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Mogens and Other Stories
Work from the Danish novelist, poet, and scientist best known for having begun the naturalist movement in Danish literature.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1872
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About the author
Jens Peter Jacobsen
150 books232 followersJacobsen was born in Thisted in Jutland, the eldest of the five children of a prosperous merchant. He went to school in Copenhagen and was a student at the University of Copenhagen in 1868. As a boy, he showed a remarkable talent for science, in particular botany. In 1870, although he was already secretly writing poetry, Jacobsen adopted botany as a profession. He was sent by a scientific body in Copenhagen to report on the flora of the islands of Anholt and Læsø.
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.
When still young, Jacobsen was struck by tuberculosis which eventually ended his life. His illness prompted travels to southern Europe.
Literary works:
Jacobsen's canon consists of two novels, seven short stories, and one posthumous volume of poetry—small, but enough to place him as one of the most influential Danish writers.
Prose:
The historical novel Fru Marie Grubbe (1876, Eng. trans.: 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 an authentic 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.
Jacobsen's second novel, Niels Lyhne (1880, Eng. trans. 1919), traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world: his lack of faith is "tested" by tragedies and personal crises until he dies in war, disillusioned but unrepentant.
Jacobsen's short stories are collected in Mogens og andre Noveller (1882, translated as Mogens and Other Tales, 1921, and Mogens and Other Stories, 1994). Among them must be mentioned "Mogens" (1872—his official debut), the tale of a young dreamer and his maturing during love, sorrow and new hope of love. "Et Skud i Taagen" ("A Shot in the Fog") is a Poe-inspired tale of the sterility of hatred and revenge. "Pesten i Bergamo" ("The Plague of Bergamo") shows people clinging to religion even when tempted to be "free men". Fru Fønss (1882) is a sad story about a widow's tragic break with her egoistic children when she wants to remarry.
Mogens og andre Noveller and Niels Lyhne were both highly praised by Rainer Maria Rilke in his letters to Franz Xaver Kappus, translated as Letters to a Young Poet.
Poetry:
The poems of Jacobsen are more influenced by late romanticism than his prose. Many of them are wistful, dreamy and melancholic but also naturalistic. Most important is the great obscure poem "Arabesque to a Hand-drawing by Michel Angelo" (about 1875) the idea of which seems to be that art is going to replace immortality as the meaning of life. They significantly inspired the Danish symbolist poetry of the 1890s.
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.
When still young, Jacobsen was struck by tuberculosis which eventually ended his life. His illness prompted travels to southern Europe.
Literary works:
Jacobsen's canon consists of two novels, seven short stories, and one posthumous volume of poetry—small, but enough to place him as one of the most influential Danish writers.
Prose:
The historical novel Fru Marie Grubbe (1876, Eng. trans.: 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 an authentic 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.
Jacobsen's second novel, Niels Lyhne (1880, Eng. trans. 1919), traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world: his lack of faith is "tested" by tragedies and personal crises until he dies in war, disillusioned but unrepentant.
Jacobsen's short stories are collected in Mogens og andre Noveller (1882, translated as Mogens and Other Tales, 1921, and Mogens and Other Stories, 1994). Among them must be mentioned "Mogens" (1872—his official debut), the tale of a young dreamer and his maturing during love, sorrow and new hope of love. "Et Skud i Taagen" ("A Shot in the Fog") is a Poe-inspired tale of the sterility of hatred and revenge. "Pesten i Bergamo" ("The Plague of Bergamo") shows people clinging to religion even when tempted to be "free men". Fru Fønss (1882) is a sad story about a widow's tragic break with her egoistic children when she wants to remarry.
Mogens og andre Noveller and Niels Lyhne were both highly praised by Rainer Maria Rilke in his letters to Franz Xaver Kappus, translated as Letters to a Young Poet.
Poetry:
The poems of Jacobsen are more influenced by late romanticism than his prose. Many of them are wistful, dreamy and melancholic but also naturalistic. Most important is the great obscure poem "Arabesque to a Hand-drawing by Michel Angelo" (about 1875) the idea of which seems to be that art is going to replace immortality as the meaning of life. They significantly inspired the Danish symbolist poetry of the 1890s.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
August 5, 2017
Rainer Maria Rilke, the poet, said of this author’s works: of all my books only the Bible and those of Jacobsen are indispensable.
I had this short book on my TBR pile for years and finally read it a few years ago after that blurb caught my eye. A few weeks ago I happened to be reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and I saw that his detailed comments about Jacobsen were even more enthusiastic:
“Do avail yourself of the small book Six Stories by J. P. Jacobsen [the one I am reviewing] and his novel Niels Lyhne, and begin with the first story in the first set, called “Mogens.” A whole world will envelop you…Live awhile within these books. Learn of them…but above all, love them. For this love you will be requited a thousand and a thousand times over…If I were obliged to tell you who taught me to experience something of the essence of creativity, the depth of it and its enduring quality, there are only two names that I can name: that of Jacobsen, the very greatest of writers, and Auguste Rodin, the sculptor. No one among all artists living today compares with them.
And, if you were an author, how would you like to have these other folks writing blurbs for you? Sigmund Freud: …Jacobsen has made a profound impression on my heart. Hermann Hesse: …powerful imagination…huge talent. Thomas Mann: Jacobsen had the greatest influence on my style…
So, having liked it the first time, I read it again.
Jacobsen was a Danish author (1847-1885) who sometimes took a month to write a couple of paragraphs. He insisted that the whole nature of the title story, “Mogens,” would change if the three opening words were switched to the usual “It was summer” instead of “Summer it was…”
Jacobsen was by training a naturalist and that background shows in the introduction to almost every story with a startlingly precise and wonderful naturalist description. He doesn’t like gardens, preferring nature with a capital N: “There was no style in nature: our Lord has assuredly made nature natural, nothing but natural…the natural state was a pearl, a veritable pearl.”
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.”
In the story, A Shot in the Fog, a spurned man secretly kills his lover’s intended husband and eventually gets even more revenge; “Why should life be so bright and easy for her, when she had plundered every trace of light from him?”
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.
In the Plague in Bergamo, lascivious townspeople, having lost all moral compass while awaiting their deaths, take on a roving band of flagellants who espouse an interesting twist on Christianity.
In the last story, Fru Fonss, a widow gets remarried to her childhood sweetheart. Her children, a twentyish-girl and –boy, cut off all contact with her. The story ends with a letter the woman writes to those children on her death bed. The Afterword tells us Jacobsen wept while he wrote the ending.
Two passages I particularly liked:
One character, an uneducated man, talks of his upper class girlfriend’s acquaintances: “There’s not a thing between heaven and earth that they can’t finish off with a wave of the hand: this is base and that is noble; this is the stupidest thing since the creation of the world, and that is the cleverest; one thing is so ugly…They all know the same things and talk the same way, they all have the same words and the same opinions.”
“The Salzach is not a cheerful river, and there is a little village on its eastern bank that is quite dismal, quite poor and singularly silent. Like a wretched flock of stunted beggars who have been stopped by the water and have nothing to offer as ferry toll, the houses perch along the very edge of the bank with their palsied shoulders hunched against each other…”
Great writing, indeed.
Image of Jacobsen from Britannica.com
I had this short book on my TBR pile for years and finally read it a few years ago after that blurb caught my eye. A few weeks ago I happened to be reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and I saw that his detailed comments about Jacobsen were even more enthusiastic:
“Do avail yourself of the small book Six Stories by J. P. Jacobsen [the one I am reviewing] and his novel Niels Lyhne, and begin with the first story in the first set, called “Mogens.” A whole world will envelop you…Live awhile within these books. Learn of them…but above all, love them. For this love you will be requited a thousand and a thousand times over…If I were obliged to tell you who taught me to experience something of the essence of creativity, the depth of it and its enduring quality, there are only two names that I can name: that of Jacobsen, the very greatest of writers, and Auguste Rodin, the sculptor. No one among all artists living today compares with them.
And, if you were an author, how would you like to have these other folks writing blurbs for you? Sigmund Freud: …Jacobsen has made a profound impression on my heart. Hermann Hesse: …powerful imagination…huge talent. Thomas Mann: Jacobsen had the greatest influence on my style…
So, having liked it the first time, I read it again.
Jacobsen was a Danish author (1847-1885) who sometimes took a month to write a couple of paragraphs. He insisted that the whole nature of the title story, “Mogens,” would change if the three opening words were switched to the usual “It was summer” instead of “Summer it was…”
Jacobsen was by training a naturalist and that background shows in the introduction to almost every story with a startlingly precise and wonderful naturalist description. He doesn’t like gardens, preferring nature with a capital N: “There was no style in nature: our Lord has assuredly made nature natural, nothing but natural…the natural state was a pearl, a veritable pearl.”
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.”
In the story, A Shot in the Fog, a spurned man secretly kills his lover’s intended husband and eventually gets even more revenge; “Why should life be so bright and easy for her, when she had plundered every trace of light from him?”
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.
In the Plague in Bergamo, lascivious townspeople, having lost all moral compass while awaiting their deaths, take on a roving band of flagellants who espouse an interesting twist on Christianity.
In the last story, Fru Fonss, a widow gets remarried to her childhood sweetheart. Her children, a twentyish-girl and –boy, cut off all contact with her. The story ends with a letter the woman writes to those children on her death bed. The Afterword tells us Jacobsen wept while he wrote the ending.
Two passages I particularly liked:
One character, an uneducated man, talks of his upper class girlfriend’s acquaintances: “There’s not a thing between heaven and earth that they can’t finish off with a wave of the hand: this is base and that is noble; this is the stupidest thing since the creation of the world, and that is the cleverest; one thing is so ugly…They all know the same things and talk the same way, they all have the same words and the same opinions.”
“The Salzach is not a cheerful river, and there is a little village on its eastern bank that is quite dismal, quite poor and singularly silent. Like a wretched flock of stunted beggars who have been stopped by the water and have nothing to offer as ferry toll, the houses perch along the very edge of the bank with their palsied shoulders hunched against each other…”
Great writing, indeed.
Image of Jacobsen from Britannica.com
February 13, 2012
"Know ye not that there is here in this world a secret confraternity, which one might call the Company of Melancholiacs? That people there are who by natural constitution have been given a different nature and disposition than the others; that have a larger heart and a swifter blood, that wish and demand more, have stronger desires and a yearning which is wilder and more ardent than that of the common herd. They are fleet as children over whose birth good fairies have presided; their eyes are open wider; their senses are more subtle in all their perceptions. The gladness and joy of life, they drink with the roots of their heart, the while the others merely grasp them with coarse hands." - Jens Peter Jacobsen. The quote is not from this book. I stole it from the introduction. The stories are way, way better than this because it's like there is this secret hand shake for us sensitive types. We should have one so we can recognize each other. Maybe the sweaty palms would be a dead giveaway? Or the leaves in the hair and grass stains on the trousers from sitting outside too long. It could be the dark circles under the eyes from sleeping for way too long, and not enough. You'll know them from the look in the eye. Whatever, there's unrest.
Six stories. "Mogens" is the first and the longest (I think it was the first JPJ ever published). Mogens is a young man who falls in love. "Why was he compelled to see while the others remained blind? He had a right to blindness, he had believed in everything in which it was possible to believe." Like love was a belief in God and you could shake your fist at its sky because you prayed to it just in case. The desperation bedside knees. Mogens chases, holds and withholds. The ugliness of sex and how its shadows make their ugly animal shapes on the walls. Look my fingers are forming a monster. Did he kill her? I don't know how Jacobsen did it. 'Mogens' is lighthearted again after the fires. He falls in love again. Could a girl like her really believe in love, in this day and age? Again. The rejoicing that is still not quite believed until they can find out how to in longing live. The walking out of site made me think of the faceless chase when first in love. Did it have its face and did it go on, once it was out of sight? "Mogens" reminded me of when I was very young and would listen to The Cure's 'Pornography' album constantly (at night, when I could be alone. Side A 'Siamese Twins' and flip Side B 'The Figurehead' for hours). It's like a singing exercise of a suspicion of ever wanting to be with another human being. The ruthless' passion for purity (or is it vampiric).
'The Plague in Bergamo' is these people giving this spiritual and humanistic fuck you. I could make an awesome music video out of this one, if anyone who ever reads this could read my mind. The singing is awful and gleeful hate. What would Jesus do bracelets would melt like so much crayons on hellfire driveways. The nightmare of what the void hollowed out eyes look in others when you're afraid to meet anyone's eyes.
'There Should Have Been Roses'. The douchey review on amazon (the merchandising one) dissed this story. No way, fuckers! You "Reed Business", whomever that is. No, you are happy," answered the blue one, "I would give a world, were I as you are." And the blue one rises, and begins to walk down the road to the Campagna, and the yellow one looks after him with a sad smile and says to himself: No, he is happy!"
But far down the road the blue one turns round once more toward the balcony, and raising his barret calls: "No, you are happy!"
I imagine that Jens Peter Jacobsen sat around eavesdropping on conversations and going "No, you are happy!" in his head as he watched them (the flip side to the Bergamo nightmare of societal fears). To be the lizard on that wall... There should have been roses and lizards and eyes in the walls. It feels less sad if it is echoed back like that. I really liked that shared watching, in this.
'Mrs Fonss'. These selfish children disown their widowed mother when she requites her young love. I would have liked to know her. The care she takes of her jilted daughter (if she would later resent crying on her shoulder, how to be there in just the right way). Mrs. Fonss would know about the gloomy thoughts that come with rain, and being tired of onesself, and dreams that wear down the will and the way it never ends, like the sun rising and setting. I couldn't be her and accept the way her kids treat her. Jacobsen knows how kids with one parent take sides. The daughter, Elinor, who only knew her father through stories her mother told her to keep him alive, builds him up to suit all of her fancies in order to tear Mrs. Fonss down. I've seen many a kid do this to the parent that is still left. It's weird to think how long this has gone on, carried out through entirely different people. And I loved that this story was in the same collection as the fisted corpses in Italy. Flip sides...Underbellies... To lie on.
I read this on the free kindle edition (courtesy of Project Gutenberg). The stories "Shot in the Fog" and 'Two Worlds' were not included. The latter can be read here. It's hard to review short story collections. I just want to say that it stuck out in my memory the girl in the boat that the old lady cannot get unstuck and feel at ease until she sees her again. The expressions on the faces. JPJ is so good at those expressions and watching.
And now I will quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet": "Get hold of the little volume, "Six Stories," and in the first little volume begin the first story which is called "Mogens". A world will come over you, a happiness, a wealth, a world of inconceivable greatness. Live for awhile in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all, love them. This love will be repaid a thousandfold, and, whatever may become of your life will, I am convinced of it, run through the fabric of your being as one of the most important among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments and joys."
I appreciate a kind of unassuming influence like sitting in someone's presence and being influenced by their experiences. If it's a new world to feel as they feel... And also when it feels bad to do it. I can relate to this Jens Peter Jacobsen.
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.
And I lifted this Jacobsen quote from the intro too: "In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one's own way." That's how I feel! Hey, thanks JPJ!
Jacobson was a botanist as well as a poet. "She was a botanist so I believed her." - Lee in Sam Shepard's True West. And a poet, it goes without saying.
P.s. He was a great Dane! So practically no one reads him now, it seems, but at least the old timer famous people loved him. Sobs. (And now that I know it doesn't surprise me.)
Six stories. "Mogens" is the first and the longest (I think it was the first JPJ ever published). Mogens is a young man who falls in love. "Why was he compelled to see while the others remained blind? He had a right to blindness, he had believed in everything in which it was possible to believe." Like love was a belief in God and you could shake your fist at its sky because you prayed to it just in case. The desperation bedside knees. Mogens chases, holds and withholds. The ugliness of sex and how its shadows make their ugly animal shapes on the walls. Look my fingers are forming a monster. Did he kill her? I don't know how Jacobsen did it. 'Mogens' is lighthearted again after the fires. He falls in love again. Could a girl like her really believe in love, in this day and age? Again. The rejoicing that is still not quite believed until they can find out how to in longing live. The walking out of site made me think of the faceless chase when first in love. Did it have its face and did it go on, once it was out of sight? "Mogens" reminded me of when I was very young and would listen to The Cure's 'Pornography' album constantly (at night, when I could be alone. Side A 'Siamese Twins' and flip Side B 'The Figurehead' for hours). It's like a singing exercise of a suspicion of ever wanting to be with another human being. The ruthless' passion for purity (or is it vampiric).
'The Plague in Bergamo' is these people giving this spiritual and humanistic fuck you. I could make an awesome music video out of this one, if anyone who ever reads this could read my mind. The singing is awful and gleeful hate. What would Jesus do bracelets would melt like so much crayons on hellfire driveways. The nightmare of what the void hollowed out eyes look in others when you're afraid to meet anyone's eyes.
'There Should Have Been Roses'. The douchey review on amazon (the merchandising one) dissed this story. No way, fuckers! You "Reed Business", whomever that is. No, you are happy," answered the blue one, "I would give a world, were I as you are." And the blue one rises, and begins to walk down the road to the Campagna, and the yellow one looks after him with a sad smile and says to himself: No, he is happy!"
But far down the road the blue one turns round once more toward the balcony, and raising his barret calls: "No, you are happy!"
I imagine that Jens Peter Jacobsen sat around eavesdropping on conversations and going "No, you are happy!" in his head as he watched them (the flip side to the Bergamo nightmare of societal fears). To be the lizard on that wall... There should have been roses and lizards and eyes in the walls. It feels less sad if it is echoed back like that. I really liked that shared watching, in this.
'Mrs Fonss'. These selfish children disown their widowed mother when she requites her young love. I would have liked to know her. The care she takes of her jilted daughter (if she would later resent crying on her shoulder, how to be there in just the right way). Mrs. Fonss would know about the gloomy thoughts that come with rain, and being tired of onesself, and dreams that wear down the will and the way it never ends, like the sun rising and setting. I couldn't be her and accept the way her kids treat her. Jacobsen knows how kids with one parent take sides. The daughter, Elinor, who only knew her father through stories her mother told her to keep him alive, builds him up to suit all of her fancies in order to tear Mrs. Fonss down. I've seen many a kid do this to the parent that is still left. It's weird to think how long this has gone on, carried out through entirely different people. And I loved that this story was in the same collection as the fisted corpses in Italy. Flip sides...Underbellies... To lie on.
I read this on the free kindle edition (courtesy of Project Gutenberg). The stories "Shot in the Fog" and 'Two Worlds' were not included. The latter can be read here. It's hard to review short story collections. I just want to say that it stuck out in my memory the girl in the boat that the old lady cannot get unstuck and feel at ease until she sees her again. The expressions on the faces. JPJ is so good at those expressions and watching.
And now I will quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet": "Get hold of the little volume, "Six Stories," and in the first little volume begin the first story which is called "Mogens". A world will come over you, a happiness, a wealth, a world of inconceivable greatness. Live for awhile in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all, love them. This love will be repaid a thousandfold, and, whatever may become of your life will, I am convinced of it, run through the fabric of your being as one of the most important among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments and joys."
I appreciate a kind of unassuming influence like sitting in someone's presence and being influenced by their experiences. If it's a new world to feel as they feel... And also when it feels bad to do it. I can relate to this Jens Peter Jacobsen.
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.
And I lifted this Jacobsen quote from the intro too: "In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one's own way." That's how I feel! Hey, thanks JPJ!
Jacobson was a botanist as well as a poet. "She was a botanist so I believed her." - Lee in Sam Shepard's True West. And a poet, it goes without saying.
P.s. He was a great Dane! So practically no one reads him now, it seems, but at least the old timer famous people loved him. Sobs. (And now that I know it doesn't surprise me.)
Read
January 25, 2010There are certain methods in fiction that seem not to exist anymore, and Jens Peter Jacobsen practiced them. The stories here are neither romantic, nor modern, nor naturalist, but occupy some deeply strange middle space, evading genre and standing strangely timeless. I know Thomas Mann was deeply influenced by these stories... consider "The Plague in Bergamo." So there's this desolate landscape and people picking through the rubble, driven to madness. It's Jose Saramago weirdly transposed to a fin-de-siecle mode of writing. If that description doesn't make you want to read it, then I'm afraid we can't be friends anymore.
July 29, 2009
One of the most exquisite books I've ever read. The passion in this book is intense, the imagery is golden and rapt with sensitivity and a remarkable kind of madness which I find to be very endearing. Mogens and Other Stories
February 22, 2016
I love when I start reading an author that I haven't read before and almost immediately I know that he'll occupy a special place in my literary heart. I can see how Rainer Maria Rilke was influenced by him.
October 6, 2018
Som de fleste andre goder i livet, må man læse J.P. Jacobsen i smuler ad gangen. Hans skrivestil er for det meste ekstremt poetisk, som lange, lange digte. Det gælder særligt for hans roman Niels Lyhne, men også f.eks. novellen Mogens. Som så mange andre har gjort før mig, anbefaler jeg også, at man som førstegangslæser af J. P. Jacobsen, slår op på sidste side i novellen Fru Fønss og læser det sidste brev, hun skriver til sine børn.
October 7, 2016
Once again I'm reading this so far after the reference leading me to it that I have completely forgotten what the reference was. Doesn't matter. A Dane who likes Darwin and influenced some of my early favorite writers? I'm in. The stories are fascinating and intense and lovely, there's a current of individualism and madness and nature... if nothing else, it's so so nice to find a 'classic' where all the people, women included, get to be full characters.
September 14, 2025
Læste højt for Filie og den var til at blive helt skør af forelskelse over. Mogens gider hverken arbejde eller gå i skole eller gøre noget folk forventer han skal gøre. Han hater på det bedre borgerskab og siger de i sidste ende ik hverken mener eller handler på en skid, men denne hate kommer vidst også fra at han var lidt jaloux på at den ene fine herre lagde an på Kamilla.
Mogens spiritualitet ligger i hans anarkisme og i hans erotik.
To vel nærmere tre helt vidunderlige natursyn præsenteres i novellen. Thoras overnaturlige, Mogens realistiske og fortællerens malende. Man fik lyst til at kunne alle navnene og kende sin natur. Alle karakterer elsker naturen og finder den vigtig det så dope.
Fx skriver fortælleren i forbindelse med at regnskyl at blade der har været adskilte siden de sad i samme knop nu klistrede sig til hinanden igen.
Og så drømte jeg at jeg var bekendte med mousilini og at han ønskede at skifte køn lige inden hans død.
Mogens spiritualitet ligger i hans anarkisme og i hans erotik.
To vel nærmere tre helt vidunderlige natursyn præsenteres i novellen. Thoras overnaturlige, Mogens realistiske og fortællerens malende. Man fik lyst til at kunne alle navnene og kende sin natur. Alle karakterer elsker naturen og finder den vigtig det så dope.
Fx skriver fortælleren i forbindelse med at regnskyl at blade der har været adskilte siden de sad i samme knop nu klistrede sig til hinanden igen.
Og så drømte jeg at jeg var bekendte med mousilini og at han ønskede at skifte køn lige inden hans død.
May 12, 2020
Review: “Mogens and Other Stories” by Jens Peter Jacobsen
The Ægypan Press edition of this work contained four short stories: Mogens, The Plague in Bergamo, There Should Have Been Roses, and Mrs. Fonss.
“Mogens”
The longest of the stories, I found this one the most challenging to read because the syntax was off. I do not know if this is because of the translation or the style of the author. I really enjoyed the dialogue between Mogens and Thora about nature, specifically the form of animism she describes:
“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).
The best passages from this story describe nature scenes and it was evident Jens Peter Jacobsen was a botanist.
“The Plague in Bergamo”
This was my favorite from the collection. The climax in the church sanctuary is described with such vividness that the scene felt apocalyptic. I had also never heard of the heresy the flagellants preached before. I wonder if D.H. Lawrence was inspired by this short story when he wrote The Man Who Died.
The Ægypan Press edition of this work contained four short stories: Mogens, The Plague in Bergamo, There Should Have Been Roses, and Mrs. Fonss.
“Mogens”
The longest of the stories, I found this one the most challenging to read because the syntax was off. I do not know if this is because of the translation or the style of the author. I really enjoyed the dialogue between Mogens and Thora about nature, specifically the form of animism she describes:
“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).
The best passages from this story describe nature scenes and it was evident Jens Peter Jacobsen was a botanist.
“The Plague in Bergamo”
This was my favorite from the collection. The climax in the church sanctuary is described with such vividness that the scene felt apocalyptic. I had also never heard of the heresy the flagellants preached before. I wonder if D.H. Lawrence was inspired by this short story when he wrote The Man Who Died.
August 25, 2013
Beautiful beautiful beautiful. It's like a rich candy-- one must eat in small bites.
Read
December 9, 2020Simultaneously naturalistic and dreamy, encapsulated by a rich, painting-like depiction of scenery.
December 6, 2024
Jacobson began writing this collection (1872-1882) while translating Darwin’s Origin of Species and studying botany. This 100-page book is a collection of four short stories, and “Mogens” (1872) makes up half the pages.
I came to Mogens after reading a few German books from the Romantic era (~late 18th to early 19th) with dramatic, metaphoric and supernational depictions of nature. Writing at the end of the 19th century after Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), I notice Jacobson’s lack of embellishment and anthropomorphisms.
Mogens seems to be rejecting the Romantic portrayal of nature while also emphasizing the difficulty of conveying the mystery and poetry of the natural world as it is fully observed. Thora, the main characters fiancé, asks how he can love nature on its own, without imagining supernatural elements behind it. He replies: "I can't explain it, but there is something in the color, in the movements and in the life in them” in the sap, sun, wind and rain. Mogens sees the beauty and power of nature (defined as “everyday, always”) but struggles to express it.
I have yet to read Thoreau, who may be a better comparison here but… Jacobson’s descriptions of nature are not as naturalistic/ realistic like Cesar Aira’s Landscape Painter, a part historical fiction concerning the philosophy of German naturalist Humboldt (1802-1858). Jacobson’s writing is more of a stringing together of vaguely connected impressions: “There it lay with large spaces of water clear as a mirror, with jagged tongues of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth and streaks that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smooth places and quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew it across its surface”
Given that I found this collection recommended in Rilke’s Letters (1902-08), it seems appropriate to make the connection to Rilke’s “everything is unsayable” and impressionistic style of Malte Lourids Briggs (1910). Also of Maltes’ feeling of isolation in light of the transience and ineffability of life— Jacobson writes “you feel so lonely, that you cannot come closer to this world, and life grows lusterless and burdensome."
Jacobsen’s natural scenery is also notably devoid of any mention of god. Mogens was published around when Nietzsche proclaimed God is dead and sought a replacement for the declining authority of religion to prevent humans from descending into nihilism in Zarathustra (1883-85). This nihilistic feeling is most clearly represented in Jacobsens’ “Plague in Bergamote” which shows a town full of sin because “There is no Jesus who died for us on the cross!” It is a short story which has an obvious comparison to Camus The Plague, for grappling with atheism, finitude and fragility of life. Also for evoking lyrical imagery of nature in the midst of human cruelty and suffering — Camus writes in Algeria: "I hope Jacques did not suffer too much. … The sun was setting and, flooding through a rift in the clouds, the level rays raked the sands, tingeing their faces with yellow. “No” Tarrou said. “No, I couldn’t really say he suffered” (wich was a lie). In a scene of the opposite sequence, Jacobsen transitions from beautiful nature descriptions into intense despair with the interjection of “Mogens lay up there and gazed out over the dark earth” and then back into beautiful nature descriptions after “He rose;”. Camus reference to the sun and the ocean of Algeria are in Jacobson a reference to the fauna and flora of Denmark and these serve varying functions throughout the narrative. Both Mogens and The Plague of Bergamote end with the people disappearing into nature. The beauty of nature may be Jacobsen’s Zarathustra, or his answer to the absurd.
The answer is perhaps also in human love but not nearly in the same way as in the romantics which spoke of love as a unity of souls with god and nature. For Jacobson love, like life, is transitory as evident by Mogens’ letting “the last shadow of his past disappear” in a second love, and by Mrs Fonss who abandons her children “to be happy once, to live fully in accordance with my being, my desire, and my dreams.“ and because life is more than “grayness and duty.”
I didn’t talk about “There should have been roses”, because I didn’t understand it despite it being only four pages long but I get a feeling it may be his best.... wish I had someone to talk through it with. I’ve really liked these books that deal with themes of poetry and nature. This collection is so beautiful but a four because it feels like it’s just scraping the surface of deeper thinking — I will read Niels Lyhne at some point too.
I came to Mogens after reading a few German books from the Romantic era (~late 18th to early 19th) with dramatic, metaphoric and supernational depictions of nature. Writing at the end of the 19th century after Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), I notice Jacobson’s lack of embellishment and anthropomorphisms.
Mogens seems to be rejecting the Romantic portrayal of nature while also emphasizing the difficulty of conveying the mystery and poetry of the natural world as it is fully observed. Thora, the main characters fiancé, asks how he can love nature on its own, without imagining supernatural elements behind it. He replies: "I can't explain it, but there is something in the color, in the movements and in the life in them” in the sap, sun, wind and rain. Mogens sees the beauty and power of nature (defined as “everyday, always”) but struggles to express it.
I have yet to read Thoreau, who may be a better comparison here but… Jacobson’s descriptions of nature are not as naturalistic/ realistic like Cesar Aira’s Landscape Painter, a part historical fiction concerning the philosophy of German naturalist Humboldt (1802-1858). Jacobson’s writing is more of a stringing together of vaguely connected impressions: “There it lay with large spaces of water clear as a mirror, with jagged tongues of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth and streaks that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smooth places and quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew it across its surface”
Given that I found this collection recommended in Rilke’s Letters (1902-08), it seems appropriate to make the connection to Rilke’s “everything is unsayable” and impressionistic style of Malte Lourids Briggs (1910). Also of Maltes’ feeling of isolation in light of the transience and ineffability of life— Jacobson writes “you feel so lonely, that you cannot come closer to this world, and life grows lusterless and burdensome."
Jacobsen’s natural scenery is also notably devoid of any mention of god. Mogens was published around when Nietzsche proclaimed God is dead and sought a replacement for the declining authority of religion to prevent humans from descending into nihilism in Zarathustra (1883-85). This nihilistic feeling is most clearly represented in Jacobsens’ “Plague in Bergamote” which shows a town full of sin because “There is no Jesus who died for us on the cross!” It is a short story which has an obvious comparison to Camus The Plague, for grappling with atheism, finitude and fragility of life. Also for evoking lyrical imagery of nature in the midst of human cruelty and suffering — Camus writes in Algeria: "I hope Jacques did not suffer too much. … The sun was setting and, flooding through a rift in the clouds, the level rays raked the sands, tingeing their faces with yellow. “No” Tarrou said. “No, I couldn’t really say he suffered” (wich was a lie). In a scene of the opposite sequence, Jacobsen transitions from beautiful nature descriptions into intense despair with the interjection of “Mogens lay up there and gazed out over the dark earth” and then back into beautiful nature descriptions after “He rose;”. Camus reference to the sun and the ocean of Algeria are in Jacobson a reference to the fauna and flora of Denmark and these serve varying functions throughout the narrative. Both Mogens and The Plague of Bergamote end with the people disappearing into nature. The beauty of nature may be Jacobsen’s Zarathustra, or his answer to the absurd.
The answer is perhaps also in human love but not nearly in the same way as in the romantics which spoke of love as a unity of souls with god and nature. For Jacobson love, like life, is transitory as evident by Mogens’ letting “the last shadow of his past disappear” in a second love, and by Mrs Fonss who abandons her children “to be happy once, to live fully in accordance with my being, my desire, and my dreams.“ and because life is more than “grayness and duty.”
I didn’t talk about “There should have been roses”, because I didn’t understand it despite it being only four pages long but I get a feeling it may be his best.... wish I had someone to talk through it with. I’ve really liked these books that deal with themes of poetry and nature. This collection is so beautiful but a four because it feels like it’s just scraping the surface of deeper thinking — I will read Niels Lyhne at some point too.
August 7, 2019
Bom dia.
Dočteno před týdnem, ale nepamatuji si ani prd. Tahle knížka je trochu jako moje stará. Ta na mě často mluví, ale o minutu později si nepamatuji ani slovo z toho co řekla. Proto když jdu do obchodu, tak pro jistotu raději vždycky koupím máslo a brambory. To je ostatně rada pro vás pro všechny, kdo chcete mít dobrý vztah a hodně, hodně brambor.
Dočteno před týdnem, ale nepamatuji si ani prd. Tahle knížka je trochu jako moje stará. Ta na mě často mluví, ale o minutu později si nepamatuji ani slovo z toho co řekla. Proto když jdu do obchodu, tak pro jistotu raději vždycky koupím máslo a brambory. To je ostatně rada pro vás pro všechny, kdo chcete mít dobrý vztah a hodně, hodně brambor.
August 29, 2022
Mesterlig skrivekunst.
Hvis jeg skulle vælge mellem Johannes V. Jensen og J.P. Jacobsen, så var det sidstnævnte, der skulle have nobelprisen i litteratur.
Hvis jeg skulle vælge mellem Johannes V. Jensen og J.P. Jacobsen, så var det sidstnævnte, der skulle have nobelprisen i litteratur.
April 25, 2025
Kötü başlangıç. İyi son. Kötü çeviri.
December 29, 2024
What a pleasure I have of listening to Mary Hopkin's song Lord of the Reedy River with my coffee immediately following finishing this.
This was a bit of a whim read that I hadn't expected to complete but thanks to Delta delays I managed to eek it in.
Frankly, sitting here looking at this book and considering the stories, I feel I enjoy them more than I had known at the time. The final story Fru Fønss I found particularly striking, and ending the collection with it solidifies and unifies the whole book. What I like about Jacobsen is that his stories address a lot of pain and regret, sadness and anger, and the characters are thrust through life regardless. This was a bit of a rude awakening as I read Mogens thinking it might be a love story (not that it isn't). And what an excellent title story that encapsulates so much of Jacobsen's ideals; The singing man running breathless through the brush after the girl's face, only to reach her hiding place in a large bush, and to turn away, smiling ,"what will you say to her?".
I can only say about the last story that Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon) puts it best when he sings "I can't live without my mother's love".
Originally this book comes from a Rilke recommendation in his Letters to a Young Poet, and Rilke and Jacobsen as it turns out pair together excellently. And of course Jacobsen is a trained botanist, the love of nature just seeps through the threads here.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2yI...
I'm throwing together a little playlist for this, mostly because after a cursory search online, there were no reviews or discussion or podcasts and I'm a bit disappointed to find that to be the case. Really? Nothing on Mogens? We can only hope and pray that I do not start a book podcast in 2025
This was a bit of a whim read that I hadn't expected to complete but thanks to Delta delays I managed to eek it in.
Frankly, sitting here looking at this book and considering the stories, I feel I enjoy them more than I had known at the time. The final story Fru Fønss I found particularly striking, and ending the collection with it solidifies and unifies the whole book. What I like about Jacobsen is that his stories address a lot of pain and regret, sadness and anger, and the characters are thrust through life regardless. This was a bit of a rude awakening as I read Mogens thinking it might be a love story (not that it isn't). And what an excellent title story that encapsulates so much of Jacobsen's ideals; The singing man running breathless through the brush after the girl's face, only to reach her hiding place in a large bush, and to turn away, smiling ,"what will you say to her?".
She rested her head against his chest and wept, and then, as the tears fell, she began to hum, at first quite softly, but then louder and louder: With longing, With longing, I live!
I can only say about the last story that Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon) puts it best when he sings "I can't live without my mother's love".
Originally this book comes from a Rilke recommendation in his Letters to a Young Poet, and Rilke and Jacobsen as it turns out pair together excellently. And of course Jacobsen is a trained botanist, the love of nature just seeps through the threads here.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2yI...
I'm throwing together a little playlist for this, mostly because after a cursory search online, there were no reviews or discussion or podcasts and I'm a bit disappointed to find that to be the case. Really? Nothing on Mogens? We can only hope and pray that I do not start a book podcast in 2025
December 18, 2025
Mogens og andre noveller regnes for en stor klassiker inden for novellegenren i dansk litteratur og med god grund.
For mig er de to noveller "Et Skud i Taagen" og "Pesten i Bergamo" dér, hvor Jacobsen brillerer mest. Måske fordi jeg foretrækker den dystre, nihilistiske side af Jacobsen frem for den mere romantiske, der kommer til udtryk i "Mogens" - i hvert fald i slutningen.
Beskrivelserne i "Pesten i Bergamo" sætter sig i sjælen og vækker alt for klare minder om den nylige rædsel i Bergamo, da coronaen slog hårdt til her. Det er voldsom læsning og enestående godt beskrevet.
Brandscenen i "Mogens" bør også nævnes som usædvanlig velskrevet. Dén må Herman Bang næsten have læst forud for sin legendarisk reportage om branden på Christiansborg. De minder meget om hinanden.
Desværre indeholder novellesamlingen også småpjattede, ufærdige indslag, der aldrig burde have været udgivet som en del af samlingen. De trækker ned i det samlede indtryk. Man læser dem alene for at kunne sige til sig selv, man har gjort det.
For mig er de to noveller "Et Skud i Taagen" og "Pesten i Bergamo" dér, hvor Jacobsen brillerer mest. Måske fordi jeg foretrækker den dystre, nihilistiske side af Jacobsen frem for den mere romantiske, der kommer til udtryk i "Mogens" - i hvert fald i slutningen.
Beskrivelserne i "Pesten i Bergamo" sætter sig i sjælen og vækker alt for klare minder om den nylige rædsel i Bergamo, da coronaen slog hårdt til her. Det er voldsom læsning og enestående godt beskrevet.
Brandscenen i "Mogens" bør også nævnes som usædvanlig velskrevet. Dén må Herman Bang næsten have læst forud for sin legendarisk reportage om branden på Christiansborg. De minder meget om hinanden.
Desværre indeholder novellesamlingen også småpjattede, ufærdige indslag, der aldrig burde have været udgivet som en del af samlingen. De trækker ned i det samlede indtryk. Man læser dem alene for at kunne sige til sig selv, man har gjort det.
March 10, 2024
References to this collection by Jens Peter Jacobsen can be found in the work of Rainer Maria Rilke. Mogens and Other Stories is a worthwhile read if you wish to ponder esoteric renderings of the truth and beauty lurking beneath the dark night of the soul. The collection includes one of the finest “fire” scenes ever written—a blazing inferno that scorches the earth, leaving nothing in its wake but smoldering embers, molten metal, and black soot.
July 10, 2021
Det falder jo lidt i 'for meget beskrivelse af tapet'-kategorien, som jeg ikke er fan af - men samtidig er det jo unægteligt mesterligt. Jeg var overrasket over at indse, at der er passager i Skud, som jeg kan udenad (har da vist også engang brugt et semester på at analysere den).
October 16, 2020
Nice short collection of short stories by influential 19th century Danish writer. Worth reading.
August 30, 2025
Le iba a poner ☆☆☆ pero me gustó la última historia, se ganó una ☆ más :)
Read
February 12, 2021To be of real value one must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one’s own way.
He lived simply, unobtrusively, bravely. He shunned the literary circles of the capital with their countless intrusions and interruptions, because he knew that the time allotted him to do his work was short. “When life has sentenced you to suffer,” he has written in Niels Lyhne, “the sentence is neither a fancy nor a threat, but you are dragged to the rack, and you are tortured, and there is no marvelous rescue at the last moment,” and in this book there is also a corollary, “It is on the healthy in you you must live, it is the healthy that becomes great.” The realization of the former has given, perhaps, a subdued tone to his canvasses; the recognition of the other has kept out of them weakness or self-pity.
In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one’s own way. That is the fundamental ethos which runs through all of Jacobsen’s work. It is in Marie Grubbe, Niels Lyhne, Mogens, and the infinitely tender Mrs. Fonss.
They are types of the kind he has described in the following passage: “Know ye not that there is here in this world a secret confraternity, which one might call the Company of Melancholiacs? That people there are who by natural constitution have been given a different nature and disposition than the others; that have a larger heart and a swifter blood, that wish and demand more, have stronger desires and a yearning which is wilder and more ardent than that of the common herd. They are fleet as children over whose birth good fairies have presided; their eyes are opened wider; their senses are more subtile in all their perceptions. The gladness and joy of life, they drink with the roots of their heart, the while the others merely grasp them with coarse hands.”
He himself was one of these, and in this passage his own art and personality is described better than could be done in thousands of words of commentary.
=====================
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.
Do you really think, Mr. Ronholt, that this description puts the man in a better light?”
“No, but in a surer one; you know in the darkness things often seem larger than they are.”
“Can you think of anything worse?”
“If not, then this is the worst, but you know one should never think the worst of people.”
“Then you really mean, that the whole affair is not so bad, that there is something bold in it, something in a sense eminently plebeian, which pleases your liking for democracy.”
“Don’t you see, that in respect to his environment his conduct is quite aristocratic?”
“Aristocratic? No, that is lather paradoxical. If he is not a democrat, then I really don’t know what he is.”
“Well, there are still other designations.”
And my childhood’s belief in everything beautiful in the world.—And what if they were right, the others! If the world were full of beating hearts and the heavens full of a loving God! But why do I not know that, why do I know something different? And I do know something different, cutting, bitter, true..
The next day was one of those in which late summer is rich. A day with a brisk, cool wind, with many large swiftly flying clouds, with everlasting alternations of darkness and light, according as the clouds drift past the sun. Mogens had gone up to the cemetery, the garden of the manor abutted on it. Up there it looked rather barren, the grass had recently been cut; behind an old quadrangular iron- fence stood a wide-spreading, low elder with waving foliage. Some of the graves had wooden frames around them, most were only low, quadrangular hills; a few of them had metal-pieces with inscriptions on them, others wooden crosses from which the colors had peeled, others had wax wreaths, the greater number had nothing at all. Mogens wandered about hunting for a sheltered place, but the wind seemed to blow on all sides of the church. He threw himself down near the embankment, drew a book out of his pocket; but he did not get on with his reading; every time when a cloud went past the sun, it seemed to him as though it were growing chilly, and he thought of getting up, but then the light came again and he remained lying. A young girl came slowly along the way, a greyhound and a pointer ran playfully ahead of her. She stopped and it seemed as if she wanted to sit down, but when she saw Mogens she continued her walk diagonally across the cemetery out through the gate. Mogens rose and looked after her; she walked down on the main road, the dogs still played. Then he began reading the inscription on one of the graves; it quickly made him smile. Suddenly a shadow fell across the grave and remained lying there, Mogens looked sideways. A tanned, young man stood there, one hand in his game-bag, in the other he held his gun.
“It isn’t really half bad,” he said, indicating the inscription.
“No,” said Mogens and straightened up from his bent position.
He had changed, it is true, and he found it difficult to understand what he himself had been. But one never can wholly escape from one’s self, and what had been surely still was there. And now this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. He had managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and doubtless he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, no, it shall not be thus—no, she is to go on living her clear, bright girl’s life in spite of him.
There was a love, pure and noble, without any coarse, earthly passion; yes, there was, and if there was not, there was going to be one. Passion spoiled everything, and it was very ugly and unhuman. How he hated everything in human nature that was not tender and pure, fine and gentle! He had been subjugated, weighed down, tormented, by this ugly and powerful force; it had lain in his eyes and ears, it had poisoned all his thoughts.
=================================
Old Bergamo
What there had been of order and good government was as if the earth had swallowed it, and what was worst in human nature came in its stead.
And when the people felt this and the belief grew stronger that heaven either would not or could not help, they not only let their hands lie idly in the lap, saying, “Let there come what may.” Nay, it seemed, as if sin had grown from a secret, stealthy disease into a wicked, open, raging plague, which hand in hand with the physical contagion sought to slay the soul as the other strove to destroy the body, so incredible were their deeds, so enormous their depravity! The air was filled with blasphemy and impiety, with the groans of the gluttons and the howling of drunkards. The wildest night hid not greater debauchery than was here committed in broad daylight.
==============
THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROSES
The characters: two pages.
Not of a definite, historical period, for the pages of reality in no way correspond with the pages of the ideal.
============================
MRS. FONSS
No, he had never had any special feeling for places and countries; he thought it was only his daily work which he missed.
In those days both soon noticed that however much they might have changed during the course of the years, their hearts had forgotten nothing.
She did not feel herself younger, but it seemed to her as if a fountain of tears that had been obstructed and dammed had burst open again and begun to flow. There was great happiness and relief in crying, and these tears gave her a feeling of richness; it was as if she had become more precious, and everything had become more precious to her—in short it was a feeling of youth after all.
Ten times a day she would betray her age, because she lacked the courage to be outwardly as young as she was within.
He lived simply, unobtrusively, bravely. He shunned the literary circles of the capital with their countless intrusions and interruptions, because he knew that the time allotted him to do his work was short. “When life has sentenced you to suffer,” he has written in Niels Lyhne, “the sentence is neither a fancy nor a threat, but you are dragged to the rack, and you are tortured, and there is no marvelous rescue at the last moment,” and in this book there is also a corollary, “It is on the healthy in you you must live, it is the healthy that becomes great.” The realization of the former has given, perhaps, a subdued tone to his canvasses; the recognition of the other has kept out of them weakness or self-pity.
In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one’s own way. That is the fundamental ethos which runs through all of Jacobsen’s work. It is in Marie Grubbe, Niels Lyhne, Mogens, and the infinitely tender Mrs. Fonss.
They are types of the kind he has described in the following passage: “Know ye not that there is here in this world a secret confraternity, which one might call the Company of Melancholiacs? That people there are who by natural constitution have been given a different nature and disposition than the others; that have a larger heart and a swifter blood, that wish and demand more, have stronger desires and a yearning which is wilder and more ardent than that of the common herd. They are fleet as children over whose birth good fairies have presided; their eyes are opened wider; their senses are more subtile in all their perceptions. The gladness and joy of life, they drink with the roots of their heart, the while the others merely grasp them with coarse hands.”
He himself was one of these, and in this passage his own art and personality is described better than could be done in thousands of words of commentary.
=====================
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.
Do you really think, Mr. Ronholt, that this description puts the man in a better light?”
“No, but in a surer one; you know in the darkness things often seem larger than they are.”
“Can you think of anything worse?”
“If not, then this is the worst, but you know one should never think the worst of people.”
“Then you really mean, that the whole affair is not so bad, that there is something bold in it, something in a sense eminently plebeian, which pleases your liking for democracy.”
“Don’t you see, that in respect to his environment his conduct is quite aristocratic?”
“Aristocratic? No, that is lather paradoxical. If he is not a democrat, then I really don’t know what he is.”
“Well, there are still other designations.”
And my childhood’s belief in everything beautiful in the world.—And what if they were right, the others! If the world were full of beating hearts and the heavens full of a loving God! But why do I not know that, why do I know something different? And I do know something different, cutting, bitter, true..
The next day was one of those in which late summer is rich. A day with a brisk, cool wind, with many large swiftly flying clouds, with everlasting alternations of darkness and light, according as the clouds drift past the sun. Mogens had gone up to the cemetery, the garden of the manor abutted on it. Up there it looked rather barren, the grass had recently been cut; behind an old quadrangular iron- fence stood a wide-spreading, low elder with waving foliage. Some of the graves had wooden frames around them, most were only low, quadrangular hills; a few of them had metal-pieces with inscriptions on them, others wooden crosses from which the colors had peeled, others had wax wreaths, the greater number had nothing at all. Mogens wandered about hunting for a sheltered place, but the wind seemed to blow on all sides of the church. He threw himself down near the embankment, drew a book out of his pocket; but he did not get on with his reading; every time when a cloud went past the sun, it seemed to him as though it were growing chilly, and he thought of getting up, but then the light came again and he remained lying. A young girl came slowly along the way, a greyhound and a pointer ran playfully ahead of her. She stopped and it seemed as if she wanted to sit down, but when she saw Mogens she continued her walk diagonally across the cemetery out through the gate. Mogens rose and looked after her; she walked down on the main road, the dogs still played. Then he began reading the inscription on one of the graves; it quickly made him smile. Suddenly a shadow fell across the grave and remained lying there, Mogens looked sideways. A tanned, young man stood there, one hand in his game-bag, in the other he held his gun.
“It isn’t really half bad,” he said, indicating the inscription.
“No,” said Mogens and straightened up from his bent position.
He had changed, it is true, and he found it difficult to understand what he himself had been. But one never can wholly escape from one’s self, and what had been surely still was there. And now this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. He had managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and doubtless he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, no, it shall not be thus—no, she is to go on living her clear, bright girl’s life in spite of him.
There was a love, pure and noble, without any coarse, earthly passion; yes, there was, and if there was not, there was going to be one. Passion spoiled everything, and it was very ugly and unhuman. How he hated everything in human nature that was not tender and pure, fine and gentle! He had been subjugated, weighed down, tormented, by this ugly and powerful force; it had lain in his eyes and ears, it had poisoned all his thoughts.
=================================
Old Bergamo
What there had been of order and good government was as if the earth had swallowed it, and what was worst in human nature came in its stead.
And when the people felt this and the belief grew stronger that heaven either would not or could not help, they not only let their hands lie idly in the lap, saying, “Let there come what may.” Nay, it seemed, as if sin had grown from a secret, stealthy disease into a wicked, open, raging plague, which hand in hand with the physical contagion sought to slay the soul as the other strove to destroy the body, so incredible were their deeds, so enormous their depravity! The air was filled with blasphemy and impiety, with the groans of the gluttons and the howling of drunkards. The wildest night hid not greater debauchery than was here committed in broad daylight.
==============
THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROSES
The characters: two pages.
Not of a definite, historical period, for the pages of reality in no way correspond with the pages of the ideal.
============================
MRS. FONSS
No, he had never had any special feeling for places and countries; he thought it was only his daily work which he missed.
In those days both soon noticed that however much they might have changed during the course of the years, their hearts had forgotten nothing.
She did not feel herself younger, but it seemed to her as if a fountain of tears that had been obstructed and dammed had burst open again and begun to flow. There was great happiness and relief in crying, and these tears gave her a feeling of richness; it was as if she had become more precious, and everything had become more precious to her—in short it was a feeling of youth after all.
Ten times a day she would betray her age, because she lacked the courage to be outwardly as young as she was within.
April 21, 2012
This small book, it doesn’t even top 100 pages, I cam across as a recommendation on a news site. It was either Slate, Salon or something similar, but regardless the care and attention to detail that were put into the description and love lavished upon this book were enough that I was convinced to read it. So I went out and got it from the Gutenberg Project since it’s copyright has come to an end.
Firstly, everyone should be going to the Gutenberg Project to get loads of free e-books in a variety of formats. And if they’re not in a format you need it isn’t too hard to convert – thems the joys of the internet. Secondly, Mogens and Other Stories is a collection of novellas and short stories, that while not a normal thing for me to read was an excellent change. And yes I went through the entire book in a day but sometimes that happens.
Jens Peter Jacobsen writes like no other author I have read from his respective time period or country – not that I can think of another Dane that I’ve ever read. Yes there is great charactization and an interesting look at the time & place in which he lives but it’s the level of detail to which he is dedicated in describing things that really sets him apart. Atmosphere and having the place or setting be a character, if not the main character, is what really sets his work apart.
The Plague of Bergamo provides a superb sense of his style with a tight focus, not on the individual characters, but the overall story and the climate which pervades the entire thing bringing to the entire piece not only a sense of dread but humor. Out of all the stories in this collected work, it’s by far my favourite, with the titular Mogens coming in second. The way in which Jacobsen describes the destruction of the new village and the isolation of the old along with the coming of the pilgrims, and their swaying crosses, elicits such a response that one doesn’t know if you should be laughing or crying in horror at the entire situation.
At the same time, I feel like I need to re-read the entire book. Going through it so quickly I expect I’ve overlooked quite a bit, and really should take each individual story at a time, rather than reading it all in one go. The likelihood of that anytime soon is quite small, given my memory for books, but as it sits in my skull and gets digested I know that desire will rise once more – a rarity when it comes to books and me.
If you’re looking for something from Denmark or turn-of-the century (19th to 20th) then Mogens and Other Stories is an excellent choice. Not only is it a good book, but it’s short, the stories are varied and as I said you can get the thing for free.
*Note: Copied from my blog at http://worldwritsmall.wordpress.com
Firstly, everyone should be going to the Gutenberg Project to get loads of free e-books in a variety of formats. And if they’re not in a format you need it isn’t too hard to convert – thems the joys of the internet. Secondly, Mogens and Other Stories is a collection of novellas and short stories, that while not a normal thing for me to read was an excellent change. And yes I went through the entire book in a day but sometimes that happens.
Jens Peter Jacobsen writes like no other author I have read from his respective time period or country – not that I can think of another Dane that I’ve ever read. Yes there is great charactization and an interesting look at the time & place in which he lives but it’s the level of detail to which he is dedicated in describing things that really sets him apart. Atmosphere and having the place or setting be a character, if not the main character, is what really sets his work apart.
The Plague of Bergamo provides a superb sense of his style with a tight focus, not on the individual characters, but the overall story and the climate which pervades the entire thing bringing to the entire piece not only a sense of dread but humor. Out of all the stories in this collected work, it’s by far my favourite, with the titular Mogens coming in second. The way in which Jacobsen describes the destruction of the new village and the isolation of the old along with the coming of the pilgrims, and their swaying crosses, elicits such a response that one doesn’t know if you should be laughing or crying in horror at the entire situation.
At the same time, I feel like I need to re-read the entire book. Going through it so quickly I expect I’ve overlooked quite a bit, and really should take each individual story at a time, rather than reading it all in one go. The likelihood of that anytime soon is quite small, given my memory for books, but as it sits in my skull and gets digested I know that desire will rise once more – a rarity when it comes to books and me.
If you’re looking for something from Denmark or turn-of-the century (19th to 20th) then Mogens and Other Stories is an excellent choice. Not only is it a good book, but it’s short, the stories are varied and as I said you can get the thing for free.
*Note: Copied from my blog at http://worldwritsmall.wordpress.com
January 28, 2016
I read this book twice back to back. Yes, you read it correct. I read it twice, not because I did not understand it the first time, but because after reading it once I found it so mesmerizing that I was stuck with a strong feeling like I must have missed something beautiful while reading it for the first time.
Like many others, I read it because it is recommended by Rainer Maria Rilke in his book - Letters to a Young Poet. My kindle version had 4 stories and not 6 and I liked 'Mogens' the most and then 'Mrs Fonss'. Let me tell you that I did not like the book for the stories but I loved it for the way it has been written. Jacobsen's writing style is highly poetic and he creates a scene with such a great beauty and with so minute details that you can visualize the whole scene exactly and would feel as if you are actually living it.
You can easily feel the author's love and passion for nature in his writing. There was something in this book that can't be put into words but that will surely make an impression on your heart.
I think after a long time I have read such a great work. It is a highly recommended book.
Like many others, I read it because it is recommended by Rainer Maria Rilke in his book - Letters to a Young Poet. My kindle version had 4 stories and not 6 and I liked 'Mogens' the most and then 'Mrs Fonss'. Let me tell you that I did not like the book for the stories but I loved it for the way it has been written. Jacobsen's writing style is highly poetic and he creates a scene with such a great beauty and with so minute details that you can visualize the whole scene exactly and would feel as if you are actually living it.
You can easily feel the author's love and passion for nature in his writing. There was something in this book that can't be put into words but that will surely make an impression on your heart.
I think after a long time I have read such a great work. It is a highly recommended book.
January 6, 2013
Det er en novelle samling og det i sig selv kan være lidt hårdt. Jacobsen var en del af det moderent gennembrud og var gode vender med Brandes brøderene, han har derfor en vis rolle i den danske litteratur.
Mogensen og andre noveller er dog ikke den store oplevelse de fleste af historierne virke ligegyldige og forudsigelige. Der er dog enkelte af historierne der skinner igennem og gør bogen vær at læse her vil jeg fremhæve to "Pesten i Bergamo" og "Fru Fønss".
Hans strøtanker i slutningen af bogen er tilgængæld uudholdelige og får det til at gøre undt i tænderne når man læser det, det er banalt ligegyldigt og barnagtigt af karekter.
Mogensen og andre noveller er dog ikke den store oplevelse de fleste af historierne virke ligegyldige og forudsigelige. Der er dog enkelte af historierne der skinner igennem og gør bogen vær at læse her vil jeg fremhæve to "Pesten i Bergamo" og "Fru Fønss".
Hans strøtanker i slutningen af bogen er tilgængæld uudholdelige og får det til at gøre undt i tænderne når man læser det, det er banalt ligegyldigt og barnagtigt af karekter.
May 8, 2015
Upon the advice of Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letter Two of his "Letters To a Young Poet" [Franz Xaver Kappus] in 1903, to "Get the little volume of Six Stories by J[ens] P[eter} Jacobsen and his novel Niels Lyhne...", I read this book by Jacobsen, translated by Anna Grabow. It's interesting that, according to Rilke, the Bible & Jacobsen's books "are always with me, wherever I am..." I found all but the last story exceedingly confusing & uninteresting. The final story, Mrs. Fonss was at least understandable & a message worth passing on. I'll give his novel Niels Lyhne a try at least.
August 28, 2016
Not what I expected
I am reading for pleasure nowadays. I did not find pleasure not even contentment while reading this book. The stories are so full of drama and evil descriptions, that killed my desire to continue reading. The content of the stories dare dark, probably appropriate for those who like horror movies. It is hard for me to make justice by the author because I am not sure if the translation of this work is of quality. Any way, I did not enjoy the book.
I am reading for pleasure nowadays. I did not find pleasure not even contentment while reading this book. The stories are so full of drama and evil descriptions, that killed my desire to continue reading. The content of the stories dare dark, probably appropriate for those who like horror movies. It is hard for me to make justice by the author because I am not sure if the translation of this work is of quality. Any way, I did not enjoy the book.
January 11, 2017
Considerado el gran maestro de la literatura danesa, Jens Peter Jacobsen nos legó una obra breve pero sustanciosa en calidad.
El presente libro recupera algunos de sus mejores relatos, como “Mogens” y el que da título al libro, así como un fragmento de “El doctor Faustus”. Obras geniales del gran maestro de Rainer María Rilke y de Isak Dinesen, pero que también influyó en autores como Thomas Mann, D. H. Lawrence, Henrik Ibsen, Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig e incluso Freud.
El presente libro recupera algunos de sus mejores relatos, como “Mogens” y el que da título al libro, así como un fragmento de “El doctor Faustus”. Obras geniales del gran maestro de Rainer María Rilke y de Isak Dinesen, pero que también influyó en autores como Thomas Mann, D. H. Lawrence, Henrik Ibsen, Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig e incluso Freud.
April 11, 2018
I had to give the collection 4 stars for what was quite unbalanced - in my opinion Mogens and There Should Have Been Roses were fairly mundane, The Plague in Bergamo was interesting though didn’t seem to come to much of a conclusion or fully make its pount while Mrs Fonss was astounding. Mrs Fonss is written with such subtlety and courage that it reminds me strongly of A Doll’s House by Ibsen and was undoubtedly a landmark publication in its time in the way it portrays female choice.
October 15, 2014
These stories were written by a Dane recommended by Rainer Maria Rilke. Some of the stories are mystical. I found the most popular story, "Mogens" to be difficult to follow, and I will reread it. The stories do have a beginning, a middle, and an end unlike many contemporary short stories. I had never heard of Jacobsen until a few days ago, and I believe I now know why.
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