Novel
Havoc
Hærværk
Tom Kristensen · 1930
Synopsis
Ole Jastrau, a poet and literary critic at a major Copenhagen daily, lives as a family man in a fifth-floor apartment. A ring at the door lets in old acquaintances, and with them Stefan Steffensen, a poet without ties, who draws him away from his settled life. From bars with velvet curtains to nightclubs, Jastrau leaves the routine of criticism for drink and decides, quite concretely, to go to the dogs.
Context
A critic at Politiken since 1923, the author left his post in 1927, stopped drinking and isolated himself for three years in northern Zealand to write the book, which was published by Gyldendal in 1930. A roman à clef, it transposes the newspaper into “Dagbladet” and presents the author himself and recognisable figures of the city's cultural life; when it appeared, it was both praised and attacked for its unfiltered portrayal of decline. Translated into English by Carl Malmberg in 1968, it was reissued in English in 2017 and 2018; stage and cinema have adapted it.
Who it is for
A long novel, in Danish, told in the third person very close to the hero's consciousness, in a dense and imagistic prose.
Prizes and reception
The author's masterwork, regarded as a classic and a key novel of Danish modernism; its poem of the desired “shipwrecks” is one of the most quoted in the language.
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