NARAYANI GANESH visits the author’s home that has been converted into a museum
Ahen has pulled out all her feathers to please the rooster!” The narrator was reading from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, It’s Perfectly True, the story of a hen that preened herself to look smart.The owls overhearing the hen talking about her plans had exclaimed thus.The narrator was obviously enjoying himself and I wondered who it was,cackling and gossiping, as would a bunch of owls. I was at the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen at Odense, in a building that could have been the site of his home, a one-room affair where he lived with his cobbler- father and laundressmother. I peered at the label on the headphone rest that said: Read by Sir Laurence Olivier. No wonder.
The next one, The Princess and the Pea was read aloud by Ginger Rogers. A real treat for lovers of Andersen’s works who wrote not only nearly 200 fairy tales in his lifetime, but also several autobiographies, travel accounts and poems. The H C Andersen Museum at Odense houses several of his personal effects and in a corner, his one-room home has been re-created complete with a little workplace where his father fashioned shoes.Bookstores in Copenhagen have a whole collection of his works, in the form of single story editions, illustrated volumes,compendiums and DVDs. But whatever happened to merchandising? The museum at Odense screens a biographical film on the renowned and prolific author who dabbled in theatre before immersing himself completely in writing. He lived in Copenhagen by the canal for a year or more before embarking on his travels.
The travel bug caught him and he took himself as far away to Istanbul in the east and Italy in Europe. As a tribute to the author, a new museum has opened in Copenhagen, in the same building as Ripley’s Believe It or Not! where street scenes from Odense are depicted and a figure of the poet is shown telling visitors about his life and travels. Harbour scenes in Nyhaven are recreated where the author lived and you can spot Thumbelina amidst giant flowers, butterflies and buzzing bees.
You can also see the Steadfast Tin Soldier sailing down the gutter in his paper boat when a big water rat demands that the soldier pays toll. Three tales of Andersen’s that are among the most popular areThe Emperor’s New Clothes,The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid.The sea-princess has been immortalised in the form of a statue seated on a rock by the sea in Copenhagen and more recently,by the runaway hit made by Walt Disney productions. A deserted store in the museum building at Odense sells inkpots and quills (feather pens), a few toys and posters,T-shirts and other knick-knacks — nothing worth buying, really. But the sheer experience of walking through the building and browsing through original manuscripts and photographs, citations and letters is fulfilling and interesting, particularly for fairy-tale lovers and children. Odense is worth a visit, even if only to spend the day or half-a-day at least at H C Andersen’s ‘home’.If you’re lucky, you might bump into the foolish Emperor on the streets and shake hands with the gutsy youngster who was the first to exclaim that His Majesty was in fact nanga!
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