”Noone in Denmark throws a gonzo with such effortless ease and as true to Hunter himself as Henrik List does. (Sorry, Morten Sabroe!)”, writes Politiken’s reviewer Anette Dina Sørensen in her - otherwise very sceptical - review of List’s aforementioned essays, and I really wish she would specify that and give an example of such elegantly thrown gonzo (I know, maybe I'll just have to go see for myself after all).
A year ago Leonora Christina Skov did a similar thing in her - otherwise extremely disparaging - review of List's Bangkok Ladyboys. She admits that, "O.k. he writes well. He always has," but goes on to quote a misbegotten passage from the text which she characterizes with seething irony as her 'favourite' and which is picked to demonstrate how List's presentation of self tends to produce an unintentional comic effect.
How is it that a text can so clearly fail to be taken seriously by its reader and still be characterized (by the same reader) as being elegantly playful and downright well-written?
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2 comments:
Congrats! A post.doc sounds terrific.
You raise an interesting question here and I readily admit that I didn’t exactly
provide an answer in the aforementioned review. What I meant by ‘well-written’ is simply that Henrik List’s writing has such a glorious flow. The rhythm is there, you’re almost carried along and had Mr List been a novelist this would’ve been truly relevant. But he’s a hard-hitting debater in both Bangkok Ladyboys and Sidste nat i kødbyen, defending his right to visit prostitutes. Consequently, I felt I had to focus on the actual content of the essays. His language is beautiful alright, but I just cannot recommend a book on fucking transgender prostitutes in Bangkok when it’s obvious to me that the arguments presented in the book leave so much to be desired.
Cheers, Leonora
Thanks a lot. And congratulations to you too, new novel just out and a second impression being printed already (so said Nyhedsavisen today).
In the non-fiction department I agree that List's arguments leave much to be desired, and in my opinion this is bound to have consequences for the way his language resonates. Sentences may be rhythmic, but as long as they serve to expose a poor sense of judgment or support a dubious idea, how can they be beautiful? To me List's loving care for the ladyboy prostitutes in Bangkok (his speculating about their motives and their view of him as perhaps a serious love interest) seems inappropriately sentimental and one-sided and in my view this makes his writing style, his sometimes elevated and sometimes streetwise choice of words and the smooth rhythm sound hollow and inappropriate too. (All this applies even I don't really doubt Henrik List's sincerity.)
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