A nostalgic trip? Klaus Rifbjerg’s “På Sporet af den Tabte Vogn” and the Copenhagen tramway

Abstract

For much of the twentieth century, the tramway was the most important public transport system in Copenhagen, Denmark. It played a crucial role in the life of the city and features strongly in Danish art and literature produced during the network's lifespan as well as after it was finally closed in 1972. Despite this, the tramway has only received scarce scholarly attention. This article looks to address the situation. It does so by drawing attention to the fact that although the tramway was shut down, it lived on in art and literature. One example of this is “På Sporet af den Tabte Vogn” (1985) written by Klaus Rifbjerg. This short story has often been described as nostalgic. While this is not a misreading, it is an assessment that requires clarification. A close reading that draws on studies of nostalgia reveals that the short story does not boil down to a sentimental longing for a lost past. Rather, it thematises nostalgia for the Copenhagen tramway, questioning such remembrances’ status and relevance in contemporary society. This means that, ultimately, the short story can be seen as part of a broader tendency in writing about closures of electric public transport networks in Western Europe and North America: it works as a counternarrative to notions of progress, an antidote to predominant ideas of urban development in the mid-twentieth century.