Isak Dinesen: The Danish Scheherezade

Scandinavian Review, Autumn 2002 by Brantly, Susan

On the 40th anniversary of her death, Dinesen-equally well-known by her real name, Karen Blixen-retains her popularity and renown as one of the most fascinating writers of the 20th century-despite her claim to having dined with Socrates.

NO ONE CAME INTO LITERATURE MORE BLOODY THAN I,"

claimed Isak Dinesen. Anyone who has seen Sydney Pollack's 1985 Oscarwinning film, Out of Africa, might have an idea of what she meant. The film loosely portrays the life of Baroness Karen Blixen (alias Isak Dinesen), focusing on the years she spent running a coffee plantation in Kenya. At the end of the film and her time in Africa, the baroness is bankrupt and divorced and the love of her life is killed in a plane crash. Hollywood allows her to celebrate the triumph of finding land on which the native peoples from her farm can settle, and then she majestically departs. The credits roll.

In reality, Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) was faced with the prospect of returning in disgrace to Denmark and moving back in with her mother at the age of 46. From the independent life she had lived in Africa, she was reduced to a state of dependence. Many would simply have been crushed by this chain of events, but Dinesen proved she was a woman of deep personal resources. Having been raised as a Danish gentlewoman, she despaired that she had no marketable skills. She wrote to her brother, Thomas Dinesen, that she could do three things: cook, take care of mad people, and write. Thomas agreed to support her for three years, so that she could write a book. The result was Seven Gothic Tales (1934), surely one of the most astounding literary debuts in history and, according to a poll conducted by the Danish newspaper Politikken, the third most important Danish work of the 20th century.

However, Seven Gothic Tales was not written in Danish-at least not at first. Dinesen was canny enough to understand that the English-reading public is larger than the Danish-reading public. She needed to make a living, so why not aim for the larger market? Moreover, she suspected that her fantastic tales would be more to the taste of English readers. At the time (the 1930s), the Danish public showed a strong preference for social realism. After 17 years in British East Africa, Dinesen's English was excellent, and so she became one of those rarities of world literature-an author who writes in a language not his or her own. (Joseph Conrad, whose native tongue was Polish, is another example.) The manuscript was rejected in England, but it came to the attention of Robert Haas at Random House in New York who agreed to publish it. Seven Gothic Tales appeared under the pseudonym, Isak Dinesen. Dinesen was Karen Blixen's maiden name, and Isak is Hebrew for "laughter." In the Old Testament, Abraham's wife Sarah gives birth to her son at a rather advanced age and thus names her son Isaac as an indication of the joy she feels. Dinesen was able to start a second career as a world-class author at the mature age of 49, giving legions of late bloomers hope. Moreover, her stories are imbued with an ironic sense of humor, hence, "laughter" is a suitable nom de plume.

Wrote first in English

Seven Gothic Tales was a smash in the United States, and Dinesen always felt grateful for the deep sympathy she received from her American readers. Within days, a Danish journalist exposed Isak Dinesen's true identity in the Danish press, making the pseudonym superfluous. For this reason, she dropped the pseudonym when her books were published in Denmark and England. Thus, in Denmark and in England, she is known as Karen Blixen. Only in the United States, does she go by the name of Isak Dinesen. After her success in America, Dinesen looked for a translator to render Seven Gothic Tales into Danish, but she was not satisfied with those who auditioned for the job. In the end, she decided to do it herself. The result, however, might be described more as a recasting of the text than a translation. Dinesen was able to allow herself more freedom than most translators would take.

The pattern throughout Dinesen's literary career was that she would write her tales first in English (with a few exceptions) and then write them again in Danish. In some of her later tales, the differences can be startling. In "The Diver" from Anecdotes of Destiny (1958), for example, whole paragraphs are added to the Danish version, but the English version also contains paragraphs not included in the Danish. Is it the same story? At the end of "The Pearls" from Winters Tales (1942), Jensine and Alexander are standing together at the same window looking down into the street, but in the Danish version they stand at separate windows. This detail may affect whether or not the reader thinks that the couple presents a united front at the end of the story. Such differences have resulted in interpretive booby traps for scholars who have not consulted both the English and Danish versions of her tales, believing them to be identical.

Dinesen's tales are filled with aristocrats, adventure, and magic. She revels in imagination and disdains realism. Plot is more important than depicting the psychology of her characters. In fact, Dinesen is quite reticent about telling us what her characters are thinking. One of the enjoyable challenges of reading Dinesen is picking up on the clues of body language or other subtle hints as to the character's state of mind. (Hint: Stay alert when a character blushes.) In "The Heroine" from Winter's Tales, a German army officer delivers an ultimatum: If the beautiful Heloise appears before him naked, he will allow her party-facing execution for charges of espionage-to pass across the border to safety. Heloise's hand is described as moving up to the collar of her mantilla. Frederick Lamond, from whose perspective we have this story, assumes that this is a gesture of disdain and indignation. Much later,