In his 2003 Mellon Lecture at the National Gallery of Art, the late, legendary art historian Kirk Varnedoe quipped that Andy Warhol "is to the emperor's new clothes what Chanel was to the little black dress."
The second-skin familiarity of Andersen yarns makes them perfect grist for Hollywood. Disney changed the ending and fashioned "The Little Mermaid" into not just blockbuster animation but also dolls, lunch boxes and nightgowns for little girls. "The Red Shoes" is more famous as the title of the 1948 film about the ballerina who falls in love.
Told and retold and adapted and appropriated. Later generations feel such a proprietorship that they take liberties with the work. They lop off the first half-dozen scene-setting sentences of "The Ugly Duckling": "It was so lovely out in the country -- it was summer! The wheat was yellow, the oats were green, the hay was stacked in green meadows, and the stork walked about on his long red legs speaking Egyptian."
They don't "translate" "Thumbelina"; they "retell" it. They subject " 'It's Quite True!' " to modern idiom: " 'For Sure! For Sure!' " They ask Virginia Lee Burton, celebrated author of "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel," to retell and draw "The Emperor's New Clothes" in her clipped, light style, and she does.
All because the poor cobbler's son somehow managed to unlock the shared human storehouse of image, action, moral and meaning, and weave them into captivating tales that spoke universally. His fairy tales were not just for kids. He grew into a literary swan.
"My name is gradually beginning to shine, and that is the only thing for which I live," Andersen wrote in a letter in his early thirties, according to a biographical essay by Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank in their 2003 translation of Andersen's best stories. "I covet honor and glory in the same way as the miser covets gold."
Andersen also wrote six novels, hundreds of poems, numerous plays and travel books. But he is scarcely remembered for those. In another letter, he wrote: "I'm beginning to write some fairy tales for children. I want to win the next generation, you see."
His wish came true, but his life was not a fairy tale, the Franks make clear. Andersen never got over his insecurities and desperate need for attention and validation. To his death in 1875 he felt like the ugly duckling.
If only today he could be in Odense, where he went to school, or Copenhagen, where he moved, alone, at 14, to seek his fortune. The land that has long since considered him a figure of national pride and a magnet for tourism is trying to outdo itself.
A celebration concert called "Once Upon a Time" was to be broadcast around the world today from the national soccer stadium. Danish newspapers have been running daily excerpts of his diaries, according to the Associated Press. Coins are being minted, beer brewed and wine bottled in his honor. His likeness is turning up on dinnerware and baby clothes.
There are bicentenary Web sites in Chinese, Russian and Portuguese. Vietnam is unveiling a statue of Andersen. The 3,000 anniversary events worldwide include a concert by the Ho Chi Minh Ballet and Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi, a fairy tale writing competition in New York, a puppet performance of "The Little Mermaid" in Zagreb, Croatia. Mexico, Chile and Egypt are sending emissaries to the celebration in the soccer stadium. Tina Turner will sing.
In Washington, Andersen scholar Niels Ingwersen will give a talk titled "You Don't Understand Me: Hans Christian Andersen, His Critics and His Audience" at 6:30 p.m. Monday in Room 119 of the Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress. Danish Ambassador Ulrik Federspiel is scheduled to attend. Manuscripts and letters from the library's extensive collection of Andersen artifacts (donated by Danish American actor and Andersen translator Jean Hersholt in 1951) will be displayed.
There is usually a sly edge to Andersen's stories, mordant humor, psychic spaces that are creepy and chilly. He pricks humanity's herd instinct and inability to appreciate originality, while offering close observation of talking animals, tiny humans, fantastic situations.
But the edges have been sanded off in some of the retellings and in the sentimental way we remember some of the stories, which is too bad.
