Danish American Center

a bridge to Danish Heritage

 

 

September 13 The Exception (Untagelsen) by Christian Jurgersen 2004 502 pages Danish

"Four women work together for a small nonprofit that disseminates information on genocide. When two of them receive death threats, they immediately believe the messages come from one of the war criminals whom they have recently profiled in their articles. But as the tensions mount among the women, the discover that none of them is exactly the person they seem to be. Their obsession with tracking down the killer turns into a witch hunt: one by one, the women dismiss the idea that the threats were sent from the outside and begin to suspect each other, disclosing the jealousies and contempt that have been simmering just beneath the surface as they resort to bullying and victimization. Yet these are people who daily analyze cases of appalling cruelty on a worldwide scale, and who are intimate with the psychology of evil." (Random House)
October 11
The Lost Musicians (De fortabte spillenmænd) by William Heinesen 1950 321 pages Faroe Islands

Heinesen succeeds in making the everyday world of Torshavn at the beginning of the 20th-century the stuff of a Greek tragedy. Devotion to music is at the heart of this book. A group of amateur musicians, the Boman Quartet, prevents a series of dramatic events from turning into heart-rending tragedy, as music enables each of the musicians to rise above his own bleak situation. There is humour in the satirical, larger-than-life portrayal of the local sectarians, led by the bank manager Ankersen, as they seek in vain to break the spirit of the musicians, as well as earthy humor in Janniksen, the huge blacksmith who is completly at the mercy of his petty-minded wife.)
November 8
Windows of Brimnes by Bill Holm 2008 211 pages Icelandic/American

Bill Holm is one of a kind. A Minnesotan of Icelandic ancestry, his travels have taken him all over the world, providing the material for a number of rich and memorable books. In the Windows of Brimnes, Holm travels to Brimnes, his fisherman's cottage on the shore of a creek in northern Iceland. From there, he considers the fate of America - "my home, my citizenship, my burden" - in these provocative essays. We read this book to honor Bill Holm who died this year.

December
There will be no discussion in December
January 10
To Siberia (Til sibirien) by Per Petterson 1996 245 pages Norwegian

A brother and sister are forced ever more closely together after the suicide of their grandfather. Their parents' neglect leaves them wandering the streets of their small Danish village. The sister dreams of escaping to Siberia, but it seems increasingly distant as she helplessly watches her brother become involoved in resisting the Nazis. In this exquisite novel, readers will find the crystalline prose and depth of feeling they adored in Petterson's Out Stealing Horses, a literary sensation of 2007 (Book Cover)
February 14
The Tsar's Dwarf (Zarens dværg) by Peter Fogtdal 2006 200 pages Danish

Soerine, a deformed female dwarf from Denmark, is given as a gift to Tsar Peter the Great, who is smitten by her freakishness and intellect. Aginst her will, the Tsar takes Soerine to St Petersburg, where she becomes a jester in his court. There, she lives a life that both compels and repels her. Soerine eventually gives in to the attentions of Lukas, the Tsar's favorite dwarf, and carves out an existence for herself amidst the squalor and lice-ridden world of dwarfs in the early 18th century. In this inhospitable milleu, Soerine's intelligence and wit provide her some small measure of protection - until disaster strikes in the shape of a priest who wants to "save" her. The Tsar's Dwarf is a masterfully told and brilliantly translated novel about aberration, endurance, and the human condition.
March 14
Marie Grubbe (Fru Marie Grubbe) by J P Jacobsen 1876 208 pages Danish

Based upon the life of an authentic 17th century Danish nobelwoman, it charts her downfall from a member of the royal family to the wife of a ferryman, as a result of her desire for an independent and satifying life.
April 11
The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh 2006 450 pages Greenland

The Thrall's Tale "follows Katia, a slave, her daughter Bibrau, and their mistress Thorbjorg, a prophetess of the Norse god Odin, as they navigate the stormy waters of love, revenge, faith, and deception in the Viking Age settlements of tenth-century Greenland. Lindbergh's lyrical prose captures the tenuousness of lives led on the edge of the known world, the pain of loyalties shattered by Christian conversion, and the deepest desireds hidden in the human heart." (Book Cover)
May 17
The Idealist (Idealister) by Hans Scherfig 1945 270 pages Danish

Set in 1938, Idealister begins with the murder of the wealthy landowner and businessman, C. C. Skjern-Svendsen, in the bedroom of the mansion on his huge estate. The police are unable to establish the identity of the murderer, and not until the confession of the estate's gardener, a religious fundamentalist obsessed with notions of sin and the appocalypse -- who has had a brief affair with Skjern-Svendsen's much younger wife -- does the mystery unravel. What hlds the reader's interest is not the thin, straightforward main plot but the various subplots, few of which are resolved in Idealister.