Johan Bojer (1872–1959)

Lest på ungdomsskolen. Gjorde stort inntrykk. Husker fortsatt hvordan ullvottene blandet seg med gnagsårene i hendene

Translated by Jessie Muir from the Norwegian, with an afterword by Richard Vowles. First published 1923.
Jacket notes: Set against the harsh beauty of the Lofoten Islands, 'The Last of the Vikings' is a stirring depiction of man's perseverance and of the end of an era. Its action centers upon a single fishing season, when the Norwegian peasantry, descendants of the Vikings, make their annual voyage to the Islands. Battling wind and sea as their ancestors have done for a thousand years, now show more they also must face a new challenge: the competition of the machine, inevitably dooming their age-old way of life. It is this way of life that dominates these pages. Masterfully portrayed are men and women whose intimate relationship to Nature invests them with an extra-human dimension; and recreated is a vanished rhythm of existence, a 'tenacious struggle with soil, sea, and self,' that holds special meaning amid the disjointed patterns of the modern age.
Ranking The Last of the Vikings "the finest of Bojer's novels," Richard Vowles writes, "The essential conflict of the novel is not man versus sea but sea versus land in the Norwegian sensibility - hence man's sensibility." And also "Characterization is elementary. It is almost always so in Bojer. But evidently Bojer is more concerned with scape, scope,, and genre study than with the intricacies of personal relationship."
Compelling environment and perseverance of the people, a memorable read if not very cheerful. show less

Recommended to me by Betty Strand, this book depicts the lives of Norwegian fishermen and their families in the area and time period of Thora Strand, my 2G grandmother. Helped me understand why she and her siblings immigrated to the US and to Minnesota.

A group of Norwegian villagers migrate to North Dakota.