Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (chromebook ebook reader txt) 📕
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Growth of the Soil was published in 1917 to universal acclaim. A mid- to late-career work for Hamsun, it was celebrated for its then-revolutionary use of literary techniques like stream of consciousness, and for its unadorned depiction of pastoral life. Its focus on the quotidian lives of everyday people has led scholars to classify it as a novel of Norwegian New Realism.
Isak, a man so strong and so simple that he echoes a primitive, foundational “everyman,” finds an empty plot of land in turn-of-the-century Norway, and builds a small home. He soon attracts a wife, Inger, whose harelip has led her to be ostracized from town life but who is nonetheless a hard and conscientious worker. Together the two earthy beings build a farm and a family, and watch as society and civilization grows and develops around them.
Isak and Inger’s toils sometimes bring them up against the burgeoning modernity around them, but curiously, the novel is not one driven by a traditional conflict-oriented plot. Instead, the steady progression of life on the farm, with its ups and downs, its trials and joys, makes the people and their growth the novel’s main propellant. While the humble, homespun protagonists occasionally come into conflict with the awe-inspiring forces of civilization, more often than not, those forces are portrayed as positive and symbiotic companions to the agrarian lifestyle.
Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 for Growth of the Soil, one of the rare instances in which the Nobel committee awarded a prize for a specific novel, and not a body of work. It has since come to be regarded as a classic of modernist, and Norwegian, literature.
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- Author: Knut Hamsun
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“Ay, Lord be thanked, ’tis surely so,” she answered.
They were both equally astonished. Not that Inger was past the age, of course; to Isak’s mind, she was not too old in any way. But still, another child … well, well. … And little Leopoldine going to school several times a year down at Breidablik—that left them with no little ones about the place now—besides which, Leopoldine herself was grown up now.
Some days passed, and Isak resolutely threw away a whole weekend—from Saturday evening till Monday morning—on a trip down to the village. He would not say what he was going for when he set out, but on his return, he brought with him a girl. “This is Jensine,” he said. “Come to help.”
“ ’Tis all your nonsense,” said Inger, “I’ve no need of help at all.”
Isak answered that she did need a help—just now.
Need or not—it was a kind and generous thought of his; Inger was abashed and grateful. The new girl was a daughter of the blacksmith, and she was to stay with them for the present; through the summer, anyhow, and then they would see.
“And I’ve sent a telegram,” said Isak, “after him Eleseus.”
This fairly startled Inger; startled the mother. A telegram? Did he mean to upset her completely with his thoughtfulness? It had been her great sorrow of late that boy Eleseus was away in town—in the evil-minded town; she had written to him about God, and likewise explained to him how his father here was beginning to sink under the work, and the place getting bigger all the time; little Sivert couldn’t manage it all by himself, and besides, he was to have money after his uncle one day—all this she had written, and sent him the money for his journey once for all. But Eleseus was a man-about-town now, and had no sort of longing for a peasant’s life; he answered something about what was he to do anyway if he did come home? Work on a farm and throw away all the knowledge and learning he had gained? “In point of fact,”—that was how he put it—“I’ve no desire to come back now. And if you could send me some stuff for underclothes, it would save me getting the things on credit.” So he wrote. And yes, his mother sent him stuff—sent him remarkable quantities of stuff from time to time for underclothes. But when she was converted, and got religion, the scales fell from her eyes, and she understood that Eleseus was selling the stuff and spending the money on other things.
His father saw it too. He never spoke of it; he knew that Eleseus was his mother’s darling, and how she cried over him and shook her head; but one piece of finely woven stuff went after another the same way, and he knew it was more than any living man could use for underclothes. Altogether, it came to this: Isak must be Man and Leader again—head of the house, and step in and interfere. It had cost a terrible lot of money, to be sure, getting the storekeeper to send a telegram; but in the first place, a telegram could not fail to make an impression on the boy, and also—it was something unusually fine for Isak himself to come home and tell Inger. He carried the servant-girl’s box on his back as he strode home; but for all that, he was proud and full of weighty secrets as he had been the day he came home with that gold ring. …
It was a grand time after that. For a long while, Inger could not do enough in the way of showing her husband how good and useful she could be. She would say to him now, as in the old days: “You’re working yourself to death!” Or again: “ ’Tis more than any man can stand.” Or again: “Now, you’re not to work any more; come in and have dinner—I’ve made some wafers for you!” And to please him, she said: “I should just like to know, now, what you’ve got in your mind with all that wood, and what you’re going to build, now, next?”
“Why, I can’t say as yet,” said Isak, making a mystery of it.
Ay, just as in the old days. And after the child was born—and it was a little girl—a great big girl, fine-looking and sturdy and sound—after that, Isak must have been a stone and a miserable creature if he had not thanked God. But what was he going to build? It would be more news for Oline to go gadding about with—a new building again at Sellanraa. A new wing of the house—a new house it was to be. And there were so many now at Sellanraa—they had a servant-girl; and Eleseus, he was coming home; and a brand-new little girl-child of their own, just come—the old house would be just an extra room now, nothing more.
And, of course, he had to tell Inger about it one day; she was so curious to know, and though maybe Inger knew it all beforehand, from Sivert—they two were often whispering together—she was all surprised as anyone could be, and let her arms fall, and said: “ ’Tis all your nonsense—you don’t mean it?”
And Isak, brimming over with greatness inside, he answered her: “Why, with you bringing I don’t know how many more children on the place, ’tis the least I can do, it seems.”
The two menfolk were out now every day getting stone for the walls of the new house. They worked their utmost together each in his own way: the one young, and with his young body firmly set, quick to see his way, to mark out the stones that would suit; the other ageing—tough, with long arms, and a mighty weight to bear down on a
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