When Lennart Hellsing been at the Göteborg Book Fair two years ago, we saw him on the way to the train home. He walked light and springy along the carriages (he was ninety-two!) In his bright yellow linen suit. White-haired and with his characteristic beard, he was not unlike an old wise Chinese philosopher. It is a nice image memory having now when he passed away after a long and productive life. His many books will live a long time yet. Jolly Roger on top!
“Suitable for age group 3-6 years,” it says in publishing advertising for Lennart Hellsing Sjörövarbok . It’s probably a little too narrow a definition, although already very young readers and listeners have fun at Lennart Hellsing rhymes and Poul Ströyers drastic images (some of the previous books were illustrated as memorable by Stig Lindberg, as well otherwise best known for its porcelain Gustavsberg). But you’ll probably have passed the age of six to really appreciate the pages of the book where the pirates have taken in land and amuse himself at a tavern, and what then happens:
Captain Boos broke loose / with a nude dancer,
Captain Shame scampered / a skinny Madame
Captain Seven dealt / with a youthful wife
Captain Hook took a Russian / Captain Ace took a Negress,
captain Blenka took a widow / Captain Gris waitress
Adding an! Add! Upload! Adding bee!
Captain Point took it easy / and took care of something young.
The line of what Captain Ace made may not be possible to reprint, in anxious times of political correctness when Pippi Longstocking’s father not remain negro king and Omar at Signature Sventon can no longer blacken his face with shoe polish … I do not think there was many, if any, morally outraged parents when Sjörövarbok was fifty years ago, in the middle of the liberated sixties. I imagine that book, like many of his other was carefully tested for a youthful crowd before the manuscript was sent to the children’s book publisher Raben & amp; Sjögren where Astrid Lindgren was one of the grateful recipients.
In Helsinki, there are at least a few statues of the versatile Topelius whose tales (he wrote very much more) was loved by young readers both in Finland and elsewhere in Scandinavia. On one of the statues he fairytale uncle who read aloud to four young girls, sedately sitting at his feet. In New York’s Central Park sitting Hans Christian Andersen statue (he does well on the central boulevard in Copenhagen with his name). A Alling soon to be a beautiful swan listening to him, but in summers also flock American kids around him when it is practiced reading aloud from his eventyr. Lennart Hellsing should also have his statue, preferably surrounded by an attentive listening crowd.
A good friend, the son of a children’s book critic in Dagens Nyheter and professor emeritus of nuclear physics, has told that Lennart Hellsing happily borrowed other people’s kids and read aloud to them from forthcoming books. It was certainly a good method. Many of his verses are persistent and easily get stuck in the memory: “You dance Mr. Cucumber / both roller and masurka …” He was good to let his figures climb up the ordlianerna: “Krakel spectacle Cousin Vitamin / hung up and threw down a curtain … “And he could be just as drastic as the Brothers Grimm or the Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz :” Now Bagar Bengtsson death / He has burned itself on a bread / and here he lies buried in a loaf. “
When the topic children’s literature was a new discipline in the sixties ended Hellsing’s short but eventful writing Thoughts on children’s literature on läslistorna. In the front, he threw the idea that it should set up a children’s institutions. So it also became, thanks to him, and he sat for many years on the board of this energetic institution whose publications now running in a high number – one of the books was H. C. Andersen’s wonderful trips in Sweden, a collection of essays and articles I edited ten years ago, just in time for the anniversary year of 2005.
In Denmark, there is another children’s author with almost the same status as Lennart Hellsing in Sweden: Halfdan Rasmussen, known among other things for its Tosserier and playful verses for the younger ages. In both there is the same sense of rhythm and music, the ability to twist and turn words and inventing new combinations – and when Lennart Hellsing försvenskade Rasmussen Danish verses, he did it so that ordekvilibristiken not lost (he also translated, among other things, HC Andersen and Max und Moritz ).
When Lennart Hellsing been at the Göteborg Book Fair two years ago, we saw him on the way to the train home. He walked light and springy along the carriages (he was ninety-two!) In his bright yellow linen suit. White-haired and with his characteristic beard, he was not unlike an old wise Chinese philosopher. It is a nice image memory having now when he passed away after a long and productive life. His many books will live a long time yet. Jolly Roger on top!
Ivo Holmqvist
Click here to search for books Bokus apropos of this article.
Each purchase via this link supports TK.
No comments:
Post a Comment