D

enmark's most famous landmark is the Little Mermaid statue sitting in Copenhagen harbor, a permanent reminder of Hans Christian Andersen, one of the country's most honored native sons.

The statue is visited, photographed and beloved by tourists, although she remains a solitary figure sitting delicately on her perch. It is, in a way, very similar to Andersen, feted but lonely, beloved and mysterious, always looking out for a coveted object of desire beyond his grasp.

The world's most famous storyteller - his fascinating tales were favorite bedtime reading for the children of his era in the 19th century, and more recently have been given the Disney treatment for millions more around the world - lived a life that was not so much a fairy-tale, replete with a neat, all-ends-tied-up ending, but a saga of struggles, loneliness and the quest to find himself.

Most of those who read his stories know little about Andersen the man, save for him being Danish (there was a schmaltzy Hollywood biopic many years ago starring Danny Kaye) or, perhaps, for the younger generation, the oft-repeated intriguing rumor that he had homosexual tendencies in a time when it was still a love that dared not speak its name.

There have been few biographies of Andersen written in English, the most comprehensive written by journalist Jackie Wullschlager in 2000. Drawing on Andersen's own memoirs, his personal papers and contemporary accounts from his lifetime, Wullschlager portrays a brilliant man who was driven to succeed despite being riddled by neurosis and a complicated array of emotions - oversensitive, proud and quick to take offense - that sometimes worked against him.

Andersen was born the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman in the small town of Odense. There was something different about this boy, an only child who was effeminate, did not like to play with other boys and who quickly learned to read along with his father (his mother was illiterate).

Despite the hard-scrabble background, Wullschlager writes that Andersen was fortunate on several counts. Odense was still a provincial town, unlike the more sophisticated Copenhagen, and the boy grew up hearing the local folktales of the area.

He also was born during a changing era in Europe, with greater social mobility; he himself always believed he was destined to free himself from his roots as a "swamp plant".

As a teenager, Andersen received a scholarship to a theater school in Copenhagen, and it was from there, with the opportunities afforded his talent and the patronage of those who recognized the talent of this awkward and high-strung man, that he was able to shine.

Andersen was an outsider - ungainly and ugly, effeminate, emotional and brilliant to boot. For most living on the periphery of society, left out of the cheering section of being part of the conventional crowd, he looked inward, from an early age, writing self-obsessed diaries. Like those who move away from their traditional upbringings and are suddenly able to see them in a clearer, perhaps harsher light, Andersen the outsider also was able to cast a critical eye on the society he came from.

Wullschlager points out that Andersen's fame has made stories such as The Emperor's New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling "... known by people who have never heard of Hans Christian Andersen; we regard them, as we do folk tales, as part of our common heritage". In fact these are very personal reflections of Andersen himself. The Emperor, Wullschlager notes, shows Andersen as the "precocious na*ve child admitted into the grown-up parlor, observing the hypocrisy and snobbery of Copenhagen society."

The Ugly Duckling, considered his most famous story, is Andersen's own reflection on his transformation to become a person of worth, who others bowed to out of respect. "This was his vision of the homage paid to him by the establishment; he knew he was a wild bird tamed by the bourgeosie, but, concludes the swan, *I never dreamt of so much happiness when I was the ugly duckling!'"

At the core of many of his stories, from The Little Mermaid's desire to leave the sea behind to The Little Matchgirl slowly dying with each brief flash of fire, is loneliness. It is coupled with the desire to fit in and receive approval, the eternal yearning of the misfit even though that transformation would inevitably change and deny their true selves.

This was found in his own life, and the disappointing infatuations he developed with men and women. As a young man, Andersen developed a crush on a handsome peer, pouring out his feelings by letter. He was giddy with excitement when the man replied in vein, and dismayed when he never wrote again; he did not know that a woman friend had penned the reply to toy with his emotions.

Andersen would fall in love with others; his most serious relationship with a woman was with the Swedish singer Jenny Lind, and his most lasting, albeit platonic, was with Edvard Collin, the man who worked to help the tortured artist stay on an even keel while secretly finding his stories and emotional turmoil distasteful.

"As the drama of the suffering of a social outsider, and an unrequited lover who cannot express his passion, it is still poignant," Wullschlager writes of The Little Mermaid. "This is surely how Andersen identified with the tale, allying himself in his bisexuality to the mermaid's sense of being a different species from humankind ."

"If you looked down to the bottom of my soul, you would understand fully the source of my longing - and pity me," Andersen wrote to Collin. "Even the open, transparent lake has its unknown depths which no divers know."

There is something profoundly sad and poignant about Andersen's life, as with his stories. He was, like so many of his characters, to die alone at the age of 70 in 1875. His wish to be buried with Edvard Collin and his wife was granted when they died a few years later, united in death.