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Visse hensyn
232 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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About the author
Christian Kampmann
42 books1 followerDanish writer and journalist. His novels are mainly about the middle and upper classes in the post war time and up until the 1980s. The books are mainly about people who has some problems finding their place in the world and their feelings, e.g. homosexuality. Kampmann was homosexual himself, although he was married for many years and had two children. In 1988, he was killed at his beach house on Læsø by his lover.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 21, 2020
Noget "bagendetung", da der er en meget flad spændingskurve i første 2/3 af bogen. Men så sker der til gengæld også ting og sager, og man begynder at forstå bogens betydning i sin samtid.
August 9, 2023
Christian Kampmann og hans rolle i dansk litteratur(og queerlitteratur)historie synes at være næsten glemt i dag. Kun en enkelt novellesamling (blandt venner+ly) er blevet genoptrykt (af Gladiator!) i nyere tid, og det er synd for Kampmanns hovedværk: Kvartetten Familien Gregersen holder 100% ved genlæsning.
Første bind, Visse Hensyn, er en bomstærk psykologisk roman om en familie, der er solidt placeret i den københavnske overklasse, og som oplever små men væsentlige forviklinger omkring og mellem karaktererne, der bevæger sig uhindret rundt i de sene halvtredseres Danmark.
Vi følger den livsglade far Mogens, den småneurotiske mor og de fem børn, mens de udvikler sig og egentlig bare lever deres liv i en tid præget af store samfundsmæssige forandringer og ikke mindst forløsning. Det er især skildringen af karakterernes indre liv, der mesterligt portrætteres gennem tætskrevne dialoger, der gør bogen værd at læse.
Genremæssigt er der vel tale om en psykologisk roman med god plads til klassisk freudianske tematikker som undertrykt kvindeliv sexualitet, latent homosexualitet og også det incestuøse, men bogen henfalder aldrig til det kliché-agtige, og både Peer og jeg slugte den på vores sommerferie i Kroatien, hvor der var decideret kamp om, hvem der måtte starte ud med at læse bind 2.
Dialogerne er stærke, siderne vender sig selv, det psykologiske spil mellem karakterer deres følelser og idéer om verden skræmmende troværdige - alt i alt - en underkendt klassiker, der efter min opfattelse fortjener en plads under litteraturhistoriens sol!
Første bind, Visse Hensyn, er en bomstærk psykologisk roman om en familie, der er solidt placeret i den københavnske overklasse, og som oplever små men væsentlige forviklinger omkring og mellem karaktererne, der bevæger sig uhindret rundt i de sene halvtredseres Danmark.
Vi følger den livsglade far Mogens, den småneurotiske mor og de fem børn, mens de udvikler sig og egentlig bare lever deres liv i en tid præget af store samfundsmæssige forandringer og ikke mindst forløsning. Det er især skildringen af karakterernes indre liv, der mesterligt portrætteres gennem tætskrevne dialoger, der gør bogen værd at læse.
Genremæssigt er der vel tale om en psykologisk roman med god plads til klassisk freudianske tematikker som undertrykt kvindeliv sexualitet, latent homosexualitet og også det incestuøse, men bogen henfalder aldrig til det kliché-agtige, og både Peer og jeg slugte den på vores sommerferie i Kroatien, hvor der var decideret kamp om, hvem der måtte starte ud med at læse bind 2.
Dialogerne er stærke, siderne vender sig selv, det psykologiske spil mellem karakterer deres følelser og idéer om verden skræmmende troværdige - alt i alt - en underkendt klassiker, der efter min opfattelse fortjener en plads under litteraturhistoriens sol!
March 20, 2022
I had never heard of Christian Kampmann or this book but came across him mentioned somewhere online as a forgotten gay writer from Denmark who had been murdered by his partner in 1988. Curious by this bit of macabre trivia, I tracked this one down and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
'Visse hensyn' ('Certain Considerations') was first published in 1973 and is set during the period 1954-57; it's the first book of a tetralogy about the Gregersens, an upper-class Danish family.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 centers on a family dinner at the Gregersens' house for Easter 1954 and the book closes with Part 3, another dinner at the same house for Christmas 1957; the middle and longest section of the book covers the events in between.
The novel focuses on the five Gregersen children and their various preoccupations, most of which deal with love and sex. The eldest, Karen, is 24 (though it says 21 on the dust jacket; perhaps I misread something; Danish isn't my first, or for that matter, eighth language) and the book opens with her arriving home with her boyfriend Jes, who is four years younger. Until now she has been careful not to say anything about her family to him, and she's worried about what he'll think of them, and vice versa - Jes is a student from the working class and has no idea Karen's family is rich and lives in a mansion. The second child, Erik (20), is in a long-term steady relationship with Marianne, and when the novel opens, they're worried about how to break the news to the family that she is pregnant. Bo (16, and based on the author himself) is more of an enigma at the story's start, although the author subtly gives us two details about him that reveal how things will go: first, that he's more interested in antiques than his father thinks is normal for a boy of 16, and second, his glances seem to linger just a little too long on Karen's boyfriend. Rune (12) is anxiously scheming an excuse to get out of the house so he can go buy porno mags, and the youngest, Maj (11), is deathly afraid that she killed the boy she liked when she through her school book out the window and hit him in the head, knocking him out.
Against the backdrop of these various anxieties, Easter dinner plays out. Then the story bifurcates to follow each child through their various stories over the next couple of years. Much time is spent on the oldest two, who are probably the least interesting, so we get quite a lot of Karen's insecurity and her on-again, off-again relationship with Jes, and there's a long section about Erik and Marianne setting up their new home and welcoming a baby, including a long birth scene.
It was around this point that my interest started to flag and I contemplated reading something else, but I kept going, and am glad I did. The novel picks up steam when it resumes Bo's story. After graduating high school, he goes into town alone to celebrate, not knowing consciously what he's looking for, though subconsciously he knows all too well, and his vague feelings are confirmed when he meets a 37-year-old married man on the street late at night and goes home with him.
Meanwhile, Rune and Maj tell their parents they're going to cycle through Jutland but sneak off to Paris instead, where we get a nice coming-of-age bit with Rune in search of a prostitute and then a frankly shocking scene between him and his sister that must have appalled prudish (and even not-so-prudish) Danish readers in 1973. It even made me a bit squeamish. In the end, the book comes back to Bo and his struggle to understand himself, possibly come out to friends and family, and what sort of future is in store for him.
Those who enjoy family sagas or coming-of-age stories will find a lot to love in this one. Frankly, this isn't normally the sort of book I'd normally read or enjoy, but the characters are drawn so well and Kampmann is such a good writer that it elevates this book above your run-of-the-mill dusty, forgotten book from fifty years ago. It's not a difficult read, but not exactly an easy one either: often, Kampmann includes sections of dialogue with a lot of hints, implications, and innuendoes so that I sometimes had to reread a page or two to make sure I'd caught exactly what one character was saying to another between the lines, but these sorts of demands on the reader's perceptiveness only enhanced the novel's enjoyment for me.
I've got a copy of the second book, 'Faste forhold' ('Stable relationships') here, which I'm looking forward to dipping into soon.
'Visse hensyn' ('Certain Considerations') was first published in 1973 and is set during the period 1954-57; it's the first book of a tetralogy about the Gregersens, an upper-class Danish family.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 centers on a family dinner at the Gregersens' house for Easter 1954 and the book closes with Part 3, another dinner at the same house for Christmas 1957; the middle and longest section of the book covers the events in between.
The novel focuses on the five Gregersen children and their various preoccupations, most of which deal with love and sex. The eldest, Karen, is 24 (though it says 21 on the dust jacket; perhaps I misread something; Danish isn't my first, or for that matter, eighth language) and the book opens with her arriving home with her boyfriend Jes, who is four years younger. Until now she has been careful not to say anything about her family to him, and she's worried about what he'll think of them, and vice versa - Jes is a student from the working class and has no idea Karen's family is rich and lives in a mansion. The second child, Erik (20), is in a long-term steady relationship with Marianne, and when the novel opens, they're worried about how to break the news to the family that she is pregnant. Bo (16, and based on the author himself) is more of an enigma at the story's start, although the author subtly gives us two details about him that reveal how things will go: first, that he's more interested in antiques than his father thinks is normal for a boy of 16, and second, his glances seem to linger just a little too long on Karen's boyfriend. Rune (12) is anxiously scheming an excuse to get out of the house so he can go buy porno mags, and the youngest, Maj (11), is deathly afraid that she killed the boy she liked when she through her school book out the window and hit him in the head, knocking him out.
Against the backdrop of these various anxieties, Easter dinner plays out. Then the story bifurcates to follow each child through their various stories over the next couple of years. Much time is spent on the oldest two, who are probably the least interesting, so we get quite a lot of Karen's insecurity and her on-again, off-again relationship with Jes, and there's a long section about Erik and Marianne setting up their new home and welcoming a baby, including a long birth scene.
It was around this point that my interest started to flag and I contemplated reading something else, but I kept going, and am glad I did. The novel picks up steam when it resumes Bo's story. After graduating high school, he goes into town alone to celebrate, not knowing consciously what he's looking for, though subconsciously he knows all too well, and his vague feelings are confirmed when he meets a 37-year-old married man on the street late at night and goes home with him.
Meanwhile, Rune and Maj tell their parents they're going to cycle through Jutland but sneak off to Paris instead, where we get a nice coming-of-age bit with Rune in search of a prostitute and then a frankly shocking scene between him and his sister that must have appalled prudish (and even not-so-prudish) Danish readers in 1973. It even made me a bit squeamish. In the end, the book comes back to Bo and his struggle to understand himself, possibly come out to friends and family, and what sort of future is in store for him.
Those who enjoy family sagas or coming-of-age stories will find a lot to love in this one. Frankly, this isn't normally the sort of book I'd normally read or enjoy, but the characters are drawn so well and Kampmann is such a good writer that it elevates this book above your run-of-the-mill dusty, forgotten book from fifty years ago. It's not a difficult read, but not exactly an easy one either: often, Kampmann includes sections of dialogue with a lot of hints, implications, and innuendoes so that I sometimes had to reread a page or two to make sure I'd caught exactly what one character was saying to another between the lines, but these sorts of demands on the reader's perceptiveness only enhanced the novel's enjoyment for me.
I've got a copy of the second book, 'Faste forhold' ('Stable relationships') here, which I'm looking forward to dipping into soon.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews