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We all probably know Peter Hoeg because of his novel Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow. The History of Danish Dreams was an earlier work – rather different but equally captivating.

A count in his castle in Denmark is convinced that he has discovered the centre of the universe in his own estate. When his discovery is treated with disdain, he walls off his estate and stops all the clocks. Four centuries pass and the characters are precipitated into the start of the twentieth century.

The story is told in seven sections with characters who recur. It is a wonderful opportunity for satire about Danish hopes and aspirations through the centuries and is told with humour and in a style strongly reminiscent of the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. For example, we meet the newspaper dynasty who are so powerful that the events they have already recorded always happen down to the smallest detail.

Characters recur, like Carl Laurids, the devious clerk we meet in the first section who reappears, with Amalie of the newspaper magnate family in 1919. Hoeg fully exploits the opportunities of his theme and the novel, with its comments on the ambiguous effects of progress is relevant not just to Denmark but to all of us.

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