has scene after scene in which the reader is presented with a vibrant portrayal of the mid-eighteenth-century Faroe Islands, descriptions of dress, furnishings, and costoms. All of the characters are said to be recognizable portraits of actual historical people. Most are not readily identifiable, but the character of Andreas Heyde is clearly based on J.C.Svabo, who did, in fact, as is noted in Jacobsen’s first work, Danmark og Færøerne, undertake a study of the Færoese economy in the late eighteenth century, only slightly later than the setting for this novel.

Fra Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 214. Twentieth-Century Danish Writers 1999.