Mogens and Other Stories

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Elusive online journalist Scott King investigates the murder of a teenager at an outward bound centre, in the first episode of the critically acclaimed, international bestselling Six Stories series… urn:isbn:1404353887 Republisher_date 20170810145544 Republisher_operator [email protected] Republisher_time 291 Scandate 20170809105223 Scanner ttscribe14.hongkong.archive.org Scanningcenter hongkong Top_six true Tts_version v1.50-56-g22e3243 Worldcat (source edition) Oh, more than enough sometimes—much too much! And when shape and color and movement are so lovely and so fleeting and a strange world lies behind all this and lives and rejoices and desires and can express all this in voice and song, then you feels so lonely, that you cannot come closer to this world, and life grows lusterless and burdensome."[6] Unlike many of his colleagues Jacobsen did not take much interest in politics, his main interests being science and psychology. He is primarily an artist: his ability to create "paintings" and arabesque-like scenes both in his prose and his poetry (which has sometimes been criticized as "mannered") is one of the secrets of his art. It has been said that his novels are a presentation of various snapshots rather than tales of action.

Morten Høi Jensen, in his masterful biography of Jacobsen—the only full English-language study of Jacobsen to date—goes a step further than Gustafson saying that it would be "misguided" to state Jacobsen's objection of the subjective over the objective view of nature too rigidly.[5] In reality, Jacobsen's work portrays an inner conflict between the rational realism gained by an objective view of the world and the story-driven subjective beliefs that society carries. He shows that, despite scientific advancements and the development of new theoretical systems, coming to terms with the emotional and existential repercussions of the shattering of old beliefs can have profound effects upon one's physical and emotional well-being. Around this time, the discoveries of Charles Darwin began to fascinate him. Realizing that the work of Darwin was not well known in Denmark, he translated The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man into Danish. [1] The weight of his influence was felt even in his own lifetime but took on a greater wave for the generations immediately following his death. Thomas Mann claimed that Jacobsen had the greatest effect on his early style and Jacobsen's works were praised by James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Musil, Stephan Zweig, Hermann Hesse, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka among many others. Perhaps the strongest influence was made upon Rainer Maria Rilke who found Jacobsen's works to be "indispensable" in shaping his life:[2] The councilor was a friend of nature, nature was something quite special, nature was one of the finest ornaments of existence. The councilor patronized nature, he defended it against the artificial; gardens were nothing but nature spoiled; but gardens laid out in elaborate style were nature turned crazy. There was no style in nature, providence had wisely made nature natural, nothing but natural. Nature was that which was unrestrained, that which was unspoiled. But with the fall of man civilization had come upon mankind; now civilization had become a necessity; but it would have been better, if it had not been thus. The state of nature was something quite different, quite different. The councilor himself would have had no objection to maintaining himself by going about in a coat of lamb-skin and shooting hares and snipes and golden plovers and grouse and haunches of venison and wild boars. No, the state of nature really was like a gem, a perfect gem.In case we bask in the glow of progress and the delight of feeling ourselves superior to our predecessors, it's worth remembering that the response to Edward Bond's Saved in 1965 and Sarah Kane's Blasted 30 years later was remarkably similar. The stories are startling too. The title story, Mogens, is a long short story [is that an oxymoron?] almost a novella. A groom loses his beloved in a tragedy. It has such an impact on him that it reshapes his personality and his life. He becomes “…obsessed with the idea that he has been personally insulted by life.” Again I wish I was someone who could describe prose. If it is poetry to describe the world as if you could really live it. Intimate without suffocating. Gentle and harsh like a full body scrub from a mother you want to have outgrown. There was just something I really liked about these stories. It reminds me of my more fullfilling life moments of feeling like I actually get anything out of seeing people around me. That's what I like. And there's no way I can tell you about what it looked like and the smile on their face and the reflection it made on the other person who saw it and the walking after... Sighs. Sure wish I could. JPJ wrote it in this way that it was as easy as an unbidden expression. Yep, that's what I've got.

But what joy can you take in a tree or a bush, if you don’t imagine that a living being dwells within it, that opens and closes the flowers and smooths the leaves? When you see a lake, a deep, clear lake, don’t you love it for this reason, that you imagine creatures living deep, deep below, that have their own joys and sorrows, that have their own strange life with strange yearnings?” (pg. 51-52). In Two Worlds, a woman makes a charm to transfer her illness to another woman through a curse. It works. It turns out that isn’t good news. Jacobsen is also highly respected for her short fiction, which is collected in four volumes, including A Walk with Raschid and Other Stories(1978) and Adios, Mr. Moxley(1986). Set in such diverse locales as Baltimore, the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and Morocco, these books feature powerful examinations of loneliness, betrayal, oppression, illness, and dishonesty. Jacobsen’s stories often end unresolved, leaving the reader to speculate about the future of her characters. Critics attribute the impact of Jacobsen’s short fiction to her skillful characterization and evocative prose. A Walk with Raschidwas deemed “first rate” by a Choicecritic who also wrote, “the stories, conventional in form, emphasize plot and character. They are both moving and disturbing; their impact is wonderful.” In a review of Adios, Mr. Moxley, Stephen Goodwin wrote that Jacobsen is certain of “what is and is not important, and why. These stories, consequently, have a bracing rigor about them, a keen independence, and the clean ring of truth.” The story of "Mogens" itself is more than the revolutionary style of its prose. It is a touching look at the life of Man in the face of much pain and suffering. The main character, Mogens, lost both his parents before his adulthood, a bitter loss whose sting is felt throughout the story. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman named Camilla. They are engaged and on the brink of a wonderfully happy life together. One evening, Mogens realizes there are flames coming from the street of Camilla's house. He runs, grabs a ladder, and hurries into the burning building to see if Camilla had made it out. Pinned to the floor by a beam, he is forced to watch the following horrible, poignant scene:[12] The historical novel Fru Marie Grubbe (1876, Eng. transl.: Marie Grubbe: A Lady of the Seventeenth Century 1917) is the first Danish treatment of a woman as a sexual creature. Based upon the life of a 17th-century Danish noblewoman, 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 satisfying erotic life. In many ways the book anticipates the themes of D. H. Lawrence.In spite of his not very extensive oeuvre Jacobsen's international influence has been quite strong. In Germany both his novels and poems were widely read and they are known to have influenced Thomas Mann, as well as the Englishmen George Gissing and D. H. Lawrence. Gissing read the Reclam edition of Niels Lyhne in 1889 and again in 1890 when he wrote 'which I admire more than ever'. [5] Jacobsen's works also greatly inspired Rainer Maria Rilke's prose: in Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (trans. Letters to a Young Poet) (1929) Rilke recommends to Franz Xaver Kappus to read the works of Jacobsen, adding that Rilke always carried the Bible and Jacobsen's collected works. Further, Rilke's only novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (translated as The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge) (1910) is semi-autobiographical but is heavily influenced by Jacobsen's second novel Niels Lyhne (1880) which traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world. Flynn, T. (2007). The new encyclopedia of unbelief. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. "Danish atheists include the authors...Jens Peter Jacobsen." Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivalled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure. In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries’ mysterious death. And who’s to blame… Of all my books just a few are indispensable to me, and two even are always among my things, wherever I am. They are about me here too: the Bible, and the books of the great Danish writer, Jens Peter Jacobsen. . . Get yourself the little volume of Six Stories of J. P. Jacobsen and his novel Niels Lyhne, and start on the first story, in the former, called "Mogens." A world will come over you, the happiness, abundance, the incomprehensible immensity of a world. Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,—it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments and joys.