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The True Story of My Life

Hans Christian Andersen

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Jan 27, 2014 Kristina Wojtaszek rated it really liked it

Shelves: biographies

Andersen's amiable and highly sensitive personality comes through clearly and almost painfully in this autobiography, and the entire section covering his childhood and early adolescence, including his incredibly brave journey from home, is completely engaging. I loved some of the little details, such as how his father once saw the figure of a woman in the frosted glass and said she had come to take him, and later, when his father died, Hans's mother told him the ice maiden had taken him at last. Andersen's amiable and highly sensitive personality comes through clearly and almost painfully in this autobiography, and the entire section covering his childhood and early adolescence, including his incredibly brave journey from home, is completely engaging. I loved some of the little details, such as how his father once saw the figure of a woman in the frosted glass and said she had come to take him, and later, when his father died, Hans's mother told him the ice maiden had taken him at last. This, of course, was his first inspiration for the story he later wrote by the same name. But I wanted to hear more of that-- more of what inspired his fairy tales, especially.

One of the more interesting facts you'll take away from this book is that Andersen saw himself as a poet and an author of novels and plays first and foremost, and doesn't even mention his fairy tales until well into his career (even though several became public immediately after the publication of his first novel). When he does refer to them, he calls them "my little stories," as though he were inclined to dismiss them as frivolous meanderings from his true art.

But be prepared for a heft of travel notes and personal thanksgivings. He kept a serious account of the many places he'd been and every person he ever met, most of which was lost on me. Though I did sit up in excitement at his short mention of meeting the brothers Grimm. There is a lot to wade through, here-- and I found myself frustrated by his constant self justifications, and yet that is how we know he was very sensitive to criticism and he certainly went through quite a lot. Even being so far removed from our times, he had a few gold nuggets to share about self publication and rising above the doubts of his peers and editors that can serve as wonderful inspiration for any writer today.

Although this autobiography could easily have been renamed "The Extensive Travels of Hans Christian Andersen," as he speaks a thousand times more about various landscapes and households than he does about his personal life, it is still a very personal account and well worth reading. ...more

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