Bettie's Books

Gutenberg comes up trumps: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7537TRANSLATION FROM THE NORWEGIAN BY CARL CHRISTIAN HYLLESTEDPrologue: A faint, golden, metallic rim appears in the east where the sun is rising. The city is beginning to stir; already can be heard an occasional distant rumble of trucks rolling into the streets from the country, large farm-wagons heavily loaded with supplies for the markets--with hay and meat and cordwood. And these wagons make more noise than usual because the pavements are still brittle from nightly frosts. It is the latter part of March.e booknorway>Christiania(Oslo)spring 2013tbr busting 2013under 50 ratingsnovellafilthy lucretranslationGermination: Ole returned from Toralus the 5th April. He introduced his fiancée at once to the clique, presented her to his friends, and spent all day in her company.Ripening: Irgens had published his book. This superior soul who never took anyone into his confidence, had, to the great surprise of everyone, put out a charming volume of poems just when spring was in full blow.Sixtyfold: A party of ladies and gentlemen had gathered on the jetty on the day of the excursion.Finale: Milde and Gregersen walked down the street together.'Ny Jord', the original title, means New Earth and as Norway was heading towards independence from Sweden (and a fair amount of the political debating of the time is included in this book), it seems an appropriate title. So why 'Shallow Earth'?This was the book Hamsun wrote after Hunger and Mysteries, and his increased wallet-width shows in this bohemian entry. The writing style is choppy, staccatoed, and the arrogance of the newly-famous seeps through onto the page. Too many characters were unlikeable and even those that were palatable, I found hard to care about. Can't recommend this other than to completists. 5* Hunger(1890)4* Mysteries(1892)2* Shallow Soil (1893)5* Pan (1894)3* Look back on Happiness (aka Last Joy) (19123* Growth of the Soil (1917)4* Wayfarers(1927)TBR Busting 2013