The Bridge

Volume 26 Number 2 Article 10

2003

Reviews

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Recommended Citation (2003) "Reviews," The Bridge: Vol. 26 : No. 2 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thebridge/vol26/iss2/10

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Bridge by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Reviews

Jennifer Garrity. Et sted i hjertet [A Place in the Heart]. Translated from the English by Anne Mette Poulsen. H0jbjerg: Forlaget Hovedland, 2003. Pp. 479. DKK 299. A Danish immigrant novel-a really good one, worth reading-is something of a sensation. The 350,000 Danes who emigrated overseas before 1914 did not leave traces in great literature like the novels of Wilhelm Moberg in Sweden. The closest was Take All to Nebraska, written in the 1930's by the Danish-American novelist, Sophus Keith Winther, now completely forgotten. On the other hand, Danes can boast the earliest "emigrant poetry" in Christian Winther's Flugten til Amerika [Flight to America] from 1836, about two small boys who set off for the States with the family Bible under one arm. Jennifer Garrity, the author of this new novel, is not Danish. She was born in Seattle around forty years ago and lived in many parts of the world before settling down in southern Germany with her three children. But her curiosity was aroused about her Danish and Swedish ancestors, and this led her on a research tour to Denmark. That trip became the starting point for her first novel, Et sted i hjertet, about a boy named Hans from a farm near Marstal on the island of lErn and his adventurous journey over the Atlantic and on to California. She has done her groundwork for this nearly 500-page novel, which takes its readers half-way around the world. A young ship's carpenter, Hans, gets drunk and loses the ancestral farm in a poker game, then runs away from lErn to escape the consequences of the loss. The background of life on his home island is described with a familiarity one only would expect from a native Dane. The romantic element in the book is a childhood sweetheart named Mette. She and Hans meet under a prehistoric burial mound near their home. He never forgets her, after his hasty departure across the ocean to New York, where he experiences all the hardships of a jobless newcomer in the big city. He finally enlists in the Union army during the Civil War. The descriptions of the

92 war, one of the bloodiest in history, and especially of the siege of Petersburg, are brilliant and realistic. Eventually, Hans deserts from the army and joins a mule train across the Great Plains to Utah. He finds work with a Mormon who has two wives and a daughter, where he experiences the dark side of the so-called paradise of Latter-Day Saints in Zion. The two wives battle each other, and the home falls apart because of the hypocrisy and violence of the father. The description is believable and dramatic. The last part of the book, describing Hans' difficult journey over 500 miles of mountains and deserts from Utah to California grows into a veritable Western, with more fights and gun battles that one would expect in a book written by a young mother from southern Germany. Denmark has gotten an immigrant novel that will find its way to many readers. It is both realistic and exciting reading for all age groups.

P.S. Et sted i hjertet has not yet been published in the original English.

Kristian Hvidt

Jette Mackintosh. 0st, Vest-Hjemme Bedst? Danske emigranters oplevelser ved gensynet med Danmark [East, West-Horne Best? The Experience of Danish Emigrants Who Returned to Denmark]. Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2001. Pp. 258. 249 DKK.

A little more than fifty-six years ago, in the spring of 1947, a former inspector for the U. S. Army hospitals in France, Major Ruth Jorgensen made a trip to Denmark. This was her second visit to the country from which she and her parents had emigrated thirty-seven years earlier. The first one was in 1920. During her stay she visited with relatives living in various parts of the Kingdom. Inspired by these experiences Ruth Jorgensen wrote a letter to her friends and sisters back home in America describing the many cultural differences she met as a Danish-American immigrant revisiting the country of her birth. 93 Early in the letter Ruth Jorgensen recounts Denmark's many beautiful places, romantic villages and long light evenings, but then observes that the lives of the Americans and the Danes were quite different. These differences become noticeable when she writes: "Maybe ours has become too artificial a manner of life, I don't know, but it does nevertheless seem to me that there is something to be said for a bathtub in every home, and perhaps even the luxury of a washing machine. Why should a house built in 1925 not boast a bathtub and one more point of running water other than the kitchen sink. Running water unless otherwise specified, refers only to cold. And that is considered a rare luxury." Ruth Jorgensen continues: "I like the niceties of American life. Many of the niceties to which we are so sensitive seem to be missing entirely here. Even among the more privileged group, sturdy healthy young women do not seem to feel the need of deodorants - baths among the stronger sex are hardly a weekly affair. " To explain the differences further Jorgensen writes that the Danes "also seem to live closer to the arts than we do in our highly developed machine age .... Our Uncle in Verninge [A Danish village on the island of Fyn] has a lovely Venus de Milo about 20 inches high in the living room, a very nice thing, but I can just imagine what a sensation even a modest one would create in any of our more ordinary homes. Our Uncle has in his living room, as the dominant theme, a large oil painting of a nude woman sitting, back half turned, done in greens, and it is very well done. I don't know how long it would take me to become quite unconscious her, but I don't think most of my American friends would understand nor appreciate such a display. "1 Though born in Denmark and having spent her first years there, the impact of American culture on Ruth Jorgensen's life is obvious and gives the impression of a woman who is trying to relate to the practices and values of a foreign culture. There is nothing condemnatory in her statements, but one can clearly sense that she considers the Danish way of living to be both different and strange when compared to her own life in the States. It is evident that her life is not the same as that of her Danish relatives. Jorgensen returned to the United States after some months abroad and resumed her normal life. She visited Denmark two more times before she died in 1981. 94 Were she alive today, Ruth Jorgensen likely would have understood most of the difficulties which are described in the book 0 st, Vest-Hjemme Bedst? written by Danish Historian Jette Mackintosh. On the basis of the interviews of 88 Danes who returned to their homeland after having lived abroad for a number of years, Mackintosh presents interesting insights for the field of Migration History. By concentrating on the complexities of remigration, she discovers that it is not only during the process of emigration and the following period as "newcomers" that difficulties related to the meeting with a new culture become evident for the immigrant. For many of those who returned to Denmark the process of readjustment was just as complicated as the process of acculturation. Divided into four main sections, the book describes the migration experience as it is seen through the eyes of the interviewed. The first part deals with the reasons for emigrating while the second part concentrates on matters related to immigrant living and the process of integration. Part three and four examine the various reasons for wanting to return to Denmark and how differently the return to Danish society is experienced. Most of the persons interviewed for this book emigrated because of what might be described as a love of adventure. Mackintosh defines this as a form of discontent with the way things were in the homeland. This does not necessarily lead to emigration but those who choose to emigrate all share some common characteristics that separate them from the average Dane. Jette Mackintosh claims that these types of persons are full of initiative and have a love of adventure which they believe cannot be satisfied in their existing situations. Therefore they seek other opportunities. Mackintosh has found out yet another interesting feature that most of these emigrants share. It turns out that a large percentage of the interviewed persons came from homes where the fathers were self­ employed either as craftsmen, farmers or otherwise. This fact might very well explain why the emigrants themselves had enough courage to make the difficult decision to emigrate. While living in their new countries the interviewed experienced both openness and hospitality from the host society mixed with an 95 atmosphere of support. And though problems were apparent in their new lives, they were considered to be minor and almost nothing compared with the advantages. So why return to Denmark? The reasons are many but all had something to do with personal circumstances which made the immigrants consider their future. These considerations created a desire to return to Denmark. Upon their return to the homeland all of the interviewed persons experienced what might be defined as a reverse cultural shock. Mackintosh finds that the return often is an unexpected and painful experience for the emigrants because they came to realize that it is more difficult to return than it was to leave. Mackintosh explains this by stating that while many were prepared for the difficulties awaiting them abroad, they were not prepared for the equally difficult process of resettling in their homeland. Having the unconscious expectation that things were as when they left the country, they become disappointed when faced with the fact that things have changed. Society has changed, their families have changed and they themselves have changed. On top of this some also have felt the strangling grip of the very Danish "Jantelov," a folkloristic law which states that you shall not believe that you are anything. Unfortunately, Mackintosh follows a trend that is flourishing among some of today's historians. She voices her dissatisfaction with the Danish policy on refugees, calling it defensive, and wishes some of the Danish statesmen would learn by the experiences of the "old" immigrant nations (Australia, Canada and the United States) on how to treat immigrants coming to Denmark. I agree that the Danish policy is defensive but I strongly advise people to act with caution when comparing the present Danish situation with the situation in the old immigrant nations. Based on their own experiences these nations have adjusted their policies in order to control the flow of immigrants by putting up quotas and by admitting only immigrants with special skills. One could also claim that there is a fundamental difference between the immigrants who have recently come to Denmark and the ones who traveled to the old immigrant nations in the sense that the ones coming to Denmark primarily are refugees who are forced to leave their countries, rather than those who on 96 their own initiative have chosen to emigrate. Finaily I would suggest to those who feel cailed upon to making comparisons between Denmark's current immigration policy and that of other nations that they remember the huge distances in both time and space and that each historical event is unique and therefore deserves to be treated so. The writings of Migration Historian Marcus Lee Hansen remain relevant today and can be of help in understanding the present Danish situation. Apart from this populist intermezzo, Jette Mackintosh's book is highly recommended because it tells a captivating story about the difficulties of modem day migrants, their cravings, endeavors, and longings. At the same time, it reveals the obstacles they face, even when returning to the land of their birth.

Torben Tvorup Christensen

1 JOR 99213-1-14x, The Danish Immigrant Archive-Dana College, Blair, Nebraska.

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