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Stig Henning Jacob Puggaard Paludan (1896-1975) |
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Danish essayist, poet, and novelist, whose sceptic view of his times marked his writings. Jakob Paludan was the leading critic of the conservative Copenhagen newspaper Dagens Nyheder, where he often expressed his fear of the Americanization of European culture. Among Paludan's best-known novels are Fugle omkring fyret (1925), Markerne modnes (1927), and the monumental epic Jørgen Stein (1932-33). "Vi vil nu se, om de danske Socialister kan te sig sige saa belevent ved Hove som de engelske. Min egentlige politiske Overbevisning er vistnok nærmest den, at Parlamentarisme er en skøn Ide, en altfor skøn Ide for denne uskønne Verden. Naar jeg afholder mig fra at stemme, er det muligvis ogsaa i en uklar Følelse af at min Stemme burde tynge mere i Vægtskaalen end en 21aarig Expeditrices fra en Konfektforretning paa Gl. Kongevej, men da den ikke gør det, efterson Jacob Paludan was born in Copenhagen, the son of Professor Julius Paludan, and Gerda Puggaard, 16 years her husband's junior. With the support of conservative academic circles, Julius was appointed in 1892 to the chair of compartive literature at the University of Copenhagen – a post for which the leading Scandinavian literary critic Georg Brandes had been the most obvious candidate in 1872, but was not elected. Paludan always felt that his older brother Hans Aage was the favoured child. Moreover, Julius never acknowledged his son's accomplishments as a writer, even after the success of Fugle omkring fyret (1925, Birds Around the Light). Paludan, on the other hand, distanced himself from his father and the reactionary writers of the National Society of Authors (National Forfatterforening). Originally Paludan was trained as a pharmacist,
qualifying in 1918. After working in Nordsjælland and Frederiksberg and
experiencing unemployment,
he left for the United States in 1920 with Erik C. Eberlin (1899-1943),
whom he had met during his apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Aalborg.
On his own, he went to Ecuador. Before returning to Denmark, he
also spent some
time in New York and Atlantic City. While in the United States he
developed a deep aversion to commercial popular culture and the
American way of life. This stand was shared by the critic and polemic
debater Harald Nielsen and the teacher and writer Arne Sørensen, who
founded
in 1936 the nationalist party Dansk Samling (Danish Unity). In
rejecting the aesthetics of modern technology – "the beauty of speed,"
as the Italian futurist Marinetti put it – Paludan stood in opposition to
many of his contemporary Scandinavian writers, including his countrymen
Tom Kristensen (1891-1974) and Johannes V. Jensen (1873-1950). Paludan even preferred writing in longhand to using a typewriter. De vestlige veje
(The Western Roads), Paludan's first novel, came out in
1922, but he had written for many years, struggling to get his
work published. In this emigrant novel, Paludan attacked American
urban life, which the author considered materialistic and superficial.
"We are at the end of an epoch," says one of the characters, a
professional musician, who hates jazz and the gramophone. "The
desperation of the age resonates in its idiotic music." New York is
called Metropolis – it is an unnatural, geometrically organized "Babel
of the Peoples, wherein the individual race drowns". (quoted in Anti-Americanism in European Literature by Jesper Gulddal, New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011, p. 101) When the book
was republished in 1959, Paludan warned against seeing it as an attack
on America. However, its has been said that De vestlige veje is
probably the most openly anti-American novel in the Danish language.
The central character, a hardworking Danish emigrant named Harry E.
Rasmussen, settles with his American wife in the Midwest. One spring
his wife escapes their poverty to New York, where she becomes a cabaret
singer. His expectations shattered and dreams ruined, Rasmussen
eventually shoots himself in the third volume of the trilogy. Urolige sange (1923), Paludan's only collection of poems, not stir any interest. Søgelys (1923,
Searchlight), a satire on the Danish life-style, dealt similar themes
as the first novel.
The protagonist is a Danish-American war veteran named Hugo Fahlen, who
returns to
Copenhagen and observes symptoms of cultural decline, growing
Americanization, all around – "the more of equality, the more of
unhappiness," he thinks of the changing gender roles. (quoted in 'The impact of World War 1 on Danish literature: War in the trenches and media' by Anker Gemzøe, World War 1: The Great War and its Impacts, edited by Søren Dosenrode, Aalborg: Aalborg University Press, 2018, p. 196) In the
center of the story is a boarding house and its various guest, all
looking for harmony, in one way or another. Paludan's first three novels were collected together as Fra Amerika til Danmark (1943). At the death of his uncle, Paludan inherited a sizable fortune. He decided to abandon his career as a pharmacist in
Frederiksberg, and move into full-time writing. Both of his parents
died in
1926. Paludan lived at home, and in boarding houses and summer houses,
but eventually he settled in 1931 in Birkerød, where
he remained for the rest of his life. In 1943 Paludan
married Lykke Vibeke von Holck, costume designer. Living in Birkerød,
some 20 km from Copenhagen, suited him well. He was a shy and reserved
person, more comfortable as an observer than as a participant. A
humanist to the core, he worshipped classical music and played violin
for his own pleasure. After 1925 Paludan worked as a literary critic for various newspapers, including Dagens Nyheder, Politiken, and Århus Stiftstidende. In the semisymbolic novel Fugle omkring fyret Paludan explored the destructive forces of technological progress – in this case a harbor-building project in the boom period during WW I – on nature and culture. At the end the ocean crushes human constructions. It was followed by Paludan's most pessimistic novel, Markerne modnes (1927), a tragic story about two artistically gifted young men, Ivar and Ralf, who fail in their ambitious aspirations.
Critics have compared Paludan's Jørgen Stein (1932-33) to Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, with the addition that it is a sort of negative Bildungsroman. This
two-volume family saga (Torden i Syd; Under Regnbuen) follows the attitudes of three generations from
pre-World War I
period to the disillusioned generation of the 1920s. Jørgen, the title character, enjoys his life in the industrial city of Aalborg. The war is in the backbround, but it has its effect on him and his older brother, the lawyer Otto. Jørgen, weak and irresolute, is unable to commit himself either to society or to a woman. His father, a government official, faces the breakdown of his conservative world. The character is said to have been modelled on the father of Paludan's close friend Eberlin, an advertising pioneer and crime novelist. Otto becomes involved in monetary speculations. Failing in his plans and haunted by the police he commits suicide. At the end the resignated Jørgen settles down to a new existence; he marries a farmer's daughter and finds peace in nature and physical work as a chicken farmer. Otto Stein's dramatic story inspired Frantz Leander Hansen's novel Portræt af en bedrager: Otto Stein: med sidelys på Jacob Paludans liv og romankunst (2018, Portrait of a Danish Conman: Otto Stein - Framed Within the Life and Novels of His Creator, Jacob Paludan). Upon its publication, Jørgen Stein received
negative reviews, but in 1946 it was regarded as one of the major
Danish books between the wars. However, after this magnum opus,
Paludan did not write any more novels, but embarked on a career as an
essayist. Starting from Feodor Jansens jeremiader(1927,
The Jeremiads of Feodor Jansen),
Paludan contemplated his uneasiness with his own
time ("Jeg er ikke tilfreds med Nutiden"), soulessness of urban life,
where for his horror everyone is the same and all are equal,
and the emergence of emancipated women, as exemplified in 'Jansen og
det kvindelige' from
this volume, in which Paludan claims that women attach themselves to
people and men to objects and young women do not need friends but
admirers. In Landluft (1944) and Han gik ture (1949) Paludan wrote about the nature and mystical experiences. Paludan did not ridicule parapsychology and he had suggested in 1945 in a feature article that scientists look into the matter. He was also interested in UFOs and reviewed Frank Scully's book Behind the Flying Saucers (1950, De flyvende tallerkener). Once he witnessed objects floating (seemingly) in the air in the studio of the psychical researcher and photographer Sven Türck. From 1940 Paludan edited Hasselbalchs Kulturbibliotek, a book series that popularized arts and letters. Moreover, Paludan translated several books into Danish, most notably Sinclair Lewis' Dodsworth and Kristmann Gudmundsson's Livets Morgen (Morning of Life). His sarcastic wit Paludan showed in his two collections of aphorisms, Tanker og bagtanker (1937) and Små apropos'er (1943), which mocked current fashionable trends. He was a founding member of the Danish Academy, and received several awards, among them Holberg Medal (1939) and Danish Academy Prize (1964). Between the years 1973 and 1975 Paludan published three volumes of memoirs, I høstens månefase (1973), Sløret sandhed (1974), and Vink fra en fjern virkelighet (1975). Jacob Paludan died in Birkerød, on September 26 in 1975. Another volume of memoirs, Låsens klik (1976), finished just before his death, appeared posthumouly. For further reading: Portrait of a Danish Conman: Otto Stein - Framed Within the Life and Novels of His Creator, Jacob Paludan by Frantz Leander Hansen (translated from Danish by Gaye Kynoch, 2022); 'The Impact of World War 1 on Danish Literature: War in the Trenches and Media' by Anker Gemzøe, in World War 1: The Great War and Its Impacts, edited by Søren Dosenrode (2018); Jacob Paludan - ambivalensens digter by Niels Kofoed (2015); 'A Heavy Prelude to Chaos. Aspects of Literary Anti-Americanism in the Interwar Years' by Jesper Gulddal, in Eurozine (January 2007); Historical Dictionary of Scandinavian Literature and Theater by Jan Sjåvik (2006); Dansk litteraturens historie: 1920-1960, edited by Klaus P. Mortensen, May Schack (2006); 'Paludan, Jacob,' in Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Vol. 3, ed. Steven R. Serafin (1999); 'Paludan, Jacob' by P.M. Mitchell, in The Encyclopedia of the Essay, edited by Tracy Chevalier (1997); Fra Amerika til Danmark: på rejse gennem Jacob Paludans ungdomsromaner by Poul Houe (1993); A History of Danish Literature by Sven H. Rossel (1993); Janus fra Thisted: Jacob Paludan som romankunstner by Henrik Oldenburg (1988); 'Den diskrete charmetrold: Kritiske betragtninger over et Paludan-citat' by Peter Brask, Danske Studier (1987); Jacob Paludan: historien om et venskab by Henrik Oldenburg (1984); A History of Scandinavian Literature, 1870-1980 by Sven H. Rossel (1982); Jakob Paludan, en bibliografi by B. Børge (1980); 'Paludan, Jacob' by S.H.R. [Sven H. Rossel], in Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, ed. by Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); Jacob Paludan by Emil Frederiksen (1966); Contemporary Danish Authors by J. Claudi (1952); Jacob Paludan by Orla Lundbo (1943); Jacob Paludan by Søren Hallar (1927) Selected works:
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