What are some great authors from the North? Knut Hamsun was great, loved both the Growth and the Hunger, Kierkegaard was meh, but I wanna dabble in Northern literature and maybe philosophy as well. I liked "Hunger" because it is similar in spirit and outlook with the music I like and comes mostly from Sweden and Norway. I have read many of the philosophers and authors who laid the groundwork for the pessimism which was the impetus for the Black Metal, Industrial and Death Metal scenes of Scandinavia.
However, I'd like some folks from the North to recommend me literature from there, especially if it has national, or even better, rural, undertones and is tied deeply into the Nordic lifestyle, historic or not. So prose is preferred, but philosophy is also fine.
Most of our Veeky Forumserature is dull IMHO. Klaus Rifbjerg and Dan Turell are great (especially Den Kroniske Uskyld by Rifbjerg) but I have no idea which of their works have been translated.
The authors mentioned in the official canon used by the Danish ministry of education may be worth looking into:
Ludvig Holberg Adam Oehlenschläger N.F.S. Grundtvig St. St. Blicher H.C. Andersen Herman Bang Henrik Pontoppidan Johannes V. Jensen Martin Andersen Nexo Tom Kristensen Karen Blixen Peter Seeberg Tove Ditlevsen Henrik Ibsen
These authors almost made the list:
Johan Herman Wessel B.S. Ingemann Jeppe Aakjær Egon Mathiesen Halfdan Rasmussen Benny Andersen Cecil Bodker Ole Lund Kirkegaard Amalie Skram Astrid Lindgren Thorbjorn Egner Robert Storm Petersen
If you're looking for something contemporary, Yahya Hassan's eponymous collection of poetry is worth reading. Caspar Eric is also good but I doubt that his books have been translated.
Read more Hamsun, Pan and Mysteries should be right up your alley. Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas is pretty similar to early Hamsun. If you like Hemingway you should check out Kjell Askildsen's short stories. Knausgård is a good contemporary writer, and he also name-drops a bunch of good writers from the region. >especially if it has national, or even better, rural, undertones Tarjei Vesaas and Gabriel Scott if you're patrician, Trygve Gulbranssen if you're pleb.
>the official canon used by the Danish ministry >Ludvig Holberg >Henrik Ibsen >Amalie Skram >Thorbjorn Egner triggered desu
Owen Phillips
Is this supposed to be a canon of nordic literature? The exclusion of Henrik Wergeland, Bjornson, Hamsun as well as any high or new norwegian language authors is ridiculous. jej Norwegian poetry is great, though I would guess little of it has good translations into english. Conversely, there are a lot of good norwegian translations of english, german, french and other foreign works, including a great Garborgian high norwegian translation of the Odyssey.
For philosophy, your best bet is Zapffe and perhaps Næss if you have an interest in a more moderate approach to deep ecology.
Grayson Edwards
Terrible bait
Tyler Kelly
>Is this supposed to be a canon of nordic literature No it is not. It is a canon of authors important to Danish culture (not only danish authors).
Colton Wilson
I really dislike the attempt to lay claim to several prominent norwegian authors Tbh.
Austin Sullivan
They did live in Denmark-Norway and write in Danish though... it's not much different from how the Germans/Austrians lay claim to Kafka.
Grayson Davis
trygve gulbranssens beyond sing the woods is beautiful
Ethan Lopez
Thorbjorn Egner did not. And a lot of them wrote quintessentially norwegian literature with a romantic nationalist bent, chiefly owing to the influence of Wergeland, a norwegian nationalist and the earliest to start the work of a separate norwegian written language. He also spent little to no time in Denmark out of his university years and wrote the majority of his works while residing in Italy.
Elijah Reed
>And a lot of them wrote quintessentially norwegian literature with a romantic nationalist bent, Ibsen in particular*
Zachary Myers
The list isn't specifically about Danish literature, but rather literature that has had such a large impact on Denmark that all Danes should know about it. It therefore naturally consists mostly of Danes but also includes a few Norwegians.
August Strindberg Hjalmar Söderberg Per Anders Fogelström John Ajvide Lindqvist Some basic bitch recommendations
Thomas Brooks
How does Ibsen have any particular impact on danish culture/literature beyond what he had on the european theater as a whole?
Liam Gutierrez
He played a major role in the Modern Breakthrough (Scandinavian naturalism 1870-1890), which had a huge impact on literature and society in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. All of his works, including A Doll's House, were originally published in Copenhagen. He wrote in Danish.
I don't know to what degree he influenced the rest of Europe, but he did certainly have a huge influence on all of Scandinavia.
Parker Martin
Deep ecology, that's great. I already liked "Walden" by Henry Thoreau and "Can Life Prevail?" by the almost-Nordic Pentti Linkola.
Isn't Tarjei Vesaas a poet? He also wrote Sno og Granskog played by Darkthrone as far as I know.
Dominic Barnes
>rural undertones Read more Hamsun. You would probably enjoy Pan, Victoria and Mysteries
Nathan Stewart
Care to recommend specific books by any of them?
Ian Cooper
they're extremely unimaginative, boring people, the Nords. their germanic cousins have Geist lighting up their fat butter faces, but the Nords, sallow, long faces seem to be absent of all muses, no light behind those pale blue eyes
its not bait, Nords have no imagination, that's why their artwork is fucking garbage autistic simulacra, that's why their literature is dry and mundane, that's why they all look bored but attentive at the same time and why their sense of humor is so hokey. Germans are infinitely superior artists, Nords are excellent warriors and merchants, they're fucking awful men of culture. there is no bait, Germans, Anglos, Italians, Spaniards, Frenchman, Jews and Americans are superior cultural architects and generators of the world dream than Nords. Nords are just lifeless, they're too far away from the equator, they can't come up with anything meaningful. Their whole culture comes from Scythia and the Caucasus and the forests of the Baltic. All the colorful parts of Saxon, Viking culture is borrowed from older strains of proto-whites. the eddas are bastardizations of the old pre-Vedic religion and the reason their fashion is so bland, their architecture is so uninspired is because all hues and shades are drained away by the pale sunlight of the North. this is the price you pay, tall, handsome, smart, but no soul. There's a price for everything.
Colton Nelson
Not him but. >August Strindberg The Red Room was his breakthrough novel and is probably his most well-known. Satire of bourgeois society in Sweden during the latter half of the 19th century. References some political events that you might have to read up on. I'd say this one if you only read one of his books. Actually very funny. >Hjalmar Söderberg The Serious Game Doctor Glas >Per Anders Fogelström His City novels, a five-part series following members of the Stockholm working class over a 100-year period. Speaks of the plight of the average worker and documents the emergence of the modern Swedish welfare state. Comfy, touching, but idk if it'd be of much interest unless you're Swedish. >John Ajvide Lindqvist Let the Right One In. Some shit about a vampire.
Dominic Harris
Hyperborean ubermensch here. Can confirm that the perennial melancholy takes its seat deep within the Volksgeist of the Nordic peoples, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
>their sense of humor is so hokey This is wrong though. >Their whole culture comes from Scythia and the Caucasus and the forests of the Baltic Germany actually.
>Germany no Nords are a different stock than Germans, they're brother races but the Nords have heavy WHG admixture and more Steppe blood than Germans do hence more handsome but also fucking autistic and easily complacent with time and domestication. Germans have a decent sense of humor, Nords don't. I've never met a funny Nord or Swede in my life, have met hilarious Germans I was trying to be polite, but Nords are certainly more handsome than any other race, are almost always very tall and highly intelligent. The stereotypes are always half-true. Jews ugly, smart, neurotic; anglos witty, pretentious, acquisitive and show on. how exactly are Nords the same as Germans when they look highly distinct?
Andrew Hernandez
They used to be the same, not anymore. Same as the Anglos, the Dutch, the Frisians, and the Goths (dead). All the same once.
Ethan Hill
I don't really believe this man, I read genomics studies to pass the time between classes and it seems like Nords-Germanics-Celts-Greeks-Iranics are all different kinds of HUWHYTE PEPO
To me, Nords look like WHG+Steppe genes and Germans are some other medley of proto HUWHYTE people
Ryan Robinson
>pol ruining yet another thread with their ‘tism
Juan Myers
There was a huge cultural spike in the North lately. It took that civilisation longer to mold, they were late bloomers but once their spirit has unfolded it got unstoppable. They are the trailblazers of the 20th century musical culture, away from pop culture. They have turned classical music and folklore, both of European heritage, into melancholy and darkness tinted genres which are the living expression of the Northern soul: dark ambient, black metal, dark folk. It's hard to understand Northern supremacy.
Nathan Peterson
>mfw it's blocked in Germany
Joshua Powell
Leave us alone, anglo.
Owen Phillips
>funny germans Good one user.
Lucas Williams
Nietzsche had a good sense of humor as did Kafka and Wittgenstein
>Strindberg Don't read The Red Room. Read Inferno. He wrote it while going through a psychotic episode and tries his hand at alchemy. It's a sweet mixture of despair, /x/-posting and comedy. If it was written in English it would be a Veeky Forums-meme. >Fogelström Don't bother unless you're very interested in early modern Swedish history. I've never been so bored in my life. Who the fuck wants to read about some farmhand getting off with the milkmaid and then moving to Stockholm and a shitty factory job?
Camden Collins
t. Ignoramus
Luke Bell
when you say german, people refer to prussia
Ryder White
indo Europeans were yanma culture, a mix of ehg and whg. From them came everything
Anthony Martin
why don't we have a lit chart for Nordic literature?
Zachary Peterson
>no Nords are a different stock than Germans Said culture, not genetics, retard. But as for the latter, the difference is negligible, at least when it comes to Scandinavians. > Germans have a decent sense of humor, Nords don't. No tgey don't.
Jason Martinez
One of these is not like the others.
Andrew Roberts
should I learn a Nordic language for these?
Parker Jackson
Learn both forms of written norwegian, we are the only cultural powerhouse of the nordic world.