Axel Jensen
Encyclopedia
Axel Buchardt Jensen was a Norwegian
author. From 1957 until 2002 he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, manuscripts for cartoons and animated films.
In 1958 he and his then girlfriend, later wife, Marianne (later renamed Marianne Ihlen), lived on the Greek island of Hydra
. Jensen was a close friend of the Canadian musician and poet Leonard Cohen
. Jensen had a relationship with Cohen's girlfriend Lena. Marianne and Cohen lived for a couple of years on Hydra after the break between Axel Jensen and his wife. There is widespread belief that the character Lorenzo in the novel Joacim (1961) is modeled after Cohen, but Jensen also told Cohen that Lorenzo was modeled after the Swedish novelist Göran Tunström
.
After some time, Jensen returned to Norway and settled in Fredrikstad
. There, Noel Cobb, an English poet and student of psychology
, came to interview him. Soon he became sexually involved with Lena. Axel then left Fredrikstad and went to live in London.
Jensen suffered from a severe depression after the break-up with Lena. But in London
he met the psychiatrist R. D. Laing and received therapy from him. After recovering, Jensen worked as an assistant at the institution Kingsley Hall
. Laing was a close friend for the rest of his life.
While attending an environmental conference in Stockholm
in 1972, Axel met Pratibha, whom he married in India
. After returning to Sweden
the couple lived in Vaxholm
outside Stockholm
where they bought an old freighter, built in 1905, which they renamed S/Y Shanti Devi. The ship was named after Pratibha's mother and means "The Goddess of Peace"
.
After restoring the ship with the help of good friends and its former crew, they finally set course for England
in 1984. But due to a storm at sea they sought harbor in Oslo
after a hazardous journey.
When Axel Jensen arrived in Oslo, he met his old friend, the writer Olav Angell. Together they wanted to transform Oslo into a city renowned for happenings on the scene of international literature. The plan was soon put into action, and Jensen became the front figure in a project which later developed into the Oslo International Poetry Festival, OIPF, occurring in 1985 and 1986.
On 10 August 1990 Shanti Devi
set course for its final destination in Ålefjær outside Kristiansand
. There Axel and Pratibha settled in a hundred year old school-house, and some years later they sold their old ship.
In the last ten years of his life, Axel Jensen was severely disabled from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
, ALS. He gradually became paralyzed, losing all his motor-coordination abilities. Later, using a breathing-aid, he could neither write nor speak. During this period, he also led a tough campaign against what he termed "the health machinery" for the right to be nursed in his own home. Jensen wrote several essays and articles on this subject. Before the public health service provided the help he needed, private funding to pay for nursing was arranged by his close friends, including Leonard Cohen. His wife also used all of her available energy to nurse her husband until he drew his last breath in his home in Ålefjær.
In 1996 he received the Fritt Ord Honorary Award.
, Allen Ginsberg
and William Burroughs. The reason for this is that the novel's male main characters often try to escape from their obligations in a Western capitalistic society. Instead they try to replace their former life with some sort of undefined spiritualism and fail miserably in their attempt.
Later Jensen departed from the realism in his early novels and began to move in a new direction by writing science fiction
, poems, essays and manuscripts for cartoons. In this experimental phase he produced manuscripts for the psychedelic
comic-strip Doctor Fantastic (published in the newspaper Dagbladet
between March and July 1972), the science fiction comic strip collage Tago (1979), the animated movie Superfreak (1988) and a manuscript for a comic novel which is a caricature-rendering of the life of the French playwright and founder of pataphysics, Alfred Jarry
. In the same period, Jensen also published a poem-collection with a hindu
-theme called " Onalila - A Little East West poetry " (1974), an essayistic novel called Mother India (1974) and three autobiographical novels named Junior (1978) and Senior (1979) and Jumbo (1998).
But Jensen is perhaps most famous for having written the science fiction novels Epp (1965), Lul (1992) and And the Rest is Written in the Stars (1995) illustrated by Pushwagner
. With these novels, Jensen created a dystopian vision of the future, much in the tradition of Aldous Huxley
, George Orwell
and Ray Bradbury
. Nevertheless, Jensen's novels also differ from these authors since the tragic vision in his novels is supplemented with comedy, setting an ambiguous and absurd tone. In this way, Jensen's novels are similar to the satirical and parodic novels of Jonathan Swift
and Kurt Vonnegut
.
Besides his fiction, Axel Jensen also published a series of articles and essays which focused on three main political and social issues. His collection of essays, God Does Not Read Novels. A Voyage in the World of Salman Rushdie (1994), is a critique of the fatwa
against Salman Rushdie and a defense of the freedom of speech
. Another political text by Axel Jensen is the article " A Children's Disease ", published in the anthology The Collective Fairytale. A Book about Norway, Europe and the EU (1994). This article discusses Norway's role as a future member in the European Union
. The third main issue that was of great concern of Axel Jensen, was how sick and disabled people are treated in a modern bureaucratic society. Two books containing articles on this subject was therefore published; The Deafening Silence (1997) and The Patient in the Centre (1998). All the articles are an account of how it is to suffer from ALS
and at the same time not receive adequate help from the Norwegian welfare state
.
Among his political writings, Jensen also found the time to write a biography on the mythical guru G. I. Gurdjieff
which is titled Guru - Glimpses from the World of Gurdijieff (2002). In addition to this, Jensen was also the co-writer with Peter Mæjlender on his own autobiography, called Life Seen From Nimbus (2002).
Axel Jensen received a literary prize from the Austrian Abraham Woursell Foundation in 1965 for his novel Epp. In 1992 Jensen was given the annual literary award from the Norwegian publishing house Cappelen for his novel Lul. For his essays on Salman Rushdie, he received the Carl von Ossietzky
-award from the International PEN
-club in 1994 and an award from The Freedom of Expression Foundation in Norway.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
author. From 1957 until 2002 he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, manuscripts for cartoons and animated films.
Biography
Jensen was born in Trondheim. He first made his debut as a novelist in Oslo in 1955 with the novel Dyretemmerens kors (1955), but later he burned the entire storage of books.In 1958 he and his then girlfriend, later wife, Marianne (later renamed Marianne Ihlen), lived on the Greek island of Hydra
Hydra, Saronic Islands
Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece, located in the Aegean Sea between the Saronic Gulf and the Argolic Gulf. It is separated from the Peloponnese by narrow strip of water...
. Jensen was a close friend of the Canadian musician and poet Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
. Jensen had a relationship with Cohen's girlfriend Lena. Marianne and Cohen lived for a couple of years on Hydra after the break between Axel Jensen and his wife. There is widespread belief that the character Lorenzo in the novel Joacim (1961) is modeled after Cohen, but Jensen also told Cohen that Lorenzo was modeled after the Swedish novelist Göran Tunström
Göran Tunström
Göran Tunström was a Swedish author. He grew up in Sunne, Värmland County. Tunström's style is personal and intimate, and has a clear autobiographical tone...
.
After some time, Jensen returned to Norway and settled in Fredrikstad
Fredrikstad
is a city and municipality in Østfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Fredrikstad....
. There, Noel Cobb, an English poet and student of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, came to interview him. Soon he became sexually involved with Lena. Axel then left Fredrikstad and went to live in London.
Jensen suffered from a severe depression after the break-up with Lena. But in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
he met the psychiatrist R. D. Laing and received therapy from him. After recovering, Jensen worked as an assistant at the institution Kingsley Hall
Kingsley Hall
Kingsley Hall is a community centre in the East End of London. It dates back to the work of Doris Lester and Muriel Lester, who had a nursery school in nearby Bruce Road. Their brother, Kingsley Lester, died aged 26 in 1914, leaving money for work in the local area for "educational, social and...
. Laing was a close friend for the rest of his life.
While attending an environmental conference in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
in 1972, Axel met Pratibha, whom he married in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. After returning to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
the couple lived in Vaxholm
Vaxholm
Vaxholm is a locality and the seat of Vaxholm Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. It is located in the Stockholm archipelago. The name Vaxholm comes from Vaxholm Castle, which was constructed in 1549 on an islet with this name on the inlet to Stockholm, for defense purposes, by King Gustav...
outside Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
where they bought an old freighter, built in 1905, which they renamed S/Y Shanti Devi. The ship was named after Pratibha's mother and means "The Goddess of Peace"
Devi
Devī is the Sanskrit word for Goddess, used mostly in Hinduism, its related masculine term is deva. Devi is synonymous with Shakti, the female aspect of the divine, as conceptualized by the Shakta tradition of Hinduism. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents...
.
After restoring the ship with the help of good friends and its former crew, they finally set course for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1984. But due to a storm at sea they sought harbor in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
after a hazardous journey.
When Axel Jensen arrived in Oslo, he met his old friend, the writer Olav Angell. Together they wanted to transform Oslo into a city renowned for happenings on the scene of international literature. The plan was soon put into action, and Jensen became the front figure in a project which later developed into the Oslo International Poetry Festival, OIPF, occurring in 1985 and 1986.
On 10 August 1990 Shanti Devi
Shanti Devi
Shanti Devi is a schooner, later rigged as a ketch. From about 1974 it was owned by famous Norwegian author Axel Jensen and his Indian wife Pratibha who lived on board for many years until 1990. The couple bought it in Waxholm...
set course for its final destination in Ålefjær outside Kristiansand
Kristiansand
-History:As indicated by archeological findings in the city, the Kristiansand area has been settled at least since 400 AD. A royal farm is known to have been situated on Oddernes as early as 800, and the first church was built around 1040...
. There Axel and Pratibha settled in a hundred year old school-house, and some years later they sold their old ship.
In the last ten years of his life, Axel Jensen was severely disabled from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
, ALS. He gradually became paralyzed, losing all his motor-coordination abilities. Later, using a breathing-aid, he could neither write nor speak. During this period, he also led a tough campaign against what he termed "the health machinery" for the right to be nursed in his own home. Jensen wrote several essays and articles on this subject. Before the public health service provided the help he needed, private funding to pay for nursing was arranged by his close friends, including Leonard Cohen. His wife also used all of her available energy to nurse her husband until he drew his last breath in his home in Ålefjær.
In 1996 he received the Fritt Ord Honorary Award.
Writing style
Apart from his first symbolistic novel, Dyretemmerens Kors, Axel Jensen's early novels mostly depict a young man that attempt to break away from his social and cultural background. These novels include Icarus: A Young Man in Sahara (1957) (a new 1999 edition is illustrated by Franz Widerberg), A Girl I Knew (1959) and Joacim. Some critics have argued that these early novels are influenced by Beat-authors like Jack KerouacJack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
and William Burroughs. The reason for this is that the novel's male main characters often try to escape from their obligations in a Western capitalistic society. Instead they try to replace their former life with some sort of undefined spiritualism and fail miserably in their attempt.
Later Jensen departed from the realism in his early novels and began to move in a new direction by writing science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, poems, essays and manuscripts for cartoons. In this experimental phase he produced manuscripts for the psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
comic-strip Doctor Fantastic (published in the newspaper Dagbladet
Dagbladet
Dagbladet is Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper, and the third largest newspaper overall with a circulation of 105,255 copies in 2009, 18,128 papers less than in 2008. The editor in chief is Lars Helle....
between March and July 1972), the science fiction comic strip collage Tago (1979), the animated movie Superfreak (1988) and a manuscript for a comic novel which is a caricature-rendering of the life of the French playwright and founder of pataphysics, Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
. In the same period, Jensen also published a poem-collection with a hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-theme called " Onalila - A Little East West poetry " (1974), an essayistic novel called Mother India (1974) and three autobiographical novels named Junior (1978) and Senior (1979) and Jumbo (1998).
But Jensen is perhaps most famous for having written the science fiction novels Epp (1965), Lul (1992) and And the Rest is Written in the Stars (1995) illustrated by Pushwagner
Hariton Pushwagner
Hariton Pushwagner is the artist pseudonym of Terje Brofos , a Norwegian pop art artist.-Biography:Pushwagner finished his education at the State's School of Art and Design of Oslo in 1959. He states that he quit drawing for a period after his studies, and that he struggled for several years to...
. With these novels, Jensen created a dystopian vision of the future, much in the tradition of Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
and Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
. Nevertheless, Jensen's novels also differ from these authors since the tragic vision in his novels is supplemented with comedy, setting an ambiguous and absurd tone. In this way, Jensen's novels are similar to the satirical and parodic novels of Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
and Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
.
Besides his fiction, Axel Jensen also published a series of articles and essays which focused on three main political and social issues. His collection of essays, God Does Not Read Novels. A Voyage in the World of Salman Rushdie (1994), is a critique of the fatwa
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
against Salman Rushdie and a defense of the freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
. Another political text by Axel Jensen is the article " A Children's Disease ", published in the anthology The Collective Fairytale. A Book about Norway, Europe and the EU (1994). This article discusses Norway's role as a future member in the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
. The third main issue that was of great concern of Axel Jensen, was how sick and disabled people are treated in a modern bureaucratic society. Two books containing articles on this subject was therefore published; The Deafening Silence (1997) and The Patient in the Centre (1998). All the articles are an account of how it is to suffer from ALS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
and at the same time not receive adequate help from the Norwegian welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
.
Among his political writings, Jensen also found the time to write a biography on the mythical guru G. I. Gurdjieff
G. I. Gurdjieff
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff according to Gurdjieff's principles and instructions, or the "Fourth Way."At one point he described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity."...
which is titled Guru - Glimpses from the World of Gurdijieff (2002). In addition to this, Jensen was also the co-writer with Peter Mæjlender on his own autobiography, called Life Seen From Nimbus (2002).
Axel Jensen received a literary prize from the Austrian Abraham Woursell Foundation in 1965 for his novel Epp. In 1992 Jensen was given the annual literary award from the Norwegian publishing house Cappelen for his novel Lul. For his essays on Salman Rushdie, he received the Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky was a German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe, and...
-award from the International PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
-club in 1994 and an award from The Freedom of Expression Foundation in Norway.