Language & culture
‘Passing judgement on oneself’ Henrik Pontoppidan (1857-1943) by Steen Andersen
Henrik Pontoppidan
The Academy Award winning director Bille August has often based his films on novels—notable examples are Martin Andersen Nexø’s Pelle the Conqueror, Peter Høeg’s Smilla’ss Feeling for Snow, and Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon. Three years ago Bille August’s version of Henrik Pontoppidan’s LykkePer (Lucky Per) was released. A Fortunate Man, as the film is called, generated renewed interest in Pontoppidan’s works, not least among younger generations who might have come across the writer in Danish classes but had perhaps found him rather stuffy.
The film by the two-time Palme d‘Or winner Bille August is available on Netflix and Amazon.
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In some respects the film version (A Fortunate Man is also the title of the latest translation of the book Lykke-Per) differs from Pontoppidan’s novel, but what is important is that Bille August convincingly portrays the protagonist who breaks with his parents and siblings, pursues his ambitions, and ruthlessly uses people before he finds himself struggling with identity issues and existential questions and finds peace of a kind as a virtual hermit. Pontoppidan may seem a very odd name for a Dane and in fact Henrik Pontoppidan disliked it intensely and poured scorn on his distant ancestors who had found it appropriate to Latinise their original Danish surname, Broby, putting ‘Pontoppidan’ together from bro (meaning ‘bridge’—pons in Latin) and by (meaning ‘town’—oppidum in Latin).
