Carl Joachim Hambro (7 June 1914 – 19 February 1985) was a Norwegian novelist, journalist, essayist, translator and Romance philologist. The son of the Conservative politician C. J. Hambro, he embarked on a philological career, graduating in 1939. During the Second World War he lectured at Oslo Commerce School and the Norwegian College in Uppsala. After the war, he taught Norwegian at Sorbonne, and also started working as Paris correspondent for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and a few Norwegian daily newspapers.
Born into a well-read and educated family, Hambro developed a penchant for French literature, marking a distinction from the literary taste of his parents—they had been readers of English literature in the Anglo-American tradition. Making his debut in 1960 with the satirical novel De frafalnes klubb, Hambro published trilogies and other novels for the next two decades. He had a keen interest in linguistics; in the 1969 book Ting, tanke, tale he problematized linguistic questions in a popular scientific way. A translator of French literature, he chaired the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators in the early 1960s.
Biography Early life and education
Hambro was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), capital of Norway. He was the third of four sons born to Carl Joachim Hambro (1885–1964), the President of Parliament and long-time leader of the Conservative Party,"Hambro, C(arl) J(oachim)]", Marquis Who Was Who in America 1607–1984 (Marquis Who's Who New Providence, NJ, 2008) Patrick Salmon, Scandinavia and The Great Powers 1890–1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2002 ), , p. 175f. and his first wife, Gudrun "Dudu" Grieg (1881–1943)."Hambro, Carl Joachim, 1914–85," in Aschehoug og Gyldendals Store norske leksikon, ed. P. Henriksen, 3rd ed., vol. 6, (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget, 1999), , p. 519.Johan Hambro, C.J. Hambro: Liv og drøm (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1984), , p. 67."Hambro, Carl Joachim," Norges filologer og realister, eds. H. S. Ekrheim, O. Ekrheim and H. Norås (Stavanger: Dreyer, 1950), 2nd ed., , p. 281. On the younger Carl Joachim's date of birth, 7 June 1914, his father, for whom he was named, made a speech at the Jubilee Exhibition in the Frogner Park, which commemorated the 1814 constitution. The twins Edvard and Cato were Carl's elder brothers, who both made success within the Anglosphere: the former became the 25th President of the United Nations General Assembly and a respected legal scholar,"Edvard Hambro – 25th Session," United Nations, accessed 2 August 2012. whilst the latter became board member of the World Federation for Mental Health."Hambro, Vilhelm Cato," in Hvem er hvem?, ed. B. Steenstrup, 11th ed., (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1973), , p. 206. The younger brother, Johan, was secretary general of the Norse Federation for 27 years in the post-war period, yet is remembered above all for his commercially successful biography of their father."Hambro, norsk slekt," in Store norske leksikon, ed. Henriksen, 3rd ed, vol. 6, p. 519.Flemming Dahl, "Hambrobiografien i stadig større opplag: en større suksess enn noen kunne spå," Aftenposten, 22 December 1984, p. 5. "Hambro, Johan," in Hvem er hvem?, ed. B. Steenstrup, 11th ed., (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1973), p. 206. Steinar Wiik, "Johan Hambro 70 år idag: En brobygger," Aftenposten, 24 October 1985, p. 18. Living in the Uranienborg neighbourhood of Western Oslo, the Hambro family belonged to the upper-class society of early 20th-century Norway, and was, according to biographer Tormod Petter Svennevig, intellectually engaged;Tormod Petter Svennevig, "Hambro, Edvard," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, 2nd ed., vol. 4, p. 31f. its forebears included both businesspeople and women's rights activists, of whom many were active in politics.Paul Thyness, "Hambro, C. J.," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, ed. J. G. Arntzen, 2nd ed., vol. 4 (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget), pp. 27–31."Hambro, Carl Joachim," in Norges filologer og realister, eds. Sverdrup, Ekrheim and Norås, 2nd ed., p. 280. "Hambro, Elise," in Norges filologer og realister, eds. Sverdrup, Ekrheim and Norås, 2nd ed., p. 281. Olaf Gjerløw, "Hambro, Carl Joachim," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, eds. E. Bull and E. Jansen, 1st ed., vol. 5. (Oslo Aschehoug, 1931), , pp. 301–304. . Inger Elisabeth Haavet, "Hambro, Elise," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, 2nd ed., vol. 4, pp. 32–34. Haavet, "Hambro, Nicoline Christine," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, 2nd ed., vol. 4, p. 33. Henrik Seip, "Hambro, Nicoline Christine (Nico)," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, eds. Bull and Jansen, 1st ed., vol. 5, pp. 308–310. G. Stolz, "Hambro, Edvard Isak," in Norsk biografisk leksikon, eds. Bull and Jansen, 1st ed., vol. 5, pp. 304–307.
The younger Carl Hambro was educated at Fagerborg Upper Secondary School, whence he graduated in 1932, following Latin studies.Tryggve Juul Møller, "Hambro, Carl Joachim," in Studentene fra 1932 (Oslo: Bokkomiteen for Studentene fra 1932, 1957), , p. 131. Among his school contemporaries were Niels Christian Brøgger, who became an essayist and novelist, and Kaare Martin, a future Nazi politician.Møller, "Fagerborg skole, Oslo – Latin," in Studentene fra 1932, p. 441.
Journalistic and educational career Having made study trips to London and Paris in the mid-1930s, Hambro graduated with a cand.philol. degree in 1939. In the summer of that year, on 15 July, he married Wenche Rynning-Koren (born 1916). Upon the outbreak of war, he was employed at the Oslo Commerce School, where he lectured until 1943. Hambro spent the latter part of the war in Uppsala, Sweden, where he taught at the Norwegian College and chaired the local Norwegian Society (1943–1944). After the war he returned to Oslo, teaching at the Commerce School until 1946. He had lectured in French literature at the Norwegian Library College in two intervals, during and after the war: from 1940 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1946. For the rest of the decade he taught Norwegian at Sorbonne, France. He also worked as a correspondent for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (1946–1948), Dagbladet (1946–1948), Verdens Gang (1948–1949) and Arbeiderbladet (1949–1951).John Solheim, ed., Pressefolk. Biografiske opplysninger om Norsk Presseforbunds medlemmer, 3rd ed, (Oslo: Norwegian Press Association, 1950), , p. 41. From 1951 to 1952 he was a press worker for the Research Councils in Norway and for the Norwegian delegation to the United Nations. In that decade he mainly acted as cultural counsellor at the Norwegian embassy in London.Egil Tveterås, "Hambro, Carl Joachim, f. 7. juni 1914," in Bokklubbens 3-binds leksikon, 2nd ed., (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget, 1984 ), , p. 505. Employed in 1952, he acted in that position for seven years, whereupon he returned to Oslo. He was assistant teacher in French at the University of Oslo from 1963 to 1965; in that position he bemoaned the insufficient command of his students in their own mother tongue, maintaining that the Norwegian language should be used more actively in foreign-language tuition."Studentene dårligere i norsk enn før?," Verdens Gang, 22 April 1965, p. 11.
Literary career and death Hambro made his literary debut in 1958 with the non-fiction book Frankrike ("France"), and released his first novel two years later. The novel, entitled De frafalnes klubb ("The Club of the Estranged"), was lauded by contemporary critics, but failed to arouse much subsequent interest from scholars. Hambro's reputation as a novelist rests more on his trilogy about the fictional character Nico Dietmeyer, deemed a Bildungsroman by academics. That work, serialised in the 1960s, was Hambro's first major commercial success, and has been reviewed in detail both by contemporaneous commentators and modern literary scholars. After a few unsuccessful novels in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hambro pivoted towards non-fiction, especially focusing on linguistics and politics, fields of interest that he shared with his father, who had become fascinated by Sanskrit and East Asian poetry during his philology studies.Hambro, C.J. Hambro: Liv og drøm, pp. 30–34. The younger Hambro's most well-known and successful book within linguistics was the 1969 Ting, tanke, tale ("Thing, Thought, Speech"), followed by Språket i funksjon ("Language in Operation") in 1972.
Having divorced Rynning Koren, Hambro eventually married Christine Holter (born 1931)."Hambro, Carl Joachim," Hvem er hvem?, ed. B. Steenstrup, 11th ed., (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1973), p. 205. Their daughter Ellen Hambro would later become Director of Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency."Ellen Hambro," Store norske leksikon (web edition), accessed 6 June 2017. Carl Joachim Hambro died on 19 February 1985 and was buried in Grefsen."Cemeteries in Norway," DIS-Norge, accessed 1 April 2012. Hambro's obituarist Finn Jor described him as a man fond of debate with a keen interest in societal issues, yet who was no front person in public discourse, not possessing the eloquence of his father.
Authorship In 1958, Hambro released a non-fiction book titled Frankrike (), as a tribute to the country in which he had spent most of his early adulthood. His love for France was not inherited from his parents, however: the elder Carl Joachim and Dudu were fervent anglophiles, the former having both written and translated English-language works, and the latter having been a voracious reader of Anglo-American novelists ranging from Rudyard Kipling to Aldous Huxley.Hambro, C.J. Hambro: Liv og drøm, pp. 34, 44–45, 65, 114–16, 213. Leif Sjöberg, "Harald Naess: The Newcastle Years," in Fin(s) de Siècle in Scandinavian Perspective: Studies in Honor of Harald S. Naess, eds. F. Ingwersen and M. K. Norseng (Columbia: Camden House, 1993), , p. 7.
His debut novel, the satirical De frafalnes klubb, was published in 1960.Øystein Rottem, Inn i medietidsalderen: 1965–80, vol. 2 of Norges litteraturhistorie: etterkrigslitteraturen (Oslo: Cappelen, 1997), , p. 71f It tells a story of some disillusioned cynics in Paris who create a new philosophical and literary "-ism," which gains worldwide popularity. According to reviewer Brikt Jensen, Hambro offered a critique of "the modern type of man [who embraces] the first philosophical system that comes to sight."Brikt Jensen, "Elegant satire," Verdens Gang, 17 November 1960, p. 3. Jensen also commended Hambro for his "un-Norwegian" perspective, calling him a "distinguished European." The literary scholar Willy Dahl opined that the novel denoted Hambro's declared scepticism towards "every sort of intellectual or political pigeonholing," a scepticism that he shared with his father C. J. Hambro, whose disdain for radical and totalitarian ideologies was well known.Francis Sejersted, Sosialdemokratiets tidsalder (Oslo: Pax Forlag, 2005), part 2 of Norge og Sverige gjennom 200 år, , pp. 90, 509.