Norway's Best Stories - An Introduction to Modern Norwegian Fiction Book

4 i i 7i . i A j 1 . . it V , jrK, T TT V Ai JStuWa , ... j 3 V V j- , . r 1 -,, t7 o i . j j, tj , L jL iijliC AN TO FICTION TRANSLATIONS BY ANDERS ORBECK Srlfftion of Short Storirs hy BfORKSON JONAS UK - K1ELLAND Y RBOR SKRAM JACOB BULL HAMS N THOMAS KRAG KINCK AAKRUI r lIILDfrCff EdGE BOIKR SC01T DUUN FALKHERCtET FONHUS UNDSKT EDITED BY HANNA ASTRUP LARSEN NEW YORK . THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION W W NORTON . COMPANY, INC. Publishers 1 T A J i CONTENTS Page Introduction IX How the Mountain Was Clad Bjornstjcrm Bjornson 3 The Brothers Bjornstjerne Bjornson 8 Elias and the Draug Jonas Lie 21 Siesta Alexander Kidland 39 The Spirit of the Ball Alexander Kidland 52 Death Arne Garborg 65 A RosQJmalie Skram 83 Coffee-Kari Jacob Breda Bull 97 The Call of Life Knut Hamsun 125 The Ring Knut Hamsun 133 Jorgen Dam, Philologist Thomas Krag 137 Nocturne Hans E. Kinck 153 When the Frost Comes Hans Aanrud 165 Guinea-Jack or Skipper Gerhardtsens Cock Jacob Hilditch 181 When Peeler Solberg Came Home Peter Egge 209 The Home-Coming Johan Bojer 219 Nils Punctual and His Clocks Gabrid Scott 249 At Christmas Olav Duun 261 Old Heggelis Last Polka Johan Falkbergtt 287 The Moose-Hunter Mikkjel Fbnhus 299 Simonsen Sigrid Undset 315 The stories marked with a star are taken from THE AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW and have been translated, Coffee-Kari by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt, Nocturne by Barent Ten Eyck, and The M6ose L Hunter by Jessie Muir. All the others have been done by Mr. Orbeck especially for this volume. Introduction Though a realist in method, Jonas Lie all his life shrank from dwelling on the grosser aspects of life, and, sure of his own ground, he resisted steadily the new demand voiced by Brandes that literature to be vital must take up problems for debate. In Norway the movement started by Brandes took a decided ethical turn. Bjornson, while he repudiated Christianity, was more than ever concerned with Christian morals, and thun dered his demand for reform along every line. Jonas Lie was incapable of thundering, and would not debate problems, but his vivid presentation of the havoc wrought in individual lives by domestic tyranny and stupid convention was as genuine a contribution to the cause of human liberation. The moral indignation which the age seemed to possess in superfluity was largely directed against the official and professional class. As this class had held leadership up to that time, it was blamed for almost everything that was rotten in Norway. As the chief spokesman of the revolt, Alexander Kielland directed his attacks particu larly against the clergy and the teaching profes sion, whom he accused of keeping the people hidebound in superstition and ignorance. Mean while Artie Garborg and Amalie Skram uncov ered the unpleasant facts of sexual vice with a frankness that appalled liberals as well as con servatives. XI Introduction The frankness has remained a characteristic of Norwegian literature. The moral indignation and ethical purpose we shall find again in other forms, but the institutionalizing of literature for utilitarian aims was short-lived. In the beginning of the nineties Knute Hamsiin brought a new romanticism and a new valuation. The decade preceding him had concerned itself much with dragging out into the limelight the insignificant and the obscure. Hamsun again voiced the right of the superior individual, the man in whom the blood beat high and zest for life was keen. He cared nothing for the virtues that could be measured with the yardstick of good citizenship, but insisted on those imponderable evanescent qualities that could not be labelled or catalogued but nevertheless constituted the essence of per sonality and determined what kind of taste a man left in your mouth. It islrue that in his later works Hamsun, too, has essayed the role of the preacher, but his mes sage is always the simplest and most elemental, dealing with the relations of men and women to each other and to mother Earth...Read More