Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales

Isak Dinesen, the pseudonym for writer Karen Blixen, wrote it Denmark in the early 1900s. She writes tales in the vein of Hans Christian Andersen but with an emotional and philosophical complexity that is not touched on in Andersen's tales, which were meant to instruct and entertain small children. When reading Dinesen's tales, I found the same level of enchantment that I found in Andresen's tales (a sense of going along with the flow and accepting whatever fantastical twist of plot was up next), but I also found myself thinking about the tales long after I had finished reading them. An obscurity is present in the final messages that is not present in the typical, instructional fairy tales, yet is highly satisfying.

Tale 1: "The Heroine"

Given the author's gender and the title of this story, I was looking forward to reading a tale that was empowering to women, as compared to the gender stereotypes rife throughout Hans Christian Andresen's tales. Yet, I'm still stuck working out what kind of message "The Heroine" imparts to its readers.

"The Heroine" follows a young, Christian academic, Frederick, through his interactions with a group of people whom he is forced to live among when he is trapped in a border city during the Franco-Prussian War. The leader of his group is Heloise, a French lady of some noble descent, who demands the attention and admiration of everyone in her presence. She saves the day when she outsmarts some rowdy German officers who accused the group of espionage and maintains her dignity by refusing to show up nude in the head officer's quarters, which leads to the entire group's ability to leave town unharmed.

Several years later, Frederick goes to see a play that depicts Diana and her nymphs. Diana appears on stage without clothing and turns out to be none other than the great French lady herself. After the play, Frederick and Heloise have themselves a little chat and discuss what happened that night with the Germans all those years ago. Heloise admits that she acted well and that any of the other people in their group (except for Frederick) would have forced her to do as the German officer had commanded and then wouldn't have been able to live with themselves. Ultimately, the tale ends with a meditation on how quickly time flies and how Heloise wishes Frederick could have seen her when they were trapped in their German town.

Is this a tale of unrequited love? Of anxiety about the passage of time? But where is the promised heroine? What sort of heroine have we been given if her primary concerns are an aging body and harsh judgments of people long in the past?

Tale 2: "The Sailor-Boy's Tale"

"The Sailor-Boy's Tale" follows a boy, Simon, as he travels up the Norwegian coast as part of a herring fishing expedition. This tale provides some insight into Scandinavian life, which I was thrilled to come across: "To the great herring-markets of Bodø ships came together from all corners of the world; here were Swedish, Finnish and Russian boats, a forest of masts, and on shore a turbulent, irregular display of life, with many languages spoken, and mighty fights... Simon was amazed at the lightness of these April evenings. He knew no geography, and did not assign it to the latitude, but he took it as a sign of an unwonted good-will in the Universe, a favour" (92-3).

Tale 3: "The Pearls"

*To be read later :)

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