Thanks to the recommendation of Professor Andrew Morriss, on my recent trip to the middle east I read Ole Edvart Rölvaag‘s novel Giants of the Earth. In all honesty, I didn’t expect it to be very engaging, since it’s about, well, some families of farmers making a new life on the plains of America. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it kept inviting me to pick it up again. And I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it’s just the first of a trilogy (followed by Peder Victorious: A Tale of the Pioneers Twenty Years Later and Their Father’s God, both of which I have since ordered.)
On a smaller scale, it reminded me of the great Icelandic sagas that describe the land-taking period of Icelandic settlement. Small wonder, since it was written in America in Norwegian (and then translated with the approval and involvement of the author into English). Giants in the Earth is about accomplishment, rivalry (of various sorts), the joy of productive work, family, love, religion, common sense, and, above all else, striving. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t normally like “chick flicks” and who knows that he ought to enjoy Jane Austen…but hasn’t been able to bring himself to do so yet. Yet, I loved this book, despite its striking similarity to chick lit. I highly recommend Rölvaag’s work. (And it’s not only moved me to order the other items in the trilogy, but to finish up the second volume of Robert Musil’s endless rumination The Man Without Qualities [vol. I, vol. II]. And maybe…I’ll pick up Jane Austen again.)
Interesting. I’ve always avoided it because I’ve heard it was depressing. (Not that I let myself be steered entirely by other people’s views but thyere are only a finite number of books one can read in a lifetime, and one mmust choose which to read and which not on the basis of something.) In fact the only person I’ve ever met who loves the book had one of the most negative, anti-human senses of life I’ve ever hard the misfortune to encounter. One of the reasons he loved this work was, according to him, its pessimism.
Hmmm…..well, the book has a character who is remarkably pessimistic, it’s true. But I wouldn’t call the book itself depressing. Rather, I found the focus on achievement rather inspiring. The husband is determined to succeed, no matter what, and in spite of the disturbing religious obsessions of his wife, he perseveres.
Most interesting to find this author, I have never heard of him here in his native Norway. Rölvaag seems all but “lost” in Norwegian consciousness. There is for example no mention of him in the Norwegian version of Wikipedia. It seems the old world almost intentionally want to loose some of the people who emigrate to America. One can only hope that this trend will be reversed with the internet.
Hans Jörgen Lysglimt
Editor Farmann
http://www.farmann.no
Good to hear from you, Hans Jörgen! I’m sure that you could root around and find an old Norwegian edition of the book, since it was published in Norwegian in Norway. I enjoyed the English version and I suspect that you might find the original Norwegian interesting, as well.