Un microcosmos locuaz: La ciudad y el mundo de Peer Hultberg

Abstract

The present article will examine how the novel Byen og verden (The City and the World, 1992) written by the Danish author Peer Hultberg evokes the provincial city of Viborg. Through 100 self-contained texts, the novel creates a mosaic of the lives of its inhabitants. The polyphonic technique gives away to a pluralistic image of the city, narrated by an omnipresent, but not all-powerful narrator. What drives the action is gossip, which shows itself as a twofaced force; one which links the inhabitants around the different narrations, and another which separates them because of the social exclusion of its victims. Underneath the surface of an apparent daily malice exists a scheme of mythological and biblical motives, which leads beyond Viborg and paints a micro cosmos while exposing some existential conditions of human life in community.