Tag: Norway

Review 1495: #1920Club! The Bridal Wreath

~ whatmeread ~ 9 Comments

When I saw The Bridal Wreath in a list of books published in 1920, I thought the 1920 Club would be a perfect opportunity to reread it and judge whether I wanted to revisit the trilogy. It had been many years since I read it, and I could remember little about it.

The Bridal Wreath is the first book of Sigrid Undset’s renowned trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter. It is the story of the life of a fourteenth century Norwegian girl.

Kristen is the daughter of a depressed mother, Ragnfrid, and Lavrans, an upright, kindly farmer of good estate. Kristin grows up her father’s favorite, and as a young girl, she is disposed to try to always do what is right.

When she is fifteen, her family betrothes her to Simon Darre, a young man who is good natured and kind, but during her engagement year, she meets Erlend Nikulaussön, an older man of poor reputation although of better family than Kristin’s. He and Kristin decide to marry despite Simon and Eline, the woman who deserted her husband for Erlend and bore him two children. When Lavrans learns of this, although he doesn’t know all, he is unwilling to grant permission for their marriage, afraid he will be throwing his daughter’s happiness away for an unworthy husband.

The novel is rich in detail, and Kristin’s life seems fully realized. Moreover, the characters are complexly human. I enjoyed this novel even more the second time around.

Related Posts

The Greenlanders

The Last Hours

The Illuminator

 

 

Day 618: Giants in the Earth

~ whatmeread ~ 3 Comments

Cover for Giants in the EarthI don’t usually read introductions until after I read a book, but I began to read the one for Giants in the Earth because I was curious about the book’s origins. I had always assumed it was an American book because it is about settlers in the Dakota territory. But in fact it was originally written in Norwegian and published in Norway in 1925 and 1926 and then translated to English in 1927, for Rölvaag came to the States in 1896 as a young man of 20.

The reason I mention the introduction by Lincoln Colcord, who translated the book with Rölvaag, is that it gives away a key plot point of the novel in the second paragraph. I couldn’t believe this, as it certainly affected how I read the novel, and it is especially egregious in that the event referred to does not happen until the very end of the book. If part of your enjoyment of a novel comes from not knowing what to expect, as mine does, do not read the introduction.

Per Hansa and his family have lost their way crossing the featureless prairies at the start of the novel. They had been travelling out with a group of Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans, but Per Hansa had difficulties with his wagon and the others went on ahead, even his best friend Hans Olsa. Then Per Hansa’s little group got lost in the fog for awhile, and now Per Hansa is afraid he might have missed the others and gone past them.

Per Hansa is an ebullient, sociable, hard-working man, and when he and his family finally arrive at the group of homesteads by Spring Creek, he is delighted with the land Hans Olsa has already marked out for him. He finds the prairie beautiful and is confident that he is going to make a wonderful life there for his family.

His wife Beret feels otherwise, and it is around her reaction that much of the novel centers. She is appalled by the prairie, this vast expanse that has not a single tree to hide behind. She soon begins to view the land as if it is some sort of godless and primitive monster, while Per Hansa sees only that it is rich and fertile.

The novel is set in the 1870’s and early 80’s and details the hardships of life so far away from any amenities. The men have to travel days for firewood in one direction and for supplies in another. Still, more immigrants keep arriving until there is a little settlement by the creek.

This is a fascinating novel about the Norwegian contribution to the settlement of the country. It is a realistic novel, not romanticized, with no big feats of heroism or villainy, just details of the life these people have chosen and its effects on them.

Day 226: I Curse the River of Time

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for I Curse the River of TimeI Curse the River of Time is a sad book about Arvid Jansen, a man trying to cross a divide between himself and his dying mother. At the same time his marriage is failing and the Berlin Wall is coming down. Things are coming to an end in his life.

Jansen remembers decisions he made, particularly the one to leave university and join the Communist party. As the wall falls, he considers his loss of faith in the party. 

In contemplating his failing marriage, he also remembers his courtship of a young girl, although it is not clear whether he is thinking about his wife. He goes to his mother’s home country of Denmark, to a beach house where his family spent the summers, and recalls his childhood bond with his mother.

The novel is moody and inconclusive, and for some reason I kept expecting it to become sinister, although it did not. Even though the novel is focused around his attempts to reconcile with his mother (although that is perhaps not the correct word since there has not been a falling out–she is simply cold and unresponsive to him), it seems to me that Jansen thinks about her too much, is too obsessed with her.

The writing is excellent, spare but full of details. However, the entire feel of the novel is tenuous. There does not seem to be much to fasten onto.

Day 220: The Water’s Edge

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for The Water's EdgeOut on a hike in a park, Reinhardt and Kristine Ris find a child’s body shortly after they pass a nervous man in the parking lot. We know all along that this man murdered the boy, but even after the witnesses see him at the grocery store and notify the police of who he is, lazy police work makes them rule him out. In the meantime, another boy disappears.

As Inspectors Sejer and Skarre investigate, they are fairly sure of the identity of the perpetrator but have limited evidence to go on. They also find that the abuser has himself a history of abuse.

In contrast to Karin Fossum’s excellent The Indian Bride, I feel that The Water’s Edge is a fairly pedestrian effort. It is more about exploring the psychology of pedophilia than about solving the crime, than actually about developing the plot at all. I also don’t feel like I get to know the characters very well, even the police. However, I have not had the luxury of reading Fossum’s books in order, which might make a difference in my feelings about the characterizations. A side plot about the witnesses’ marriage promises to be more interesting than it actually turns out to be.

Karin Fossum is considered the Queen of Norwegian crime fiction. If you haven’t read any of her books, I suggest that The Indian Bride is a more interesting place to start.

Day 72: The Indian Bride

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for The Indian BrideI previously read one book by Karin Fossum and felt neutral about it, but then I read The Indian Bride. I was extremely touched and involved by this Norwegian small-town mystery.

A naive and uncomplicated bachelor farmer, Gunder Jomann, sees a picture of an Indian woman in a book and decides to go to India to find a wife. This journey is a daunting prospect for a man who has hardly ever left his small town of Elvestad, but he is determined. The story of his journey is brief but touching. He is successful and returns home to prepare for the arrival of his new wife, Poona, while she settles her affairs in India.

Just as he is leaving for the airport to pick Poona up, Gunder gets a call from the hospital. His beloved sister has been in a terrible accident. From the hospital, he calls the local taxi driver and asks him to pick up Poona, but the driver misses her at the airport. The next day Poona’s body is found in a field near Gunder’s house.

Inspector Konrad Sejer and his partner Jacob Skarre are assigned to solve the crime. Most crime novels since Sherlock Holmes deal with solving puzzles posed by clever criminals, but this novel is unusual in reflecting the type of crime that is probably more often dealt with by the police, random violence by people who are not professional criminals and not particularly clever. Some of the suspects are a local café owner, a muscle-bound young man, and an attention-seeking teenager. In a strange way, the focus of the novel reflects a more innocent world, which is exactly how I felt when reading about Gunder and Poona’s romance. I kept hoping the body would turn out to be that of some other Indian woman, not Poona.

The setting is rich, the characters are complex, the puzzle is interesting. I find Inspector Sejer not as well developed as some of his suspects, but perhaps I just need to read more Fossum.

Day 56: The Redbreast

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

cover for RedbreastThe Redbreast by Norwegian mystery writer Jo Nesbø starts out with Detective Harry Hole embarrasing his government by shooting an unidentified secret service officer during the American president’s visit. Naturally, he is “promoted” to a political office and assigned to investigate neo-Nazi activities in Norway.

He begins tracking Sverre Olsen, a neo-Nazi who recently escaped prosecution on a technicality. But that investigation is derailed when he comes upon evidence that someone has purchased an extremely powerful, rare rifle and may be planning an assassination attempt. At the same time, someone is killing old men who fought on the Eastern Front for the Germans in World War II, believing that they would prevent their country from being annexed by the Soviet Union.

In her attempts to help Harry with the investigation of who bought the gun, his ex-partner Ellen is murdered.

The novel was interesting and complex, with the story from WWII interleaved with that of Harry’s investigation. However, I didn’t find Harry very developed as a character. This lack of character development may be because this is the seventh Harry Hole book, but I believe that series books must find a way to balance the demands of new readers without being too repetitive for readers following the series. One way is to make sure that the main characters always seem like real people. That said, I may try reading some others to see if I get to like Nesbø’s work more.