Each of these nine stories shows a different fact of love - love of violence, love as redemption, love as suffering, even as wisdom - and each has as a background theme one of the nine classical disciplines: mathematics, dance, law, physics, visual arts, medicine, drama, music and astronomy.
Tales Of The Night (Harvill Panther)
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PETER HOEG was born in 1957 and followed callings - dancer, actor, sailor, mountaineer - before he turned seriously to writing. After publishing the present volume of stories and his first novel, The History of Danish Dreams, "a vaultingly ambitious and hugely accomplished first novel" in the opinion of Peter Whittaker, New Statesman & Society, he went on to write the innovative crime novel, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, which assured him an international reputation. The variety of his talent was amply demonstrated with his subsequent novels, Borderlines, a remarkable study of children that caused controversy within Denmark and beyond, and the recent satirical ecological fable, The Woman and the Ape.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
PETER HOEG was born in 1957 and followed callings - dancer, actor, sailor, mountaineer - before he turned seriously to writing. After publishing the present volume of stories and his first novel, The History of Danish Dreams, "a vaultingly ambitious and hugely accomplished first novel" in the opinion of Peter Whittaker, New Statesman & Society, he went on to write the innovative crime novel, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, which assured him an international reputation. The variety of his talent was amply demonstrated with his subsequent novels, Borderlines, a remarkable study of children that caused controversy within Denmark and beyond, and the recent satirical ecological fable, The Woman and the Ape.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
ON MARCH 13, 1929, a young Dane, David Rehn, was in attendance when the railway line from Cabinda, near the mouth of the Congo, to Katanga in Central Africa was dedicated to integrity. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
ON MARCH 13, 1929, a young Dane, David Rehn, was in attendance when the railway line from Cabinda, near the mouth of the Congo, to Katanga in Central Africa was dedicated to integrity. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By WeeMee
Format:Paperback
Peter Hoeg's collection of love stories each examines a different kind of love. Public love, private love, forbidden love and nothing is as it seems. It is particularly compelling as the reader can feel sympathy with each of the characters, from the father who risks losing the love of his son for the sake of his male lover, to the couple famous because of their love, who, in reality, spend their time in private loathing each other to the point of murder.
The translation is excellent, and the pace of the stories entices the reader onwards through the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.8 out of 5 stars
6 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Tales" worth telling
25 Sep 2004
By E. A Solinas
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Before Peter Hoeg wrote his bestselling "Smilla's Sense of Snow," he crafted eight intriguing short stories in "Tales of the Night." It's a tangle of the heart and mind, art and culture, with a dark atmosphere and very good writing. Certainly it's far above the average short story collection.
In eight different parts of the world, eight different stories are unfolding on ht evening of March 19, 1929. A young Danish mathematician learns more about the conquest of Africa, when he finds himself on a train with Joseph Conrad and General von Lettow-Vorbeck. A ballet dancer loves and learns about reality. A judge finds himself falling madly in love with a man he's just jailed... for homosexual behavior. A small town is swept by a smallpox epidemic. And through these dark stories run a flurry of artists, students, scientists, Nazis and lovers.
Peter Hoeg is a writer for people who like their books deep and intense. There isn't a light or fluffy moment in the whole book. In a way, "Tales of the Night" is all about love. We see love in all its different forms -- pain, learning, redemption and fear. While it isn't obvious at first, the depths of Hoeg's writing becomes clearer on the second or third time around.
Hoeg's writing is beautiful -- very thick and slow, and almost dreamlike. It's not something to be read quickly. He weaves in a lot of symbolism and philosophy, without making them "message stories." And at the same time, since the book is set in 1929, he includes some of the political rumblings that came before war.
The characters of Hoeg's stories are all loners. Whether they're travellers, lovers, or artists, they all seem to be enclosed in little private bubbles. Not to mention a bit repressed and wrapped up in their own thoughts. Some of them are the sort of people you would despise in real life, but he gives them a sense of humanity and depth.
Peter Hoeg was still a newbie writer when he penned "Tales of the Night," but his writing already had polish and depth. Beautiful, dark and sad.
In eight different parts of the world, eight different stories are unfolding on ht evening of March 19, 1929. A young Danish mathematician learns more about the conquest of Africa, when he finds himself on a train with Joseph Conrad and General von Lettow-Vorbeck. A ballet dancer loves and learns about reality. A judge finds himself falling madly in love with a man he's just jailed... for homosexual behavior. A small town is swept by a smallpox epidemic. And through these dark stories run a flurry of artists, students, scientists, Nazis and lovers.
Peter Hoeg is a writer for people who like their books deep and intense. There isn't a light or fluffy moment in the whole book. In a way, "Tales of the Night" is all about love. We see love in all its different forms -- pain, learning, redemption and fear. While it isn't obvious at first, the depths of Hoeg's writing becomes clearer on the second or third time around.
Hoeg's writing is beautiful -- very thick and slow, and almost dreamlike. It's not something to be read quickly. He weaves in a lot of symbolism and philosophy, without making them "message stories." And at the same time, since the book is set in 1929, he includes some of the political rumblings that came before war.
The characters of Hoeg's stories are all loners. Whether they're travellers, lovers, or artists, they all seem to be enclosed in little private bubbles. Not to mention a bit repressed and wrapped up in their own thoughts. Some of them are the sort of people you would despise in real life, but he gives them a sense of humanity and depth.
Peter Hoeg was still a newbie writer when he penned "Tales of the Night," but his writing already had polish and depth. Beautiful, dark and sad.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A perfect union of passions, contents and narrative form!
19 April 1999
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Peter Hoeg is one of the greatest writers of these years. His simple and fluent language is the ideal medium of a deep, passionate and intelligent storytelling. All the tales of this books take place the 19th March 1929 and tell of love in several different ways, some unbelievable but true as well. And truth is another thing Hoeg presents in its ambiguous and fearful points of view. There is a constant tension between magic and pragmatism, ideal and real, in his pages; a hard and thought provoking research. The tales of Bourneville, Ignatio Rasker and of the poor egocentric painter Simon Bering are masterpieces; wonderfully written, their characters have only one thing in common: a great humanity, in the most complete sense of the word. The story of Vaden By recalls, in its last pages, a bitter sweet fable of Andersen; we see the Great Monsieur Andress as a new Magic Flute player. As a perfect ending, the last dreamy,vaguely Borges-like tale leaves us with the idea that Hoeg's (and our) search has not alredy ended and probably will never.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lessons in Love
8 Jun 2000
By Robert Stribley
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Fans of lucid, thought-provoking writing will enjoy Peter Hoeg's offering, Tales of the Night.
As in his previous writing, Hoeg's Tales are full of outsiders, people who have learnt that "it may be necessary to stand on the outside if one is to see things clearly." Clearly, Hoeg has done some standing on the outside himself, and in Tales of the Night he shares some of what he has learned.
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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