Re: Indo-European Languages and Gramatical Gender Loss

phoglund@xxxxxx skreiv:

However, I have always been wondering at whether there is any
cultural vitality at all in the Riksmål scene. I mean, I remember wondering whether there were writers of any importance in Riksmål, and the answer I got from a Riksmål enthusiast that yes, there was Alexander Kielland. Kielland - a 19th century writer! I mean, if the
Riksmål scene is culturally THAT dead, how can the zombie keep on
going?

It's not dead. It won't die (and I don't want it dead). There's been a continuous tradition since Kielland and the father of organized Riksmål, the (undeserved) Nobel literature laureate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.

The next Norwegian Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun was a romanticist who gave his Riksmål a flavour of the northern dialects and of adventure. He was the uncontested favourite of my northern grandfather, who himself promoted a conservative Nynorsk. Norway's third Nobel laureate, the historical novelist Sigrid Undset, also wrote Riksmål. The old, reactionary Hamsun and the christian conservative Undset became engaged in wartime propaganda on opposite sides.

Of Undsets generation several were politically radical and wrote Riksmål. Among them are the poets Arnulf Øverland and the important psychological novelists Sigurd Hoel and Aksel Sandemose. Sandemose was born and raised in Denmark and had his debut there. Later they became the backbone of the reorganized Riksmål camp of the post-war years.

A generation younger is the radical sosialist and popular poet Inger Hagerup, the author of intelligent crime novels and equally intelligent children's rhymes, André Bjerke, and his cousin, the deeply depressed anarchist and explorer of human evil, Jens Bjørneboe.

From the baby boom generation of (problematic) sexual liberation I think Knut Faldbakken is the only one worth mentioning.

Erik Fosnes-Hansen made a brilliant debut while still a teenager in the eighties and now he delivers a well-written novel every fifth or tenth year. Sadly, his novels don't seem to lead anywhere anymore.

Of the younger generation there is Karl Ove Knausgård, who made his debut some ten years ago with a highly praised novel (which I haven't read) of a young island schoolteacher and a far too young girl. I'm not sure he belongs here, though. I seem to remember him saying in an interview that his own language is a radical Bokmål but he wasn't able to write the novel before he understood that his main character would tell it in a conservative, elevated style.


--
Trond Engen
- with another brief history of Norwegian literature
.

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