A Stone from Another Hill
Af : Lin Hua
The Chinese translator of Danish literature, Lin Hua visited Denmark during the summer of 1994 to celebrate the centenary of Johannes V. Jensen´s first publication and the 50th anniversary of his being awarded the Nobel Prize.
On April 9, 1944, a diplomat from the Swedish Legation in Denmark visited Johannes V. Jensen and informed him that the Swedish Academy had decided to award him the Nobel Prize for literature of that year. As the world was still at war, the border between Sweden and Denmark was completely closed. The Swedish side proposed two alternatives: to arrange the presentation ceremony in Copenhagen right away or to arrange it after the war in Stockholm. Joharines V. Jensen accepted the latter. The presentation was later held on December 10, 1945 after the war ended.
Childhood and youth
Johannes V. Jensen was born i 1873 in a small town called Farsø in a district known as Himmerland in northern Jutland and was the second of 11 children in the family. After finishing his grammar school education he entered the University of Copenhagen to study medicine, from 1895 supporting his studies by writing short stories and essays for magazines. His first novel Danskere (Danes) was published in 1896 and was well received by the public. In 1897 Johannes V. Jensen gave up the study of medicine entirely and devoted himself wholly to writing. He wrote articles, newspaper reports and feature articles for newspapers. Out of a desire to fulfil his creative urges, he began to travel the world and within 10 years he travelled through most European countries, reached Siberia, and visited the Far East, Singapore, Japan and China. He stayed long in the United States of America. The extensive travels not only provided him with rich material for his writing, but also very much broadened his vision, and promoted his evolutionary world view for which he had laid a foundation when he was still in the university.
Stories from Himmerland
In 1898 his first short story collection Himmerlandsfolk (Himmerland Folk) came out. Included in this collection were 11 short stories with the people, landscapes and local conditions and customs of Himmerland as background. Several of them, such as Oktobernat (October Night) and Tre og tredive Aar (Thirty-three Years), were later considered as classical Danish short stories. In my opinion these short stories that Johannes V. Jensen wrote in his early years were like streams of clear spring and are most representative of his style, his marvellous skill and the amazing strength in his pen.
A popular Chinese proverb says that one particular natural environment brings up one particular people. The truth of this adage is properly confirmed in the case of Johannes V. Jensen. Denmark on the whole is a mild country. Most parts of Denmark proper are mild in climate, the landscape fine and delicate. All cities are like gardens, all fields spill out the delicate smell of grains and of flowers. However, in this kind and comfortable country there is also a piece of land which is rough and full of wild grandeur, Himmerland, the place where Johannes V. Jensen was born and spent his first 18 years. I travelled through Himmerland in the 50s and 60s. Himmerland by the 1960s is of course different from Himmerland in the last years of the last century. But you can still see that wildness.
Himmerland description
I shall only quote a few lines from Himmerlandsbeskrivelse (A Portrait of Himmerland) to lead you into Johannes V. Jensen's environment, into his love and hate. In Himmerland "it is an unforested, completely open land across which the wind rushes as over the ridge of a roof. The equal of the wind that can blow here, for days and weeks on end, constantly with the same strength, like an invisible beam in the air, must surely be sought in such places as the Tibetan plateau; I, at least, have never been anywhere in the world where it blows more powerfully, more constantly and at all times of the year than here." And about the people of Himmerland: "No one is so carefree as the fisherman from the Limfjord. When, together with his crew, he has ensconced himself in the little village inn and exchanged fish for a toddy all round, he beams like a grown boy ... he blossoms in a thousand moods, it is as though these few mouthfuls of warm spirits unleash a world of psychic possibilities that for a short time transform him from an unparallelled fisherman into one of the chosen sons of nature ... He is ignorant, without any intellectual developement, but he has innocent nerves, the intoxication gives a momentary revelation of everything that has existed in his family and everything that one day might come in his offspring: violence, music, primitive kindness, genius, hopefulness, tumult ... The following day he is Mads again, a fisherman from the Limfjord, and now there is fishing to be done."
In 1904 Johannes V. Jensen published his Nye Himmerlandshistorier (New Himmerland Tales), in 1910 Himmerlandshistorier. Tredie Samling (Himmerland Tales. Third Collection).
The Fall of the King
In Denmark it wasJohannes V. Jensen who first embodied the new European bourgeois ideology with literary creation, not with literary criticism. His third novel Kongens Fald (The Fall of the King) published in three parts 1900-01, considered by many literary critics as one of the most outstanding novels in Danish and one of the very few real historical novels in Danish literature, was the earliest demonstration of this practice. The novel has the reign and fall of Christian II of Denmark as its background. Johannes V. Jensen was telling a historical story, but he was really referring to the Denmark of his own time. In it he deeply criticized the scourge of pessimism prevailing in the society of that time. He fully castigated the irresolution and hesitation, indecisiveness and remoteness, weaknesses that existed in the Danish national character, saying that all these were the root cause that made Denmark a weak nation and a nation deprived of success. He stood firmly by the Danish peasant, criticising the fact that peasants' strengths were neglected and viewing this negligence as the cause of political failure. His description of Denmark and the Danish people was very vivid, filled with deep love for them. Kongens Fald not only drew a line between two centuries, but from one angle it also marked the rebirth of Danish literature.
From science to literature
Johannes V. Jensen turned to literature from science. The few years´ medical studies, the influence of his father who was a respected veternarian in Himmerland, and the new Europe and America gave him more opportunity for understanding science. He fully exploited this knowledge in his writing. His travels in Great Britain and the United States aroused his enthusiasm for material civilazation and strengthened his belief in a prosperous world future His two novel Madame d'Ora (Madame d'Ora) (1905) and Hjulet (The Wheel) (1905) reflected his sentimants towards American material civilization. Johannes V. Jensen's discovery of the United Statesn as an important landmark in his creative career, he saw in America a new world full of inexhaustible energy and he was overwhelmed by the spirit shown by the American people. The faster progress he saw, the more enchanted he became. He, too, had "dedicated himself to an era of machines".
The Long Journey
In 1908 Johannes V. Jensen published his novel Bræen (The Glacier), which created a sensation, and in the following 14 years, he published one after the other Skibet (The Ship) (1912), Det tabte Land (The Lost Country) (1919), Norne-Gæst (The Norn Guest) (1919), Christoffer Columbus (Christopher Columbus) (1921) and Cimbrernes Tog (The Journey of the Cimbrians) (1922). Later he put all six novels together into one series Den lange Rejse (The Long Journey).
Johannes V. Jensen's long journey was a historical journey of human beings, beginning with their descent from the trees to and tracing them to the Middle Ages. Beginning with the Tertiary Period, the long journey runs through millions of years. It has been said that Jensen was writing a new Bible, a Bible of Darwinistic evolutionary ideas, weaving together elements from the Old Testament, the Greek and Roman mythologies, Icelandic Sagas, the Nordic myths, and from Snorri and Saxo, together with his knowledge of geology, anthropology, archeology and ethnology. He used these elements in creating his heroes, in exploring his process of human development. You can also trace Swift, Defoe, Jack London, Kipling and H.G. Wells in this narrative. At the same time Johannes V. Jensen used all the impressions he derived from his surroundings when his was a child, and when he was travelling around the world.
Det tabte Land begins somewhere in Europe just close to a volcano in the deep forest, where ignorant people in their endless fear see the frequently erupting volcano as a god. However, among these ignorant people there arises a man brave enough to explore the secret of the eruption and the fire. The man, Jensen's Prometheus, who brings fire to mankind, is a man of flesh and blood. He boldly confronts nature, which he does not know at all. He uses fire to resist the attacks of the wild beasts. He observes the movements of the celestial bodies and for the first time arrives at the concept of time. He also achieved the beginnings of primitive artistic creation.
The second novel Bræen is about the early and late Quaternary Period. The volcano has stopped erupting. The climate has become colder and colder. The forest people begin a great migration to the south to avoid the cold. But one man emerges from the crowd and decides to find out what a kind of monster the cold is. He goes out into the icy world alone and in struggling against the cruel cold he becomes hardened and incomparably strong. In his coexisterice with nature, he experiences seasonal changes. In hardship and adversity he discovers a woman suffering the same fate as himself. For the first time they experience a smile, real love and monogamy, and this union is the start of the Nordic people.
Later books in Den lange Rejse describe the ancient Nordic people's life, how the Cimbrians went South and invaded Rome, how the Nordic Vikings plundered in the Atlantic, ending with a portrait of Christopher Columbus. And as Johannes V. Jensen has given the impression that all human beings originated in that particular place in Europe, his own Himmerland, Columbus also turns out to be a descendant of the Nordic people.
However, a piece of literature is not a scientific thesis. The whole of Den lange Rejse is like a great painted scroll which is decorated in a most striking manner. The romantic touch of Johannes V. Jensen's pen gave the most vivid and colourful description of the natural scenery.
The myths
Johannes V. Jensen published 160 so-called "myths" in 9 volumes: "The Myth", he wrote, "is my form of the 'Eventyr' (fairy-tale)." And later: "Leave out the plot, concentrate on those short flashes of the essence of things that illumine man and time and you have the myth ... They are not short stories in the ordinary sense of the word, nor fairy-tales; they have something of the essay and something of the quality of a musical theme, an attempt to focus the essence of life in a dream."
His first collection of myths was Myter og jagter (Myths and Hunts) (1907). The first myth here is Knokkelmanden (Danse Macabre) a tale of life and death conceived symbolically in the figures of a music hall singer and a clown, a dying seaman and a baying hound. Det gamle Uhr (The Old Clock) is both a personification and an attempt to capture a fleeting and nostalgic mood. Majnat (May Night) relates a fantastic, inexplicable experience in the open. Edderkoppen (The Spider) is a humorous tale, whereas Fujijama (Fujijama) is a religious confession of a nonbeliever. Johannes V. Jensen´s myths are among the most beautiful essays in Danish literature, they are new creation by him in Danish literature.
A master of romantic art
Taking Johannes V. Jensen´s works as a whole we find that running through it all is his language, which is as beautiful as beauty can be. In this sense Johannes V. Jensen is a great master of romantic art. His works are just like the paintings of Renoir or Cézanne. There are very often long paragraphs of nature description. Bright sunshine, bright colours, swiftly moving air represent his direct and visual sense of Nature in all its grandeur. With words he attains a height which the impressionist masters had attained with colours. His language expresses the changes of shades and colour in his mind; in is work, you can see, hear, taste, smell and feel what he writes. We may say that Johannes V. Jensen was a daring painter, outstandingly good at putting scenery With universal significance on to a large canvas.
Greatness and greatness are not to be compared, prominence and prominence can not be mentioned in the same breath. Denmark is a country far away from us. We all know Denmark has its greatness and pride. In China we have a saying that stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of our hills. However you look at him, Johannes V. Jensen is a brilliant "stone from another hill"!
Denne artikel stammer fra Danish Literary Magazine 7, 1994.
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