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The elfin mind.(Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life)(Book Review)

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From: New Criterion
Date: 20050501
Author:Beck, Stefan

The elfin mind

Jens Andersen Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life, translated by Tiina Nunnally. Overlook Hardcover, 608 pages, $35

"It matters nothing if one is born in a duck-yard, if one has only lain in a swan's egg." Anybody who has been a child will recognize this as the happy discovery of the Swan formerly known as the Ugly Duckling. But what was true of the Duckling in question is misleading. Consider: the melancholy Duckling had only to wait to outgrow his adolescent awkwardness. Those born in figurative duck-yards need pluckiness, not mere patience, to attain ...

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