Growth of the Soil

Name: Kunt Hamsun

Year Won: 1920

Read: "Growth of the Soil"

Original Language: Norwegian

Reason: "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil"

About: Growth of the Soil is about Isak, a man who grows his farm from a few goats and a patch of barely cleared land to a huge thriving farm with many cows and goats and sheep. He marries Inger, a woman with a harelip, has children, and...grows things. There's also a village and some stories that go on there.

This actually (to me) kind of reads like Stardew Valley - Literary Edition, which isn't a complaint. I LOVED Stardew Valley. It's got a lot of the same characteristics. I found it very soothing to read about farm life. Then when things switched to city life, it was often surprisingly dark and gritty.

What I Liked: It's exceptionally well written. I'd read Hamsun describing how to pull weeds. (And did and LIKED it.) It's the kind of book that's easy to lose yourself in. It's also written in a way that I think was considered very novel for the time, which is worthy of note even if the prose style is a bit more common now. All in all, it was an enjoyable read.

What I Disliked: I really enjoyed this book, so it's hard to find much that I disliked. If I was going to go for something, it's that infanticide seemed like this huge sub-theme, which felt a bit odd. (I mean...maybe it tied into the major theme in the way that made more sense than I thought it did? Unsure.

It was also rather jarring for Inger to nearly kill a relative just to have them later get along like No Big Deal. (To be fair, Inger did spend some time in jail after the altercation, but it still felt odd.)

Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. This is an extraordinary novel that likely would have seemed even more so when it was written. Next up: The Bloom of Life by Anatole France

Lucky Per

Name: Romain Rolland

Year Won: 1917

Read: "Lucky Per"

Original Language: Dutch

Reason: "for his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark"

About: Lucky Per is about Per, the son of a poor and very devout minister, who leaves home determined to make it rich and implement an ambitious canal system through Denmark. He goes to engineering school. He hangs out with artists and intellectuals (while never being one of them, although he is an excellent engineer). He falls in love with a wealthy Jewish heiress then dumps her to live out a life of aestheticism in the countryside with a Christian wife, having discovered, I guess, the life that made his parents happy or some such.

What I Liked: No joke. This has been one of my favorites in the project so far. The characters are wonderful (especially Per and the members of the Soloman family - of which his financee, Jakobe, is phenomenal). The descriptions of the world are great. I felt like I was there. I cared about what happened enough to rant in the next session. This is a GOOD book.

It also has an actual plot and doesn't feel anywhere near as precious as most of the earlier entries. Per is kind of an asshole. I like that, in my own way. It's rather refreshing having someone who has no artistic genius (and recognizes it), a great dream (that isn't fulfilled), and isn't a Marty Stu who everyone falls madly in love with upon meeting for the first time.

What I Disliked: If there was ever a novel that could benefit from a modern editor, this is it.

Per initially courts Jakobe because she's rich...but then seems to forget all about that and instead is in love with her refreshing intellectualism. I mean, I guess that could happen, but forgetting about her money seemed odd.

Then she gets pregnant, tells him, and he...doesn't seem to notice. Which...okay? That seems weird. (Especially in the late 19th century when I think this was set.) And then she keeps debating telling him she's pregnant (even though she told him a few chapters ago), and then doesn't, then does, but somehow it's all forgotten. (Which is, again...EDITOR!)

Even more frustrating, Jakobe ends up having the kid torn apart while inside her to save her life while in England (it's so gruesome she's not allowed to see the corpse - no joke), and then is sad...while Per goes off and marries some other lady and we're supposed to somehow care about Per's spiritual epiphany...which might make sense if she'd never told him she was pregnant, which I guess she did or didn't depending on the chapter? It's bewildering...

All of this would make a lot more sense without the pregnancy sub-plot. (Per is still, IMO, an asshole for just wandering off and ditching Jakobe without explaining that he's doing it, but he's less of one if she wasn't horribly suffering. And he's only moderately asshole-y if he didn't know she was pregnant, which he should know as she told him a few times, but somehow the book forgot that a chapter later so IDK.

Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. It's incredibly engrossing and wonderfully portrays a world and characters. It's also incredibly refreshing. It reads like a modern novel (other than the poor editing). I wish they'd fixed that. But oh well...

Next up: Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (Olympic Spring, being poetry, is not covered by my library. Grrr....especially as this is the first poem I've heard of.)