Helge Fauskanger | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1971-08-17)August 17, 1971 (age 54) |
| Occupations | Author,philologist |
| Known for | Tolkien studies |
| Website | www |
Helge Kåre Fauskanger (born 17 August 1971) is a Norwegian author andphilologist. In Norway he is known as acrime novelist; elsewhere, he is best known as aTolkien scholar with an interest inTolkien's constructed languages.
Fauskanger has studied bothphilology andreligious studies, and has taken courses in classical Hebrew, Greek and Coptic.[1] His main thesisThe Bible in Norwegian (1998) compares selected texts from three widespread Norwegian Bible translations.[2] He describes himself as an agnostic and skeptic.[1]
Fauskanger's satirical debut novelFullmåne over Uroba ("Full Moon over Uroba" 2009) describes an alternative reality where a nation resembling the USA is located in Europe instead.[3]
Fauskanger's debut as a crime writer was thecrime novelSkrinet in 2012, published by Baskerville. This is aSherlock Holmes pastiche where Holmes comes to Norway in 1895, and tracks down the lost reliquary ofSt. Sunniva. The novelSkarlagenssalen (Gyldendal 2013) is a sequel toSkrinet with the same first-person narrator, who in this story meets the ten-year-oldVidkun Quisling in 1897. Vidkun is with his fatherJon Lauritz Qvisling [no] on a paranormal investigation at a dark manor inØstfold. The story is a crime thriller with inspiration fromJohn Dickson Carr. BothSkrinet andSkarlagenssalen were awarded a "die throw" of 5 by Norway'sVerdens Gang newspaper.
In 2015 he published a commentary edition ofThe New Testament newly translated fromGreek into Norwegian, observing to the annoyance of theNorwegian Bible Society that their 2011 version was more polished than the original.[3] The translation tried to preserve illogicalities and bad language in the original Bible text.[4] The Society commented that it was almost impossible to give the "real" text as it had mainly been presented orally and then written by people for whom Greek was not their first language; in their view Fauskanger's "polemic oozes with contempt". Fauskanger denied that he held the Bible in contempt.[5]
| Silmesse | "In starlight"[6] |
|---|---|
Sinome háran i marya silmesse; | Here I am sitting in the pale moonlight; |
Fauskanger is known for his linguistic work onJ.R.R. Tolkien's fictional world ofMiddle-earth.[7] Since the early nineties, he has been a regular contributor toAngerthas, the member magazine of Norway'sTolkien Society. He started and runs the websiteArdalambion,[8] devoted to the study ofTolkien's constructed languages.[3] The site has been called "one of the principal websites for the study of Tolkien's languages".[9] The website has been translated from English into a number of other languages. In connection with his work with Tolkien's languages, Fauskanger has appeared in the programsTypisk Norsk ("Typically Norwegian") andNorges herligste [no] ("Norway's Finest"). A poem he wrote in Tolkien's invented languageQuenya (Silmessë, "In starlight") was set to music by Carvin Knowles and had a music video made for it.[10] Among the topics he has published papers on areSindarin[11] andBlack Speech.[12] He has created a 20-lesson course on Quenya, which he states "presuppose[s] a deep and serious interest on the part of the student".[13]
The Norwegian national newspaperAftenposten describes Fauskanger as having "an aura of 1905 about him", the year in which his bookSkamtegnet is set. It calls the book at once a historical crime novel, a murder mystery, and a streak of supernatural horror. The paper's reviewerPål Gerhard Olsen calls the book "an excellent read" with an "exquisitely elegant" plot and a masterfully constructed ending.[3] The paper states that with his knowledge of multiple ancient languages "one can safely say that [Fauskanger] is almost unbearably scholarly".[3]
Reviewing Fauskanger's bookSkrinet, the Norwegian daily newspaperDagsavisen writes that the novel begins from a sentence byArthur Conan Doyle, which mentions thatSherlock Holmes visited Norway in 1895, and the last line ofThe Adventure of Black Peter where Holmes says that his address will be "somewhere in Norway". Asked if this was just "literary grave robbing", Fauskanger replied that the book has fun with Holmes, St Sunniva, and JewishKabbalah mysticism, three things that might not seem to be connected until one reads the book.[14]
InArda Philology, Karolina Kazimierczak writes that Fauskanger's description of Quenya in hisQuenya Course could easily be read as historicalmusicology. She comments that his interpretation seems "[close] to Tolkien's own vision of language, music, and their interrelations."[15]
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