Herman Bang

 This is a clip from a newspaper from 1937, 25 years after the death of Herman Bang. Mr. Bang was born April 21, 1857 in Denmark. He was a novelist who was a major Danish representative of literary Impressionism. His work reflected the profound pessimism of his time, depressing, right? His first novel, Hopeless Generations, was confiscated as immoral for it's depiction of the life of a decadent homosexual writer. Herman was homosexual himself and that contributed to his isolation in the cultural life of Denmark and made him the victim of smear campaigns. He lived most of his life with his sister but found happiness for a few years with the German actor Max Eisfeld, with whom he lived in Prague in 1885–86. He eventually earned fame as a theatre producer in Paris and Copenhagen. He became a journalist and critic. He also wrote plays, poetry, and short stories, but was best known for his novels. He died while on a lecture tour in the US.

Here's the trip, Herman died in Ogden, Utah!  I was born and raised in Ogden. It just strikes me as odd that this famous Danish novelist should happen through my hometown in 1912, get sick and die! It's like it's too cool, in a sick kind of way. And the thought of something cool happening in Ogden, well...cool is for exotic places? Far off lands? Maybe, also in a sick kind of way, someone in Denmark might think Ogden is exotic. Wow, that's a weird concept.