Free The Discoverer by Jan Kjaerstad Page A

I found a strong and clear Form for what I had to say.’ What can we take from this vague statement ? What was it that Henrik Ibsen discovered in St Peter’s. Whatever it was, back at Ariccia he completely rewrote Brand , working as if in a trance. What had been a monologue became a dialogue. He turned an epic poem into a drama – and reaped the plaudits at home in Scandinavia. This was followed by his masterpiece Peer Gynt , and thereafter, almost singlehandedly, Henrik Ibsen created modern drama. Not only that: he also did much to influence, possibly even change, the whole tenor of contemporary thought. On that day in St Peter’s, something happened which was to put Norwegian literature on the map.
    Jonas Wergeland’s theory concerning Ibsen’s experience in the Basilica bore little resemblance to anyone else’s. Because the way he saw it, and presented it in pictures and sound, not until he stepped into the gloom of St Peter’s was the outer light which Ibsen had encountered in Italy transformed into an inner light. And even though this provocative assertion found form in a key scene which was strongly criticised for its audacity and its speculative cast, many people regarded this programme on Ibsen as the lynchpin in a series which did for Norwegian television what Ibsen had done for the country’s literature. Thanks to Jonas Wergeland, NRK’s reputation not only reached formidable heights outside of Norway; his work led also – and far more importantly – to a renewed interest in Norwegian culture in general.
    Wergeland did not, therefore, succumb to the temptation to start the programme with a train rushing out of a black tunnel, out into the light of the Mediterranean countryside; instead it opened with an allegorical scene prompting associations with life-saving. You had the impression of rising, along with the camera, after a long dive into the deep; ascending from the darkness towards a bright, shimmering surface, and as you broke through you heard the sound of heavy breathing and saw a bewildered Henrik Ibsen stumbling, wading almost, from the recesses of St Peter’s into the sunlit summer’s day. It was, in short, a programme about a man who not only came close to foundering, but who was actually drowning, until – quite unexpectedly, perhaps even undeservedly – he saved himself.
    Another event which might have sparked the idea for the Ibsen programme , was the mysterious, as yet unexplained, incident which took place towards the close of Haakon Hansen’s funeral service, after the congregation had mumbled their way through The Lord’s Prayer, after Daniel had sprinkled the symbolic handful of soil on the coffin and given the blessing and everyone had sat down again; just as Jonas struck up the choral prelude to the final hymn, ‘Love divine all love excelling’. Jonas did not see the whole thing himself, but he heard about it later, in a wide variety of conflicting versions. Suddenly a woman had come walking up the centre aisle, a woman clad in a bright orange coat, like a flame, a foretaste of the cremation to come. Some people got quite a fright, the singing petered out. She had an intent look on her face, this woman. She looked dangerous, some said. She strode slowly up to the coffin as the singing swelled again, as if with ‘Love divine all love excelling ’ the congregation meant to shield Haakon Hansen from the figure now making her way towards him; a note of discord in this harmonious ceremony. A disgrace, some whispered afterwards. Interesting, said others. Who was she, everyone asked.
    No one needed to tell Jonas Wergeland that women were unpredictable, dangerous. Because once, late one night, he had been out in a sail boat in the middle of Oslo fjord, in a storm, along with a girl who seemed ready to risk being sunk rather than give way to a huge passenger ferry. But he need not have worried, they passed astern of it, with plenty of room to spare. She shot him a glance, smiled –