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Horatius
Wittenberg, omkring år 1600. Danskeren Hans er sendt herned af sin onkel for at studere den rette protestantiske lære. Han lever et beskedent studenterliv, da Prinsen af Danmark pludselig kommer til byen for at læse ved samme universitet.Det bliver et skæbnemøde for dem begge. De to unge mænd bliver sjælevenner, og da Prinsen bliver kaldt hjem til Danmark for at blive opdraget til regent af sin far, er det med sorg, han forlader sin Horatius. Snart modtager Hans nyheden om, at kongen er død, og at hans bror, Claudius, er blevet kronet til konge. I hast rejser han til Helsingør og indlogerer sig på slottet for at være tæt på sin prins, men her er et iskoldt magtspil i gang, der kommer til at udfordre hans tro på både mennesket og Gud.HORATIUS er en intens og dramatisk roman om venskab og magt, kærlighed og begær, hemmeligheder og blodig hævn – fortalt af den eneste overlevende fra en af Shakespeares mest berømte tragedier, Hamlet.
317 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2021
21 people want to read
About the author
Niels Brunse
82 books4 followersFrom website http://www.nielsbrunse.dk :
I was born 1949 in Silkeborg, Denmark. Spent my childhood in Elsinore, the right place for a future Shakespearean. Studied languages, but dropped out of university with half a degree in Russian language and literature and went on to do what I had always wanted to do: writing and translating. My first translations were poems by the Austrian expressionist Georg Trakl, published 1969, and the first of my own books was a collection of essays on everyday life in Moscow in the late seventies (I was a visiting student at the State University there), published 1980. After that, I turned to fiction – short stories, drama, and three novels so far. The first, “Ramoth-Bezer” (1994), and the third, “Havmanden” (2005), have been published in German as “Die erstaunlichen Gerätschaften des Herrn Orffyreus” (2007) and “Der Meermann” (2008, both translated by Ulrich Sonnenberg), and the second, “I lyset af en kat” (2000), has come out in German as “Die träumende Katze” (tr. Dagmar Lendt) and in Dutch as “De dromen van een kat” (tr. Edith Koenders).
My translations of mostly English, German, and Russian literary works, more than 200 titles, have usually been quite well received. They have earned me several awards, including the life-long grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, the Thornton Niven Wilder Award (Columbia University, New York), and the Übersetzerpreis der Kunststiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen. My main project in the years ahead (a project both delightful and daunting, to be honest) is to finish a complete new Danish translation of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, made possible by the generous support of the Bikuben Foundation in Copenhagen. The first volume was published November, 2010, and got some pretty enthusiastic reviews.
Over the years, I have held posts in the Danish Writers’ Association, the Danish Dramatists’ Association, the Danish Arts Foundation, and the Danish Arts Council, and I have been writing reviews of literature, drama, and films for several Danish newspapers and magazines.
I am married to musicologist and opera singer Nila Parly, Ph.D., we live in Copenhagen and have two daughters, Zaina (born 1999) and Isala (born 2002).
I was born 1949 in Silkeborg, Denmark. Spent my childhood in Elsinore, the right place for a future Shakespearean. Studied languages, but dropped out of university with half a degree in Russian language and literature and went on to do what I had always wanted to do: writing and translating. My first translations were poems by the Austrian expressionist Georg Trakl, published 1969, and the first of my own books was a collection of essays on everyday life in Moscow in the late seventies (I was a visiting student at the State University there), published 1980. After that, I turned to fiction – short stories, drama, and three novels so far. The first, “Ramoth-Bezer” (1994), and the third, “Havmanden” (2005), have been published in German as “Die erstaunlichen Gerätschaften des Herrn Orffyreus” (2007) and “Der Meermann” (2008, both translated by Ulrich Sonnenberg), and the second, “I lyset af en kat” (2000), has come out in German as “Die träumende Katze” (tr. Dagmar Lendt) and in Dutch as “De dromen van een kat” (tr. Edith Koenders).
My translations of mostly English, German, and Russian literary works, more than 200 titles, have usually been quite well received. They have earned me several awards, including the life-long grant from the Danish Arts Foundation, the Thornton Niven Wilder Award (Columbia University, New York), and the Übersetzerpreis der Kunststiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen. My main project in the years ahead (a project both delightful and daunting, to be honest) is to finish a complete new Danish translation of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, made possible by the generous support of the Bikuben Foundation in Copenhagen. The first volume was published November, 2010, and got some pretty enthusiastic reviews.
Over the years, I have held posts in the Danish Writers’ Association, the Danish Dramatists’ Association, the Danish Arts Foundation, and the Danish Arts Council, and I have been writing reviews of literature, drama, and films for several Danish newspapers and magazines.
I am married to musicologist and opera singer Nila Parly, Ph.D., we live in Copenhagen and have two daughters, Zaina (born 1999) and Isala (born 2002).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 28, 2024
Apparently en genfortælling af Hamlet, så regner med der er noget mening der er fløjet over hovedet på mig, givet at jeg aldrig har læst/set det. Rimelig okay som standalone, men meget af handlingen foregår offscreen og bliver så gengivet fordi historien ikke er fortalt fra hamlets perspektiv, hvilket virker lidt latterligt.
July 26, 2022
This is a somewhat curious novel - written in the form of a (discounting the ghost) realistic historical novel, except set in the alternate Renaissance Denmark where a certain royal family ruled from Elsinore Castle and everybody had weird names.
I felt the early parts set in Wittenberg, where our narrator met the un-named Prince and they became friends worked the best, and I also liked the politicking post-everybody drops dead of poison bits okay. Once we reach the part of the narrative actually covered by Shakespeare's play, the whole thing just - it felt like half the story happens firmly off-stage, and you'd better have read Hamlet before sitting down to read this. I also found the characters' speech jarring - while most of the novel provided the characters with pretty standard old-fashioned historical novel Danish speech, it's very obvious whenever it's lines from the play they're suddenly spouting. It feels that bit older and more stylized than everything else.
All that said, I personally was left wondering exactly why the author felt the need to make Hamlet explicitly aromantic asexual and present that as a terrible thing to be, making it half his motivation for his toying with Ophelia - while he also carries on a platonic homoerotic something with Horatius, who in turn carries on with her, and it's all just. I could have lived without that. It's a mess and kinda offensive.
I felt the early parts set in Wittenberg, where our narrator met the un-named Prince and they became friends worked the best, and I also liked the politicking post-everybody drops dead of poison bits okay. Once we reach the part of the narrative actually covered by Shakespeare's play, the whole thing just - it felt like half the story happens firmly off-stage, and you'd better have read Hamlet before sitting down to read this. I also found the characters' speech jarring - while most of the novel provided the characters with pretty standard old-fashioned historical novel Danish speech, it's very obvious whenever it's lines from the play they're suddenly spouting. It feels that bit older and more stylized than everything else.
All that said, I personally was left wondering exactly why the author felt the need to make Hamlet explicitly aromantic asexual and present that as a terrible thing to be, making it half his motivation for his toying with Ophelia - while he also carries on a platonic homoerotic something with Horatius, who in turn carries on with her, and it's all just. I could have lived without that. It's a mess and kinda offensive.
June 9, 2023
Horatius er en udsøgt roman af Shakespeares danske oversætter, Niels Brunse. Horatius er Hamlets bedste ven - og Brunse fortæller netop Hamlet set fra Horatius synsvinkel. Det er både litterært og sprogligt en nydelse at læse bogen.
October 12, 2021
Spændende fortælling om den danske konge og prins i oldtiden
October 24, 2021
En pudsig lille sag, som måske ikke bærer for mange overvejelser om hvorfor den skulle skrives
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May 1, 2022Skøn bog til alle os der elsker Hamlet ❤️
June 17, 2022
Nærmest magisk
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews