Auricula

by Per Højholt

I "Den store stilhed", som ifølge denne bog indtraf 7. september 1915, midt under den Første Verdenskrig, undfanges et antal ører (Auricula er latin for øre). Da disse ører ni måneder senere kommer til verden, begiver de sig straks af sted mod syd, mod nord, mod øst og mod vest. I en overrumplende storslået og vildt sammensat beretning følger vi deres oplevelser undervejs ud i verden, hele vejen op gennem Det Tyvende Århundrede.

367 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Per Højholt is an important Danish writer and a challenging one at that. He commands both high philosophy and the colloquial and ironically humorous style. In poetry and prose he has constantly searched out the potentials of imaginative writing, its materials and the conditions applying to it.

Reviews

[Kai Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is by far the strangest book that I have read in recent years. It leaves me behind dumbfounded. OK, from the blurb on the cover I could already expect a certain amount of absurdity: One second of complete silence during WW I procreated single ear conches who are in turn given birth nine months later alongside human babies. From then on, these ear conches roam the world. As roaming as these conches are, as rambling is the text about them: We hear about some populations in Gibraltar, on the Isle of Man, in Western Sweden, etc., but it remains unclear what distinguishes them from populations in other parts of the world and justifies the author's special attention. The language itself is highly blurry, there is hardly any clear statement to be found in the book: The syntactical structure is complicated, and any sentence sounds like a metaphor, but seems to try to pretend stating a fact.
The second chapter relates the travellings of the ear conches with classical modernist artists, like Apollinaire, Joyce, Satie, and many others. I am totally unsure if Højholt provides any insights about the work of these artists in his complicated and cryptic prose, or if he just serves platitudes. Just when the list of great modernists became a bit predictable and boring, the next chapter comes with a big surprise: This, the longest and central chapter of the book, pushes the ear conches aside, puts them into the roles of mere supernumeraries, and comes up with long essay on the art of Marcel Duchamp. What was the link? Not sure: Silence, ears, Duchamp's acquaintance with John Cage? Anyway, here it does seem that the author can really provide interesting interpretations on that artist's body of work. After that comes another long chapter, which promises to be about "the biology and psychology of the ears". I have a feeling that this chapter is the poetological key to the whole book. It is again not really what the titles promises it to be about, but rather begins with a "philosophy of gristle" and meditates on the single ear conch as a metaphor: a muscle-less, embryo-shaped being. From here on all possible lines of thought and interpretation are opened up. Be a post-structuralist, do with it, what you like. (Sorry to any serious post-structuralists, who refute the idea of "anything goes".)
Frithjof Strauß, a German professor for Scandinavian literatures, writes about Højholt's oeuvre in "Kindlers Neues Literaturlexikon, vol. 21, supplement": "Ein grundlegender Zug in Højholts Schaffen ist die Destabilisierung und Destruktion sinnvoller sprachlicher Weltrepräsentation." ("A basic trait in Højholt's work is the destabilization and destruction of a meaningful verbal representation of the world.") Ok, if that was the goal, then it did work out. I am baffled.

[Nicolai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a very good novel, but an outstanding book.

[Jacob Naur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utvivlsomt en af de bedste bøger, jeg har læst. Hvis man er til sætninger, der kan matche Kafka og en meget humoristisk tur gennem det 20. århundrede, kan man trygt samle denne herlige bog op.

[Kristian Paris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Du er skør, Per!