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* Hans Holmberg. Ingen skygge uden lys: Om livets veje qg kunstens i nogle fortoellinger af Karen Blixen. Trans. Ursula Baum Hansen. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1995. Pp. 212.
"Ingen skygge uden lys" [No shadow without light] is a translation of die Latin inscription on the base of the sundial in the garden at Rungstedlund: "Nunquam umbra sine luce." Photographs of the dial itself appear on die cover of this collection of essays, as well as in the body of the text, where Holmberg calls attention to die snake in the interior of die indicator. Snakes, he reminds us, were one of Karen Blixen's favorite symbols, "et specielt Karen Blixen symbol" (62). For Holmberg, die snake, the sundial, and die motto all point to the central importance of paradox and Christian theology in her work. Here die snake may well play a special role as a trickster, for this writer, who loved riddles, paradoxes, and bons mots in general, appears to have fallen prey to a paradox of which she was only partially aware: her tales suggest that she rejected Christianity because of its austerity but substituted for it a kind of religion of art that she eventually found unsatisfactory. Ingen skygge uden lys, which includes...