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Aksel Sandemose (1899-1965) |
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Danish-born Norwegian novelist, who mixed in his works influences from Freud's insights of the psyche and Joseph Conrad's stories exploring complex moral problems. Aksel Sandemose wrote his first six works in Danish, then translated the most striking of them, Klabautermanden (1927), a tale of strange beliefs at sea, into Norwegian in 1932. "Aksel Sandemose is one of the few writers who seriously delved into the teachings of psychoanalysis and thereby became a writer. Like Strindberg and Dostoevsky, he discovered that the irrational is real; his writing is a constant attempt to track down this incomprehensible element. The chaotic nature of his books is traceable solely to this monomaniacal obsession, which for him represented the fight for his own soul." (Sven H. Rossel in A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980, 1982) Aksel Sandemose was born Axel Nielsen in the north Danish town of
Nykøbing, Mors
Island, the son of Jørgen Nielsen, a smith at Schourup's machine
factory, and Amalie
Jacobsdatter, a housemaid; she died in 1926. The Nielsens were poor,
but they were never hungry, and they owned their own home, two rooms
and a kitchen. At the age of fourteen,
Sandemose left school and was a gardener's apprentice for a year and a
half. While
living Copenhagen, he adopted the surname "Sandemose" and the spelling
"Aksel" of his first name. Before he went to sea, worked as a teacher's
apprentice atNykøbing Mors' Private School and had a part-time job at Schourup's machine factory. At sea Sandemose had kept diary. His manuscrip, Blandt Søens Vagabonder (Among the Vagabonds of the Sea) was rejected by Hasselbalch, but he went on writing novels which were all turned down. In 1921 Sandemose married Dagmar Ditlevsen; the next year they had twin
daughters, Hedda and Eva. The family lived on bare bones, but Sandemose managed to get his short stories published. Their
economic situation improved somewhat in 1925 when
Sandemose was hired as a guard by the director of the Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek museum, but the job made it hard to write at all. "It's just
that [I] have almost no time, since for now I have to work at the
Glyptotek into the night. Am having unbelievable money difficulties,"
he complained in a letter to a friend. ('Introduction' by Christopher S. Hale, in Aksel Sandemose and Canada: A Scandinavian Writer's Perception of the Canadian Prairies in the 1920s, edited by Christopher S. Hale, 2005, p. 15) During his years of travel, Sandemose's voyages took him to America, Canada, and West Indies. He spoke English pretty well. In Newfoundland he left the ship and worked in a lumber camp before returning to Danmark. The title of his first book, Fortællinger fra Labrador (1923), was misleading: he had never visited Labrador. "The Scandinavian vagadond of the se is the best seaman on earth," Sandemose claimed in Fortællinger. "But in harbor, he pawns his life and health to King Alcohol with his entourage of harlots and becomes the worst sailor on earth. ('The seven seas. Maritime modernity in Nordic literature' by Søren Frank, in Nordic Literature: A Comparative History. Volume 1: Spatial Modes, edited by Thomas A. DuBois and Dan Ringgaard, 2017, p. 192) This and the following books in the 1920s Sandemose wrote in Danish. All his early works received poor reviews. Publishers rejected his manuscripts. Sandemose's early stories, influenced by
great sea story writers Jack London and Joseph Conrad, were based his own experiences as a sailor. He first gained fame with Klabautermanden
(The Klabauterman), a romantic tale of obsession, superstitions, and shattering of
illusions. At the end the protagonist, an aging skipper named Adam
Klinte, turns into a klabauterman, a ship's ghost. Ross Dane(1928),
about a Danish immigrant who establishes a colony in Beaver
Coulee in southern Albany, was for Sandemose a major step toward
finding his own literary
voice. As a sign of recognition he was awarded Carl Møllers Legat, a
stipend of 1,000 kroner, originally established for humorous
authors. Three of Sandemose's novels take place in Canada, Ross Dane, En sjømann går i land (1931, A Sailor Goes Ashore), and September (1939), also set in the fictitious Beaver Coulee. Sandemose's
trip to western Canada in 1927 was sponsored partly by the Canadian
Pacific Railway. Nevertheless, Sandemose did not give too much weight
to this but remained objective in his reports on conditions there. But
in his diary he wrote about the less pleasant stuff: "Just arrived here
(Redvers) and am sitting in a dirty room. The oil lamp, the girl, no
lock on the door, no table... It is unusually cheerless in this grubby
place, the staff stupid, holes in everything..." ('Introduction' by Christopher S. Hale, in Aksel Sandemose and Canada: A Scandinavian Writer's Perception of the Canadian Prairies in the 1920s, edited by Christopher S. Hale, 2005, p. 24) In 1929 Sandemose settled in Norway, where his mother had been born.
From the 1930s Sandemose published his works in Norwegian; the written forms of Norwegian and Danish are quite close. En sjømann går i land
started a long series about the author's alter ego, Espen
Arnakke, from the small, fictional town of Jante, Sandemose's
"Yoknapatawpha," which was modelled after Nykøbing. Film version
of the story,
supplemented with material from other books and Espen Haavardsholm's
autobiography Mannen fra Jante, was filmed in 1999 by Nils Gaup. Espen is an impulsive seventeen-year-old sailor, who searches
explanation for his own irrational act of murder. In the first book he
kills his friend, "Big John," who seduces his girlfriend, and flees to
Canada. Perhaps the most famous novel in the series is En flyktning krysser sitt spor
(1933, A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks). Now
Espen plunges into his
childhood to find out who he is. Noteworthy, in this novel Sandemose
developed the Law of Jante (Janteloven), which do not only define small
town values and life, but is at the same time universal: "But Jante was
everywhere; it loomed on the Canadian prairie, it stretched forth
across the United States, it blossomed in Jevnaker as it flourished in
Jutland." (A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, translated by translated by Eugene Gay-Tifft, 1936, p. 88) Espen formulates ten
nihilistic rules, beginning with "You're not to think you are anything
special," and ending to "You shall not believe you can teach us anything." There are other commands too: "Thou shalt not drink!" (Ibid., p. 44) Espen's story continued in Det stod en benk i haven (1937) and Brudulje (1938). The series develops into a strong defense of all men, who have dreams and live in terms of their own problems. Vi pynter oss med horn (1936, Horns for Our Adornment) is about the relationships between the crew members of a schooner on its way from Bergen to New Foundland. It combines legends, Freudian psycholoanalysis and short sketches. Among the members of the crew is a clergyman accused of child molestation, and a giant, violent sailor, called the Golden Horse, who becomes the central character of the novel. When Nazism started to grow in Germany, Sandemose warned in his articles of its likely spread northward. Until 1941, Sandemose remained in Norway. His involvement in the resistance movement forced him to escape to a safer country. During German occupation Sandemose lived in Sweden, where he wrote one of his major works, Det svundne er en drøm (1946), a story of a crime and passion recorded in the form of diary entries from 1938 to 1940. John Torson, a Norwegian-American, who is haunted by an unhappy love affair, visits his home country. His younger brother is accused and condemned to die for a murder, which perhaps Torson himself has committed. In Tjærehandleren (1945) Sandemose continued to plumb the depths of destructive behavior. Audun Hamre, hates the world, feels contempt for human beings, and steals money from widows and unmarried women. The only person he loves is his mother. "Du har hørt dette om at en full kvinne skal være et sånt forferdelig syn - og de er noe i det, men er det noen forskyell på kjønnenes oppførsel i den situasjonen forekommer det meg at mennene baerer prisen hjem. Det er madonna dyrkelsan som igjen er på farten, kvinnen skal ikke brøle opp og være full, det får hun la mannen om, hun skal være en blå blomst i gresset og bli spist av den første oksenkalven som går forbi. Det er også et dogme at når en kvinne går til bunns, gjør hun det så meget frykteligere enn mannen. Kan du si meg hvordan hun skulle bære jegad med det? Det kommer sett og slett av at du kjenner deg forurettet når hun lukter sånn av kloakk at hun ikke er noe å ligge med, men kannskje hun også har luktesans og misliker at menn gjør på seg og oser av gammel fyll." (from Varulven, 1958) While living in Sweden, a number of his stories came out in Swedish translation. In 1945 he married Eva Borgen; she died in 1959. Sandemose's third wife, Hanne Holbek, was an actresss 34 years his junior. After the war Sandemose returned to Norway, where Sandemose settled with his family on a farm, Kjørkelvik, near Risør. From 1951 to 1955 he published the magazine Årstidene (The Seasons). He wrote all articles himself. Alice Atkinson og hennes elskere
(1949) consisted of three letter. Sandemose examined one of his favorite themes, the oppressing
atmosphere of a small town, the hidden, dark secrets of the human mind,
and everyday life cruelty. In the background of the story is World War
II. The protagonist, Jörgen Haukli, is tortured by his memories. He is
a fighter pilot and a British spy, who writes letters to his sister and
tells in them about the mysterious death of a woman, Alice Atkinson,
whom he loved passionately. In Varulven (1958, The Werewolf) and Felicias bryllup (1961) traumatic experiences of two men and a woman in their youth unleash destructive forces of the libido. One of the characters says, "the family is nature's own school in the nature of love." The werewolf of the title symbolizes a struggle against intolerance. Felicia was abandoned at the age of seventeen by Erling Vik. She marries Jan, a farmer. Later Erling, a poet, becomes her lover, but he cannot forget his great love, Gulnare. Murene rundt Jeriko (1960) was partly autobiographical novel, a dreamlike story about death, sorrows and joy. "I have taken the art of lying to its extreme limits, because lying is necessary so that one could live." "But for me, the word is nothing, I cannot understand without an image... I have wished that I never had learned to read and write. Then I wouldn't have this glasswall between my perception and reality..." (from Murene rundt Jeriko, 1960) Main themes in Sandemose´s works are
love and hate, torturing memories, and the oppression of a small-town
society. His psychological probing has been compared to the work of an
archeologist, also one can detect the influence of Sigmund Freud,
August Strindberg, D.H. Lawrence, and James Joyce. Many of the novels have autobiographical background,
drawing experiences from his wanderings. He also wrote essays, short
stories and memoirs. Sandemose died in Copenhagen on August 5, 1965. His son from his first marriage, Bjarne Sandemose, revealed in Ugler i Sandemossen (2000), that a great writer is not necessary a great father. He depicts in the book with dark humor about his father's violence and excessive use of alcohol. For further reading: 'Aksel Sandemose: Investigator of the Mystery of Human Nature' by Erling Nielsen, in Scan 8 (1969); Ideas and Ideologies in Scandinavian Literature since the First World War, edited by Sveinn Skorri Höskuldsson (1975); På sporet af Sandemose. Essays og artikler by Johannes Væth (1975); A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980 by Sven H. Rossel (1982); Aksel Sandemose: Exile in Search of a Home: by Randi Birn (1984); Janteloven: Aksel Sandemose. En biografi by Ole Storm (1989); A History of Norwegian Literatures, edited by Harald S. Naess (1993); Vildmanden: Sandemose og animalismen i mellemkrigstidens litteratur by Jens Andersen (1998); Nytt lys på Aksel Sandemose: ti artikler, ed. by Thaly Nilsson (1998); Kollisioner: Aksel Sandemose som outcast och monument by Anna Forssberg Malm (1998); Diktning som skjebne: Aksel Sandemose by Jorunn Hareide (1999); Sandemose og offentligheden. Et kildeskrift by Johannes Væth (1999); Ugler i Sandemossen by Bjarne Sandemose (2000); Flyktningen. Aksel Sandemose by Jørgen Sandemose (2004); Aksel Sandemose and Canada: A Scandinavian Writer's Perception of the Canadian Prairies in the 1920s, edited by Christopher S. Hale (2005); Dæmoni og ansvarlighed: nye bidrag til Sandemose-forskningen, edited by Steen Klitgård Povlsen & Steen Andersen (2009); Aksel Sandemose och narcissim by Bo Sigrell (2015); Nye forbindelser: pejlinger i Aksel Sandemoses forfatterskab by Steen Andersen (2015) Selected works:
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