About the Author

Peter Hoeg was born in 1957 and followed various callings - dancer, actor, fencer, sailor, mountaineer - before he turned seriously to writing. After publishing a volume of short stories and this, his first novel, in 1988 ( a book which was acclaimed in Denmark by Information as evidence enough that Hoeg was "the foremost writer of his generation"), he went on to write assured him an international reputation. This novel is being filmed by Billie August. The variety of his talent was amply demonstrated with his subsequent novel, Borderliners, a remarkable study of children which caused controversy within Denmark and beyond. Barbara Haveland, a Scot married to a Norwegian, and resident in Denmark, has translated Peter Hoeg's Borderliners, and his most recent novel The Woman and the Ape. She is also translator of Solvej Balle's According to the Law.

Reviews

Peter Hoeg's first novel is an interweaving of the lives and loves of four families, within which histories time expands, clocks stop or race forward at will. The dreams and disappointments of the children of the author's magnificent imagination foreshadow the themes of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow and Borderliners.

His name having been established here through his second and third novels, Smilla's Sense of Snow and Borderliners, Hoeg now offers his debut work, first published in Denmark in 1988. As its subtitle indicates, this is an ambitious and quirky novel, reading like an epic fairy tale in which the magic elements are the social revolutions of the modern era. These revolutions are fancifully cast in terms of the characters' ever-evolving ``dreams''-such as ``the dream of rebellion'' or the ``dream of the Village''-in a sprawling plot that progresses as a sort of surreal family saga. Introduced in the first section are four characters born around the turn of the century: Carl Laurids, whose ambitions lead him beyond his estate, where, in the 16th century, the resident count had banned the keeping of time; Amalie Teader, a girl whose delusion that she has been ``chosen'' springs from a wealthy and powerful grandmother, who writes a newspaper that predicts the future; Anna Bak, a pastor's innocent child who is deemed worthy of bearing ``the new Messiah''; and Adonis Jensen, the son of roving thieves, who refuses to learn how to steal because of ``his compassion for mankind.'' In Part II, which ends at 1939, these four become couples: Carl and Amalie have a golden child, Carsten, for a son, while Anna and Adonis produce rebellious Maria; in the final section, Carsten and Maria marry and have children of their own. The characters are as vivid and believable as they are eccentric; unfortunately, they become somewhat buried under an over-staged plot, which seems intent on reflecting every trend of the 20th century, itself fated to bear ``the weight of so many dreams that refuse to amalgamate.'' Luckily, Hoeg's use of a casual first-person narrative voice to frame the story infuses humor and a certain earthy wisdom into his philosophical musings. (Oct.)

Peter Hoeg's first novel is an interweaving of the lives and loves of four families, within which histories time expands, clocks stop or race forward at will. The dreams and disappointments of the children of the author's magnificent imagination foreshadow the themes of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow and Borderliners.