Vagn Lundbye

Vagn Lundbye (born November 22, 1933 in Vanløse , Denmark , † August 20, 2016 ) was a Danish writer .

Life

Its origins lay in Beat literature at the end of the 1960s, when he became known for his work for the then progressive Copenhagen literary magazines "ta '" and "Mak" (1967 to 1970). A first novella "En af disse" was published in 1964 by the Danish magazine Vindrosen . From the beginning he was very interested in Indian and Greenlandic themes in his work . From his ethnological studies going in this direction and numerous trips to various indigenous peoples, a strong anti-capitalist attitude is derived that pervades his work. His main work is the Jonas trilogy Back to Anholt , The Whale and The Big City (1978–1982). The novel Back to Anholt was nominated by Denmark in 1979 for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize.

In addition to his extensive prose work, he also wrote volumes of poetry, scripts and radio plays.

Literary works

• Dierte 1977 (1977); Poems with different content, including the adopted home, the Danish island of Langeland , such as Rudkøbing (where Lundbye lives), Bagenkop (the harbor town in the south of the island), the ferry in Lohals in the north; with thoughts about the undesired accession of Denmark to the EU (October 1972), about the unloved Langeland Bridge (which breaks the island's isolation); with memories of local history and its attitude towards life (I am the Danish province, its silence, its waiting, and what it offers me in return ...); with reminders to protect nature, the native animals and an "Indian" attitude towards life; interspersed with parts that evoke Greenlandic or Jonah ( Jona ), whom the whale devoured; appended “three Indian poems” (translations from English).

• Dødedans (1983); Dance of Death, a poem of mythological content in four-line stanzas in the style of the Danish folk ballad; illustrated by Bjørn Nørgaard (1947 -) with expressive hand-cut graphics, which also show “mythological” scenes (with different content). An unnamed narrator tells of the bloody whaling, is briefly interrupted by a German soldier (an association with the occupation during the Second World War in Denmark), but continues to tell of his deadly craft up to the "twelfth day". Hell and storm break the language first, the ship becomes a "Babel tower". Then dead sailors “dance” towards their end. The narrator himself is swallowed by the whale, later spat out half dead on the beach, and since the whale died, he has to repeat his eternal story every "wolf time" (the sailor guilty of the sin of whaling becomes a revenant who admonishes himself against whaling). - Lundbye dedicates the book to his mother.

• Palindromos eller Colombos sidste rejse , Roman (1991). - German translation: Palindromos or Colombo's last journey , Roman (1993); Dedication to the Indian tribe of the Mandan (people) in North America, "exterminated by the whites" (p. 5). Colombo, an American from Massachusetts who is interested in the history of proselytizing, is captured by an Indian tribe (not the Mandan) and is abducted into the jungle, to a "colony" where several others have been naked for years (for the Roman is an important keyword; nudity ) and live under the most primitive conditions. In the delusion of powerlessness, memories of civilization are mixed with impressions of the Indians who apparently [apparently not?] Live in a paradisiacal "state of nature" . The first half of the novel leaves Colombo (and the reader) pretty much alone with blood and feces. - In Chapter 9, “Abélard and Héloïse” (p. 129 ff .; Petrus Abelardus and Heloisa ), reflections (topic: castration ) and attempts to explain (Chapter 10, “Conversation at night”, p. 154 ff.) Begin . Little by little Colombo (and the reader) learn that such prisoners have been held since around 1962 (p. 137) and castrated in a literally pig ceremony. Colombo suffers the same fate (in the present of the novel, i.e. 1991/92; p. 179; 500 years earlier, in 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America), and he threatens like the other eleven (or ten; a boy dies) People of different origins and nationalities sink into the chaos of the, so to speak, zeroed state: "Eat, drink, sleep, keep warm" (p. 140). Colombo feels like in a maze, "but all the paths of the labyrinth only go in one direction, namely towards it" (p. 142). Palindrome is a string of characters (letters) which, read from the front and back, produce the same thing (see p. 213). Colombo is "thrown on itself"; does he also return “to himself”? - The ways out are apparently open; Airplanes are constantly flying overhead, and there are plane wrecks from World War II in the jungle (p. 143). In apparently cultured education, details from Greek mythology are reflected on. The situation darkens again in night, tropical rain and the “black box”: “We are only lost when we turn back! We are lost if we repent! ”(P. 193). Lundbye plays with sentences and thoughts that are close to the palindrome, and Colombo ["Columbus", who is discovering a "new world"?] Is renamed "Drale", close to the palindrome for "[Ab] élard". - This is followed by “The Dance of Death” (Chapter 12, p. 177 ff.): A hut with the dead, former prisoners, over whose preserved corpses Drale and Olle stumble (p. 194 f.). The novel ends like crazy with the closer encounter with "Gagag" [apparently "gaga"]. This person who produces palindromes, whose name is also one, cryptically (with the advertisement for oatmeal) comes out as of Danish origin (p. 214). Gagag and the natives of the village join forces and offer Drale a place to stay in a fighter plane that crashed in the jungle; The present and the future are mixed up (p. 214). Like a palindome, the plot returns to an opening scene with the archery Mandan, and Drale-Colombo begins his “last journey”: he dies.

Filmmaking

In 1970 Lundbye worked on a short experimental film series Frændeløs , which fell victim to film censorship (protection of minors) because of its provocative freedom of movement . In Lundbye's part, a western parody ("Spaghetti Western"), he played a " Clint Eastwood " himself in disguise ; this post also highlighted his interest in heroic myths and archetypes (psychology) | archetype . The following collective film Eftersøgningen (1971), shot in the summer of 1969 at an alternative tent camp, brought the same scene with a naked female Christ from the previous film, but abstained from the “sadistic” elements of its predecessor; it was classified as the "ultimate happening film". In the Danish film Guldalder (1993) Lundbye spoke about the Danish painter of the "golden age", Johan Thomas Lundbye (1818–1848), with whom he was related, and his illustrated Fabler for Børn (animal fables for children) from 1845 with texts by Hans Vilhelm Kaalund re-released Lundbye in 1994 and 2008 in Nachschicht. Lundbye's interests included literary marginal characters who were wrongly forgotten, such as the Danish writer Albert Dam (1880–1972), to whom he dedicated a film in 1968. He also worked on a film about the writer Morten Korch in 1999 and was seen in two television programs in 2002. He wrote the script for the film Vargens tid (1988) .

Awards

He has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Danish Critics' Prize for his novel Tilbage til Anholt in 1978 , a prize from the Danish publisher Gyldendal in 1986 , the Beatrice Prize in 1991, and other prizes followed in 1991 and 2008. His life's work was honored by the Danish Academy with its Grand Prize in 2002 . The eulogy for this was given by the Danish writer Suzanne Brøgger with the title Næsehornet fra Langeland (The rhinoceros from ...; see Lundbye's poems from 1990), which alludes to the geographical center of Lundbye's life, namely the island of Langeland , for its well-being (nature conservation, cultural identity, etc.) he has worked his whole life, just as he is (not only literarily) committed to indigenous peoples such as the Indians in North America and the Inuit in Greenland. Such an orientation, nourished by the Danish understanding of old Norse myths and the patriotism of Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig , is also to be understood as his resistance to Denmark's accession to the European Union . In 2003 he was awarded the DR Novel Prize for his novel Trefoldighedsbarn .

Works

• Signalement , exp. Novel (1966)
• Mørkespil , exp. Novel (1967)
• Roman , exp. Novel (1968)
• Nico , text collection about the group Velvet Underground (1969)
• Smukke tabere , utopian diary novel (1970)
• Her ligger min yukkafrugt , on Indian myths and rites (1972)
• October 2, 1972 , Roman (1972)
• Den indianske tanke , travel diary (1974)
• Alt er liv, 1 and 2 , collection of Indian texts (1975)
• Studied 1977 , poems 1977. Borgen [Copenhagen] 1977, ISBN 87-418-4385-1 . 111 pages.
• Tilbage til Anholt , Romance Trilogy , Volume 1 (1978)
• Langelandsk fodrejse , travel report (1979)
• Hvalfisken , Romantic Trilogy , Volume 2 (1980)
• Den store by , novel trilogy, volume 3 (1982)
• Fra verdens begyndelse , travel report (1982)
• Dødedans , Poems (1983). Borgen [Copenhagen] 1983, ISBN 87-418-5633-3 . 57 pages, illustrations.
• Omkom 79 'fjords , travel report (1984)
• Mytologisk rejse i et grønlandsk landskab , travel report (1985)
• Alvidende fortællinger , short stories (1986)
• Hjemkomster , travel report (1987)
• Vi er levende , Nachdichtung (1988)
• Septemberfortællinger , short stories (with others, 1988)
• Næsehornsdigte , poems (1990)
• Palindromos eller Colombos sidste rejse , Roman (1991). Palindromos or Colombo's Last Journey , novel, from the Danish by Ursula Schmalbruch; with an original cover by Per Kirkeby (similar in design to the Danish edition). Kleinheinrich Münster 1993, ISBN 3-926608-81-1 . 225 pages.
• Indianske fortællinger , Roman (1992)
• Fodrejse på Langeland , travel report (1993)
• Kongen som ville røre ved månen , Nachdichtung (with Arne Herløv Petersen , 1994)
• Lundbyes dyrefabler , Fables (1994)
• Udflugt med Billy , Roman (1994)
• Harpunjægeren , post-poetry (1995)
• Julidøde , short stories (1995)
• Æsops fabler , Nachdichtung (1996)
• Karolines dyrejeg , children's book (1996)
• Det lille bjerg og den afskyelig snemand , Roman (1998)
• Syv vidnesbyrd om Vor Herre Jesu Kristi latter , Stories (1999)
• Trefoldighedsbarn , Roman (2002)
• Årsagers fuglestier - Udvalgte graduated 1967-2003 , poems (2003)
• Lang nat , radio play (2004, translation by Ingo Sundmacher , WDR )
• Det nordiske testamente 1: Harnisklædte kæmper (2007)
• Det nordiske testaments 2: Gudernes gang på jorden (2007)
• Det nordiske testamente 3: Mellem høje Odin and hvide Krist (2007)
• Fabler for børn (2008)
• Den kvindelige saga , epic poems (2011)

Secondary literature

• Ingo Sundmacher, Columbus Myths in the North , in: Thomas Seiler (Ed.), Scandinavian-Iberoamerican Cultural Relations, Contributions to Nordic Philology, Vol. 50, A. Francke Verlag Tübingen 2013, pp. 143–163.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Forfatteren Vagn Lundbye er død . ( politiken.dk [accessed November 29, 2016]).
2. ↑ There are also references to the following information in: Wikipedia.dk, March 2016 / Det Danske Filminstitut
3. ↑ Litteratursiden.dk: Vagn Lundbye, March 2016 (with further information).
4. ↑ Vargens tid (1988). In: International Movie Database. Retrieved November 26, 2016 . 
5. ↑ See Otto Holzapfel : Traces of Tradition. Folkloric Studies . Peter Lang Bern et al. 1991 (Studien zur Volksliedforschung 6) ISBN 3-261-04285-0 , pp. 73-77, with reference to the war of 1864 ( German-Danish War ), the "military family" Lundbye, which with several people was involved in it, from the war minister in the Monrad government to the commander who had fallen on the Düppeler Schanzen . Vagn Lundbye dedicates an apt poem to the 1977 “Aftenens sidste milde klarhed… / The last mild clarity of the evening…” Reference is made to a number of similarly thinking writers in Denmark, all of whom were disappointed with the outcome of the 1972 election, the brief Danish “Yes “To the EU; Lundbye writes a novel about it October 2, 1972 .