Novel
Katinka
Ved Vejen
Herman Bang · 1886
Opening lines
Stationsforstanderen skiftede Frakke til Toget.
The stationmaster changed into his frock coat for the train.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Katinka has married Bai, the jovial and noisy stationmaster of a provincial town, who is nothing like her. A new estate manager, Huus, arrives in the area, befriends the couple, and she begins to wait for him without admitting it to herself. Around them, the life of the town: the passing trains, the old schoolmistress and her pug, the widow and her two daughters of marriageable age, the old pastor and his wife, the festivities, the gossip and the returning seasons.
Context
The text appears in 1886 from Schubothe, in a collection of four narratives devoted to effaced lives, and will not be published on its own until 1898. Its starting point is a scene seen: in 1883, at the station of Skørping, in northern Jutland, the author caught sight at a window of a young woman with her pale face in her hands, who watched his train pull away; he begins writing the narrative in 1885, in Vienna. The daily press greets the book with enthusiasm.
Who it is for
Fewer than two hundred pages. Know before opening it that nothing in it is said frankly and that one must read the silences. English translations under the titles Katinka and As Trains Pass By.
Prizes and reception
Included in the Danish cultural canon; Max von Sydow made Katinka from it in 1988, presented at Cannes in the Un certain regard section.
Sources for this page 11
The pages consulted to check this page.