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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
I have a good Danish friend in France, as well read as anyone I know. On the door to her downstairs 100 is fixed a spoof road sign. It depicts within a red circle and in instantly recognisable profiled caricature her country's greatest national hero. A red diagonal stroke through it signifies prohibition. In this house we scarcely dare mention Hans Christian Andersen. When I tried to, in connection with this article, a pair of very sage eyebrows soared to the heavens, accompanied by a cry of utter exasperation. And her reaction is shared by many Danes of taste and intellect, she assures me. Never mind that the man wrote 127 fairytales, which have been translated into the most obscure languages and dialects and published in countless editions, with illustrations by the most illustrious, and which are beloved by children and adults everywhere from Argentina to Zimbabwe, from Addis Ababa to Zurich. Setting him on a high pedestal--a pedestal that has been raised still higher this year, thanks to the fact that Andersen was born in 1805--just for that very minor achievement, my friend would contend, is absurd.
She is right, of course. In the grand scheme of matters literary, writing fairytales, however beautifully...
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