Svend Aage Madsen

Svend Aage Madsen (born November 2, 1939) is a Danish novelists. He studied mathematics before he began writing novels. His work consists mainly of philosophical and humoristic novels.

A returning trait in his books is that the people depicted in his books face some sort of extreme situation, which brings forth a philosophical theme to the novel.

Usually his work is divided into three phases. First phase is abstract modernistic influenced by Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Alain Robbe-Grillet and James Joyce amongst others. It is an examination of the capacity for language to depict reality in two very experimental novels The Visit (Besøget, 1963) and Additions (Tilføjelser, 1967, the "unnovel" Pictures of Lust (Lystbilleder, 1964) and the collection of short stories Eight Times Orphan (Otte gange orphan, 1965).

Svend Åge Madsen would later define these novels as "anti-art", and the shift from phase one to phase two was in his own words to change from an "anti-art" to an "anti-anti-art", which accepted the result of phase one: "that reality can not be described" but attempted to build a meaningful literature from this relativistic view. The project was now to show how "lower" genres such as crime novels, romantic stories and science fiction could be a mosaic of equal truths that make up reality. This change is also a change from a modernist literature to a postmodernist literature.

The change to phase three was brought on by some novels that were less abstract and more realistic than the earlier novels of Madsen, but still the literature is overwhelmingly imaginative. At the same time Madsen started working on a "macro"-text in which the characters are used again and again from one novel to the next, main characters become minor characters and vice versa. Everything takes places in the city of Aarhus in Denmark. Through a complex net of bizarre stories Madsen creates an alternative Aarhus where everything is possible and where extreme philosophical positions are explored. The late literature of Madsen is quite unique but can perhaps best be likened to the magical realism of Latin America.

Madsen's main work is Vice and Virtue in Middle Time (Tugt og utugt i mellemtiden, 1976) which has been translated to English. A man from a very distant future takes on the experiment of writing a novel of the age called Middle Time, which is the western world in the 1970'ies. This creates an amusing philosophical position, where everything we take for granted is questioned in the light of a totally different perspective on life. The main plot is a rewriting of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Christo, but there are references to a large number of classics.

Bibliography

Note: most of the books have not been translated into English. Most important novels:

• The visit (Besøget), 1963
• Pictures of/in lust (Lystbilleder), 1964
• Eight times Orphan (Otte gange Orphan), 1965
• Additions (Tilføjelser), 1967
• The corpse and the lust (Liget og lysten), 1968
• The third time, we'll take him (Tredje gang så ta'r vi ham...), 1969
• (Maskeballet), 1970
• what if the world exists (Sæt verden er til), 1971
• Days with Diam or Life at Night (Dage med Diam eller Livet om natten), translated to English, 1972
• Virtue and Vice in the Middle Time (Tugt og utugt i mellemtiden), translated to English,1976
• The bond of hatred (Hadets bånd), 1978
• See the light of day (se dagens lys), 1980
• Of the track you have come (Af sporet er du kommet), 1984
• Let the time pass (Lad tiden gå), 1986
• The Hier of Laveran (Slægten Laveran), 1988
• Narrating the People (At fortælle menneskene), 1989
• Between Heaven and Earth (Mellem himmel og jord), 1990
• The Hunt for a Human (Jagten på et menneskene), 1991
• Seven Ages of Madness (Syv aldres galskab), 1994
• The Female without a Body (Kvinden uden krop), 1996
• Takes Place (Finder sted), 1998
• Mirror of Genes/ Remirrored (ambigous title)(Genspejlet), 1999
• The Ungodly Farce (Den ugudelige farce), 2002

Full list of works: (http://www.bibliografi.dk/forfatter.asp?nr=1208)da:Svend Åge Madsen