Growth of the Soil (1917)

"Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts."

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Elemental novel written using an objective, direct and calm style. Potentially suspenseful situations are purposefully diluted into the rhythm of the novel. Disharmony with nature is eventually eroded by stronger forces.

Want to read more by this author. ( )

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 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. ( )

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 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." ( )

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 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. ( )

I think I read this before. oh well, reading it again. Revisiting my Scandinavian lit craze of a few years ago. ( )