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Hasselt Heideland cop. 1959
User reviews
LibraryThing member Ganeshaka
There's so much to like about this novel, but first you have to get past the title. Come on now - who browses a book about "growth" and "the soil"? An agricultural nerd at an Iowa community college? Think if "Gone With the Wind" had been called "The Politics of Cotton Farming"? We would be, like,
But the exposition in GOTS is so pure, so organic, so fertile that the seedling of a story - a man, Isak, building a farm in the wilderness - sprouts, like Jack's beanstalk, like a fairy tale, into a mythic Yggdrasil, a tall and flowering tree of life.
Isak, as the epic begins, is a simple man, a homesteader coarse and almost brutish. A man who would carry a sledge on his back, if need be, say, for repairs. He's lucky to find a woman, any woman - in this case, one marginalized by a harelip - to become his mate. But he does, and they both accept life's harshness, set to work and persevere. They love and learn and develop despite and because of adversity and fate's cruelties. They are very nearly fatalists themselves but not quite. There's a very bright spark still. And so their farm grows, their children come and go, the community expands, and life happens - both good and evil.
I've read several Hamsun works, and like this one the best. The bitterness and cynicism which dominate in Pan and Hunger are subdued in GOTS in the Loki and low key personae of Oline and Brede. Warmth and compassion prevail. Hamsun loves Isak and his family and it shows.
Though the setting is in rural Norway, civilization and its discontents are never far off. There are telegraphs and newspapers. People read. It's not as though this is a bucolic idyll in a sheltered Eden. There's a "worldly" balance to the drama, yet Isak's simple virtues prevail - although he's constantly challenged by events, some beyond his control. There, to a degree, he's protected by his guardian angel of a friend, Geissler, a man as complex and mysterious as Isak is simple - but a man equally as virtuous.
In all, this is a a very Scandinavian work. Like an iconic Viking ship which combines beauty and simplicity with function, and is capable both of navigating rough seas and shallow rivers, Hamsun's writing has a biblical simplicity that narrates elegantly both life's small and meaningful events as well as its epic arc..
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"Scarlett O' - who now?"But the exposition in GOTS is so pure, so organic, so fertile that the seedling of a story - a man, Isak, building a farm in the wilderness - sprouts, like Jack's beanstalk, like a fairy tale, into a mythic Yggdrasil, a tall and flowering tree of life.
Isak, as the epic begins, is a simple man, a homesteader coarse and almost brutish. A man who would carry a sledge on his back, if need be, say, for repairs. He's lucky to find a woman, any woman - in this case, one marginalized by a harelip - to become his mate. But he does, and they both accept life's harshness, set to work and persevere. They love and learn and develop despite and because of adversity and fate's cruelties. They are very nearly fatalists themselves but not quite. There's a very bright spark still. And so their farm grows, their children come and go, the community expands, and life happens - both good and evil.
I've read several Hamsun works, and like this one the best. The bitterness and cynicism which dominate in Pan and Hunger are subdued in GOTS in the Loki and low key personae of Oline and Brede. Warmth and compassion prevail. Hamsun loves Isak and his family and it shows.
Though the setting is in rural Norway, civilization and its discontents are never far off. There are telegraphs and newspapers. People read. It's not as though this is a bucolic idyll in a sheltered Eden. There's a "worldly" balance to the drama, yet Isak's simple virtues prevail - although he's constantly challenged by events, some beyond his control. There, to a degree, he's protected by his guardian angel of a friend, Geissler, a man as complex and mysterious as Isak is simple - but a man equally as virtuous.
In all, this is a a very Scandinavian work. Like an iconic Viking ship which combines beauty and simplicity with function, and is capable both of navigating rough seas and shallow rivers, Hamsun's writing has a biblical simplicity that narrates elegantly both life's small and meaningful events as well as its epic arc..
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LibraryThing member wunderkind
I have no idea how to describe this book: it seems like it should be the most boring story ever (man walks until he finds good land, man builds farm, man marries woman, man and woman have kids, and all of this without saying anything more than necessary), but it's absolutely engrossing and
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inspiring. I can't explain it. It's like magic. Magic that makes you want to go out and build a log cabin. Show Less
LibraryThing member maryreinert
I read this years ago and remembered it as being outstanding. Tried it again just to see if my memory or my tastes had changed. Not at all! This is a beautifully written story that transends time or place. At first glance one wonders how the story of Norwegian peasants in the 19th century can be
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relevant today? But as we live so far removed from nature, are so surrounded by words and noise (mostly meaningless) and spend so much time worrying about our psyches, "Growth of the Soil" provides the exact antithesis of our world. It provides a perspective of what is really necessary for life and contentment and what needs to be let go of and what needs to be retained. It is a simple story of simple people, but it is far from shallow. The writing is beautiful and conveys so well the nuances of relationships and the impact of nature on humanity. Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
This is a Norwegian novel that takes place in the back country where the main character, Isak, carves a farm out of the wilds of Norway with his bare hands. He literally uses his muscle and animal strength to muscle a life out of a rather uninhabitable place. Others slowly follow, but none are as
While I appreciated this book and am glad I read it, I'm not sure I really liked it. Something about the language really grated on me. Hamsun writes in brief grunts and I couldn't decide if it was intentional, to reflect the almost animal state of the back country people, or if it was bad translation, or just his style. The dialogue was really ridiculous. It seemed that no one listened or understood anyone else and it really reminded me of the stereotypical cave man grunting. If that was intentional, I think it did a disservice to the people that Hamsun was trying to portray. I was also really disturbed by a part of the novel that explored infanticide. Two different mothers in the book kill their new-born babies. It was for very different reasons with very different legal consequences, but I wasn't really sure what the point of it was and I found it really disturbing.
This is a book that I will rate as middle of the road considering that it won the author the Nobel prize for literature and is highly respected - I just didn't see it. But it is also a book that I won't be surprised if I think much more highly of at the end of the year than I do now.
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successful as Isak. He marries a woman named Inger who has the slight physical disfigurement of something described as a hare lip. It seems that she is willing to stay with Isak at first because she wouldn't be accepted anywhere else, but Inger and Isak end up sharing their life together in a meaningful way and I would say love each other as well. Isak certainly loves Inger. They have two sons who grow into different men - one craving a city life but finding many obstacles and one embracing the running of his father's farm. By the end of the novel, Isak has neighbors who have followed his trail-blazing, copper mining has come to the area, and Isak owns a mowing machine. While I appreciated this book and am glad I read it, I'm not sure I really liked it. Something about the language really grated on me. Hamsun writes in brief grunts and I couldn't decide if it was intentional, to reflect the almost animal state of the back country people, or if it was bad translation, or just his style. The dialogue was really ridiculous. It seemed that no one listened or understood anyone else and it really reminded me of the stereotypical cave man grunting. If that was intentional, I think it did a disservice to the people that Hamsun was trying to portray. I was also really disturbed by a part of the novel that explored infanticide. Two different mothers in the book kill their new-born babies. It was for very different reasons with very different legal consequences, but I wasn't really sure what the point of it was and I found it really disturbing.
This is a book that I will rate as middle of the road considering that it won the author the Nobel prize for literature and is highly respected - I just didn't see it. But it is also a book that I won't be surprised if I think much more highly of at the end of the year than I do now.
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LibraryThing member LitReact
My impression is that when people talk about Growth of the Soil most of their comments revolve around the beautiful language of the novel. While I found this to be true, I also found that I didn't find the language particularly stirring - it was pretty but it didn't get my blood going.
For me, the
Talk of Growth in the Soil inevitably leads to talk of its author, Knut Hamsun, and the causes he championed. While a work is in many ways the child of the author, I do not think the author's concerns have any bearing on how one reads a work. The sins of the father are not the sins of the son, and vice versa. I think Isak in particular would agree with the notion that sons lead very different lives from that of their fathers.
For me, the
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highlight of the novel is its often times tongue in cheek humor, almost a slyness. One such episode is when Isak buys back the sheep Oline had previously stolen from him, Isak bought a certain sheep with flat ears... and people looked at him. Isak from Sellanraa was a rich man, in a good position, with no need of more sheep than he had. One can almost imagine the pique on his face when he says, I know it [the sheep with the flat ears]... I've seen it before.Talk of Growth in the Soil inevitably leads to talk of its author, Knut Hamsun, and the causes he championed. While a work is in many ways the child of the author, I do not think the author's concerns have any bearing on how one reads a work. The sins of the father are not the sins of the son, and vice versa. I think Isak in particular would agree with the notion that sons lead very different lives from that of their fathers.
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LibraryThing member SaraPrindiville
Reminiscent of "Giants in the Earth", "Cry the Beloved Country", "How Green was my Valley", also "House" by Tracy Kidder. Change due to humanity's influence, mining specificaly, but also change through growth. Classic figures- Geisslet "god" Brede "devil" etc. Multi leveled.
LibraryThing member ErnestHemingway
"Have read Fathers and Children by Turgenieff and the 1st Vol. of Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. Fathers and Ch-en isn't his best stuff by a long way. Some swell stuff in it but it can never be as exciting again as when it was written and that's a hell of a criticism for a book... Buddenbrooks is a
Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
Selected Letters, pg. 176
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pretty damned good book. If he were a great writer it would be swell. When you think a book like that was published in 1902 and unknown in English until last year it makes you have even less respect, if you ever had any, for people getting stirred up over Main Street, Babbit and all the books your boy friend Menken [H.L. Mencken] has gotten excited about just because they happen to deal with the much abused Am. Scene. Did you ever read [Knut Hamsun's] The Growth of the Soil? And then for Christ sake to read Thom Boyd..." Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
Selected Letters, pg. 176
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LibraryThing member DavidHenry
Growth of the Soil has many virtues. The novel is endearing yet couragous enough to deal with subject-matter that is both substantial and controversial. Similarly, Hamsun's skills of characterisation and his descriptive style are sufficient to evince an emotional reponse from the reader at certain
Hamsun's descriptive style contributes toward an evocative account of his rural native Norway, whilst the novel's shifts in perspective and brief moments of rumination are reminiscent of Steinbeck at his most powerful. Isak's agrarian preoccupations binds indelibly the progress of the novel to the passing seasons, creating an impression of time not any less efficacious than that achieved in another, in some ways similar epic; One Hundred Years of Solitude.
But Hamsun verges on didacticism. The reader is pushed relentlessly toward the Rousseauian-sounding idea that the self-reliant exploiter of the soil, in this case Isak, is somehow morally superior, and the related view that the city - urban living - leads to moral decay and a rather superficial, meaningless state of existence. Take, for example, the difference in the way Hamsun chooses to depict Inger's and Barbro's attitude towards their respective acts of infantiside. The former is much more sympathetic, whereas Barbro is depicted as being callously indifferent. Barbro has, of course, been infected by the vast metropolis that was nineteenth century Bergen.
Overall, it's a good book. But no one likes being preached to, especially by someone with ideological sympathies as dubious as Hamsun's.
In regard to this edition: the typeface is too bold making the text difficult to read. The cover picture's quite nice though.
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junctures, for example, Inger's act of infanticaide and its consequences, and Isak's realisation that his strength is in decline. The prose style is both at tines sharp and clever. The dialogue, particularly in the first half of the novel, is quite charmingly idiomatic; Isak's truncated vocabulary appears to mirror his status as a biblical Adam figure. Hamsun's descriptive style contributes toward an evocative account of his rural native Norway, whilst the novel's shifts in perspective and brief moments of rumination are reminiscent of Steinbeck at his most powerful. Isak's agrarian preoccupations binds indelibly the progress of the novel to the passing seasons, creating an impression of time not any less efficacious than that achieved in another, in some ways similar epic; One Hundred Years of Solitude.
But Hamsun verges on didacticism. The reader is pushed relentlessly toward the Rousseauian-sounding idea that the self-reliant exploiter of the soil, in this case Isak, is somehow morally superior, and the related view that the city - urban living - leads to moral decay and a rather superficial, meaningless state of existence. Take, for example, the difference in the way Hamsun chooses to depict Inger's and Barbro's attitude towards their respective acts of infantiside. The former is much more sympathetic, whereas Barbro is depicted as being callously indifferent. Barbro has, of course, been infected by the vast metropolis that was nineteenth century Bergen.
Overall, it's a good book. But no one likes being preached to, especially by someone with ideological sympathies as dubious as Hamsun's.
In regard to this edition: the typeface is too bold making the text difficult to read. The cover picture's quite nice though.
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LibraryThing member BlackSheepDances
Hamsun's work is so simple and straightforward, but then it reveals these unexpected complexities that make you pause. His characters are so vivid that I began imagining them as real people that I know. I found myself thinking of Oline while I did dishes, irritated at her big mouth. And any time
The book is basically a love affair with the earth, given the few people in this unbroken part of Norway that makes up the setting. Their lives revolve around earth and sky and seasons. Simple work, simple food. They don't spend time analyzing why they are unhappy or seeking remedy for their bad childhoods. They live forward, moving ahead.
Again, I had to try and control my isolation inclination as I read this. When they finally get other settlers up near Sellenara, inwardly I cringed because I'm thinking, what? Neighbors? Sheesh. Get rid of them! Make them move! And yet these people were happy for the company. I am so anti-social when I think living in the wilds with 8 other people within 10 miles is too much!
This also was a very peaceful book. It had tension and action and sadness and pain, but overall it felt calming and restful to read it and imagine this kind of life. I was disappointed a bit when I read a recent LA Times article on Hamsun, his personal and political views at the time, and that took something away from my love of this book.
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Barbro entered a scene I groaned out loud. Layers. Just so many layers to these characters that make them real. Inger is so hard to describe that Hamsun's simple description is the only one that makes sense: "a strong woman full of weakness". The book is basically a love affair with the earth, given the few people in this unbroken part of Norway that makes up the setting. Their lives revolve around earth and sky and seasons. Simple work, simple food. They don't spend time analyzing why they are unhappy or seeking remedy for their bad childhoods. They live forward, moving ahead.
Again, I had to try and control my isolation inclination as I read this. When they finally get other settlers up near Sellenara, inwardly I cringed because I'm thinking, what? Neighbors? Sheesh. Get rid of them! Make them move! And yet these people were happy for the company. I am so anti-social when I think living in the wilds with 8 other people within 10 miles is too much!
This also was a very peaceful book. It had tension and action and sadness and pain, but overall it felt calming and restful to read it and imagine this kind of life. I was disappointed a bit when I read a recent LA Times article on Hamsun, his personal and political views at the time, and that took something away from my love of this book.
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LibraryThing member Maryzenx
I am beginning "Growth of the Soil" by Knut Hamsun today. Library Thing thinks I won't like it, I bet I will. H.G. Wells gives smashing reviews on the back cover of my ragged paperback copy. This is, I must confess, the reason I picked up the book and put it in my pocket. Mr Wells says "I do not
Would the path, my path, be there without me? What difference does my footprint make upon the soil? Digging in 'til sunken, I reread the first paragraph with the second paragraph in mind. I am called to prepare for the path previously tested, trusted and harmless. Hamsun asks with his greatest novel ever, would there be reason enough, at the end of it all, to have been? This is only page one, paragraph two, I am encouraged by my interest and will follow through with the intent to learn more about the world as it was but first and foremost, to learn about the world as it is.
Good reading, good minds.
Ma
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know how to express the admiration I feel for this wonderful book without seeming to be extravagant. I am not usually lavish with my praise, but indeed the book impresses me as among the very greatest novels I have ever read. It is wholly beautiful; it is saturated with wisdom and humor and tenderness." Wow, now that is some serious praise. I shift my body to a readers pose with respect and willingness to participate. We are far from the turn of that century, but I find, even in the first two pages, that the similarity is undimmed. Still, we are of the land, in the world, on the path. The first question of many raised to my wandering, needy mind by the author Knut Hamsun is; Who has made the path? Through the forest's thicket, under the mossy rocks, into and from what origin have we come? Already there, the path is or is not for me to take, not make. Would the path, my path, be there without me? What difference does my footprint make upon the soil? Digging in 'til sunken, I reread the first paragraph with the second paragraph in mind. I am called to prepare for the path previously tested, trusted and harmless. Hamsun asks with his greatest novel ever, would there be reason enough, at the end of it all, to have been? This is only page one, paragraph two, I am encouraged by my interest and will follow through with the intent to learn more about the world as it was but first and foremost, to learn about the world as it is.
Good reading, good minds.
Ma
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LibraryThing member gregory_gwen
I think I read this before. oh well, reading it again. Revisiting my Scandinavian lit craze of a few years ago.
LibraryThing member LTFL_JMLS
I think I read this before. oh well, reading it again. Revisiting my Scandinavian lit craze of a few years ago.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
One of my favorite novels from my teen years was Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag. I first read it as outside reading for my eighth grade English class and enjoyed it as much as My Antonia which I read at about the same time. More recently I read Pat Conroy’s memoir My Reading Life, in which
Well after that recommendation and my own memories of Rolvaag I picked up Hamsun's book (I should have done this long before when I was amazed by Hunger which I have read and reread) and found it to be the life story of a man in the wilds, the genesis and gradual development of a homestead, the unit of humanity, in the unfilled, uncleared tracts that still remain in the Norwegian Highlands.
It is an epic of earth; the history of a microcosm. Its dominant note is one of patient strength and simplicity; the mainstay of its working is the tacit, stern, yet loving alliance between Nature and the Man who faces her himself, trusting to himself and her for the physical means of life, and the spiritual contentment with life which she must grant if he be worthy. Modern man faces Nature only by proxy, or as proxy, through others or for others, and the intimacy is lost. In the wilds the contact is direct and immediate; it is the foothold upon earth, the touch of the soil itself, that gives strength.
The story is epic in its magnitude, in its calm, steady progress and unhurrying rhythm, in its vast and intimate humanity. The author looks upon his characters with a great, all-tolerant sympathy, aloof yet kindly, as a god. A more objective work of fiction it would be hard to find—certainly in what used to be called "the neurasthenic North."
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he writes about his agent who gives him a copy of Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun, telling him: “It’s an essential book. A necessary one. It’s the most important book I’ve ever read. I named my farm Sellanraa in honor of Isak the man who builds his home and raises a family out of nothing.” To which Conroy says: “I’ll read it.” His agent’s response: “You don’t just read this book. You must enter in. Live it. It contains the great truth.” Which his agent explains: “Everything of virtue springs from the soil. Civilization always comes along to ruin it. But you can always find the truth if it comes from the earth.”Well after that recommendation and my own memories of Rolvaag I picked up Hamsun's book (I should have done this long before when I was amazed by Hunger which I have read and reread) and found it to be the life story of a man in the wilds, the genesis and gradual development of a homestead, the unit of humanity, in the unfilled, uncleared tracts that still remain in the Norwegian Highlands.
It is an epic of earth; the history of a microcosm. Its dominant note is one of patient strength and simplicity; the mainstay of its working is the tacit, stern, yet loving alliance between Nature and the Man who faces her himself, trusting to himself and her for the physical means of life, and the spiritual contentment with life which she must grant if he be worthy. Modern man faces Nature only by proxy, or as proxy, through others or for others, and the intimacy is lost. In the wilds the contact is direct and immediate; it is the foothold upon earth, the touch of the soil itself, that gives strength.
The story is epic in its magnitude, in its calm, steady progress and unhurrying rhythm, in its vast and intimate humanity. The author looks upon his characters with a great, all-tolerant sympathy, aloof yet kindly, as a god. A more objective work of fiction it would be hard to find—certainly in what used to be called "the neurasthenic North."
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LibraryThing member Kristelh
A story of a homesteader in the wilds of Norway, was written in 1917, original title Markens Grode by Knut Hamsun. The book I read was translated by W.W. Wooster. I enjoyed reading this book, which made me feel like I was talking to people from the old country. The translation was not so English as
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to feel like you were reading a book written in the US. I found it fascinating to read this book of a successful homesteader who acquires livestock, tills more and more land, acquires a wife and then children and is so steady and calm. I also thought it was interesting to read about how their oldest son never quite learned how to leave home but was supported by his parents until he was quite an adult. This book won the author the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. The author's reputation was tarnished by his support of Nazi Germany. Show Less
LibraryThing member la2bkk
I have mixed feelings about this work.
On the positive, Hamsun's writing style is excellent- brief, concise yet descriptive and flowing. He paints a beautiful picture of life in the rural countryside in an era now long since past. Had this book ended about 50% sooner, I would have rated it at least
Unfortunately, the book is too long. The main characters, who were compelling, become lost among unnecessary story lines as to other less interesting persons. Further, Hamsun's seemingly never ending depictions of men who cannot take an intellectual stand and/or express themselves in any meaningful way to their scheming female counterparts is tiring.
I concur with a previous reviewer that Hamsun's book "Hunger" is a far better work.
On the positive, Hamsun's writing style is excellent- brief, concise yet descriptive and flowing. He paints a beautiful picture of life in the rural countryside in an era now long since past. Had this book ended about 50% sooner, I would have rated it at least
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4 stars.Unfortunately, the book is too long. The main characters, who were compelling, become lost among unnecessary story lines as to other less interesting persons. Further, Hamsun's seemingly never ending depictions of men who cannot take an intellectual stand and/or express themselves in any meaningful way to their scheming female counterparts is tiring.
I concur with a previous reviewer that Hamsun's book "Hunger" is a far better work.
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LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
I'm descended from farmers, as far back as our genealogy can tell. Potatoes and grain on one side, and rice on the other. I grew up in this kind of place, too, and seen the tough self-reliance that these people value.
Which is why, despite my thin veneer of urbane culture, I feel something like
The author later became a fascist reactionary - highly critical of this modern lifestyle. As a general rule, people don't sympathize with fascists - but one can try to understand why to feel what they do. Somehow, they feel threatened instead of comforted by this other culture. They feel swept aside by it.
Anyways - this is a good book, probably one of Hamsun's best. Recommended for those who want a good look at the farmer's life.
Which is why, despite my thin veneer of urbane culture, I feel something like
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nostalgia for some aspects of this rural existence. Modern life encroaches on them.The author later became a fascist reactionary - highly critical of this modern lifestyle. As a general rule, people don't sympathize with fascists - but one can try to understand why to feel what they do. Somehow, they feel threatened instead of comforted by this other culture. They feel swept aside by it.
Anyways - this is a good book, probably one of Hamsun's best. Recommended for those who want a good look at the farmer's life.
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LibraryThing member BayardUS
It can never be said of the Swedish Academy that they don't know what they like. Between Independent People, The Growth of the Soil, The Good Earth, and probably several others I haven't read yet it seems clear that the path to a Nobel Prize in literature is the one trod by struggling farmers out
Independent People, unlike some of the other novels of this vein, focuses on the unpredictability of both nature and man as the decisive reason why farming succeeds or fails. While Hamsun stages a play where hard work and the willpower of the human spirit leads to the successful farm, Laxness sees the lonely farmer as ruled by the vicissitudes of fate more so than the noble human spirit.
I'm no farmer, and I don't pretend to know what interpretation is more accurate, but I can see the effect that the philosophies have on both stories. Hamsun's main character is essentially a simpleton, whose strength and work ethic are the source of success. His wife, neighbors, and children are all lesser beings even when more intelligent, whose virtues decrease according to how little they care for the farming lifestyle. In sum The Growth of the Soil is a showcase for the triumph of the human will and an ode to the farming lifestyle, even if the characters are rather flat and one dimensional given how long the book is.
In Independent People, in contrast, the characters feel more fleshed out, though all of them are insufferable to different degrees. Stubborn and proud even when they have done nothing to be proud of, a mix of bad luck and human foolishness means that life is a struggle in this novel even when things are going well. The main character is no supernaturally strong jack of all trades, and so he cannot be as independent and self-sufficient as he would like to be, and how the main character of Growth of the Soil actually is. Eventually the epiphany the man reaches and the message of the book as a whole is that there is no such thing as a truly independent person, as man is a social animal. It's a fairly obvious message, and not one that takes 450 pages to convey. John Donne did it more effectively in a single paragraph.
Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth is the best of the three, and also the least tethered to the setting or realism of a farm. Rural China as imagined by a Westerner is vivid, probably more vivid than it was in reality, but I'd happily sacrifice realism for a good story. In The Good Earth a farmer's success is also due to chance, but it is chance governed by man as much as it is by the weather or fate. The main character ultimately succeeds due to an act of theft, not hard work, and the final chapters of the book depict the corrupting power of wealth. The Good Earth also ends with a message in support of the farming lifestyle, not because of its nobility, but because the soil is permanent while other human endeavors are transient.
All three are solid books, and all three treat the subject in different and interesting ways. Nevertheless, I'm glad the Swedish Academy has since expanded its view of literature beyond the farm.
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in the countryside. Independent People, unlike some of the other novels of this vein, focuses on the unpredictability of both nature and man as the decisive reason why farming succeeds or fails. While Hamsun stages a play where hard work and the willpower of the human spirit leads to the successful farm, Laxness sees the lonely farmer as ruled by the vicissitudes of fate more so than the noble human spirit.
I'm no farmer, and I don't pretend to know what interpretation is more accurate, but I can see the effect that the philosophies have on both stories. Hamsun's main character is essentially a simpleton, whose strength and work ethic are the source of success. His wife, neighbors, and children are all lesser beings even when more intelligent, whose virtues decrease according to how little they care for the farming lifestyle. In sum The Growth of the Soil is a showcase for the triumph of the human will and an ode to the farming lifestyle, even if the characters are rather flat and one dimensional given how long the book is.
In Independent People, in contrast, the characters feel more fleshed out, though all of them are insufferable to different degrees. Stubborn and proud even when they have done nothing to be proud of, a mix of bad luck and human foolishness means that life is a struggle in this novel even when things are going well. The main character is no supernaturally strong jack of all trades, and so he cannot be as independent and self-sufficient as he would like to be, and how the main character of Growth of the Soil actually is. Eventually the epiphany the man reaches and the message of the book as a whole is that there is no such thing as a truly independent person, as man is a social animal. It's a fairly obvious message, and not one that takes 450 pages to convey. John Donne did it more effectively in a single paragraph.
Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth is the best of the three, and also the least tethered to the setting or realism of a farm. Rural China as imagined by a Westerner is vivid, probably more vivid than it was in reality, but I'd happily sacrifice realism for a good story. In The Good Earth a farmer's success is also due to chance, but it is chance governed by man as much as it is by the weather or fate. The main character ultimately succeeds due to an act of theft, not hard work, and the final chapters of the book depict the corrupting power of wealth. The Good Earth also ends with a message in support of the farming lifestyle, not because of its nobility, but because the soil is permanent while other human endeavors are transient.
All three are solid books, and all three treat the subject in different and interesting ways. Nevertheless, I'm glad the Swedish Academy has since expanded its view of literature beyond the farm.
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LibraryThing member amerynth
I thoroughly enjoyed Knut Hamsun's "Growth of the Soil." This Norwegian novel is the story of an "everyman" named Isak, who carves a farm out of an empty forested landscape. As the years progress, so does his farm and surrounding neighborhood as others establish homesteads in his area.
It's a rather
It's a rather
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quiet story, but well-paced and interesting overall. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dreesie
Very different from his novel Hunger, here Hamsun has written a sweeping story of one man's accomplishments as a homesteader in northern Norway near the border with Sweden.
Isak, a young and very strong man, with no fear of work, goes looking for a good place to settle. He walks and walks, looking
When he finally finds it, he settles in. There is a coastal town a full day's walk away (20 miles? 10 miles?). He puts out word that he needs a woman's help--and lo and behold, Inger comes. She too has no fear of work, and she has a harelip--teased for much of her life, she finds a good man in Isak.
They work, they have several children, Inger is imprisoned for 6 years. Others come and settle the area between their farm Sellanra and the town.
A fascinating story of rural northern Norway in the 2nd half of the 19th century.
Isak, a young and very strong man, with no fear of work, goes looking for a good place to settle. He walks and walks, looking
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for a place that has everything he needs: water, haying grounds, pasture, areas to farm, timber.When he finally finds it, he settles in. There is a coastal town a full day's walk away (20 miles? 10 miles?). He puts out word that he needs a woman's help--and lo and behold, Inger comes. She too has no fear of work, and she has a harelip--teased for much of her life, she finds a good man in Isak.
They work, they have several children, Inger is imprisoned for 6 years. Others come and settle the area between their farm Sellanra and the town.
A fascinating story of rural northern Norway in the 2nd half of the 19th century.
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LibraryThing member Amante
This book started out as a wonderful tale of 2 misfits but ended up as a boring story that got mired down in endless dreary details.
LibraryThing member mkfs
This is one of those romanticised notions of country life that can get to be insufferable at times. See, there's this guy who homesteads in the wilderness, he clears the land and builds a farm with only the strength of his own hand! Well, not counting the tools he needs, or the supplies he has to
And this guy, he's above petty concerns like commerce and legislation and civic planning. He grows the soil, and as the book says, Growth of the soil was something different, a thing to be procured at any cost; the only source, the origin of all.
Yeah, that'll show those wasters, the foolish idlers who lay about in heated rooms eating food they didn't grow themselves, and designing things like labor-saving farm machinery!
It is, as they say, such a crock. The novel does not rise above this, either; every chapter, every page bludgeons the reader with the same simple moral lesson: tilling the soil good, everything else bad.
The tale itself is fairly well-told, though (Ho!). The presence of characters with more complicated motives, such as Geissler, saves this from being a heavy-handed morality tale, making it more of a social commentary. And who can resist a book with such delicate characterization as this:
She was utterly sick and tired of the farm and the wooden vessels, that took such a lot of cleaning; sick and tired, perhaps, of Axel and all, of the out-of-the-way life she led. But she never killed any of the cattle, and Axel never found her standing over him with uplifted knife in the middle of the night.
Now, truly, what more could a man ask for in a wife?
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live on before the farm is ready because he doesn't have time to hunt, or the money that must be earned to buy all that. But other than that he's totally self-sufficient by damn! Oh, and he needs a woman around the place, but other than that!And this guy, he's above petty concerns like commerce and legislation and civic planning. He grows the soil, and as the book says, Growth of the soil was something different, a thing to be procured at any cost; the only source, the origin of all.
Yeah, that'll show those wasters, the foolish idlers who lay about in heated rooms eating food they didn't grow themselves, and designing things like labor-saving farm machinery!
It is, as they say, such a crock. The novel does not rise above this, either; every chapter, every page bludgeons the reader with the same simple moral lesson: tilling the soil good, everything else bad.
The tale itself is fairly well-told, though (Ho!). The presence of characters with more complicated motives, such as Geissler, saves this from being a heavy-handed morality tale, making it more of a social commentary. And who can resist a book with such delicate characterization as this:
She was utterly sick and tired of the farm and the wooden vessels, that took such a lot of cleaning; sick and tired, perhaps, of Axel and all, of the out-of-the-way life she led. But she never killed any of the cattle, and Axel never found her standing over him with uplifted knife in the middle of the night.
Now, truly, what more could a man ask for in a wife?
Show Less
LibraryThing member lschiff
This is an incredible novel, unlike anything I've ever read before. The character development is so powerful; you feel as though you are inhabiting the characters yourself.
LibraryThing member peacocoa
"Ho!"
Part I was excellent. Part II really loses steam as others have mentioned.
Part I was excellent. Part II really loses steam as others have mentioned.
Awards
Nobel Prize in Literature (1920)
Language
Original language
Norwegian
Original publication date
1917
1921 (English)