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KSa · Langcaffeine Addict Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 560

Though the weather is still fine I feel autumn coming. The days are getting shorter, the rain is tapping on the windows and the wind is howling in the trees more and more often. I’m in the mood to lay my hands on some Scandinavian literature and this time my choice is "Og bakom synger skogene" by Trygve Gulbranssen. However, looking through the reviews on Polish web sites I found most of them disappointing and only a few enthusiastic. Some people wonder if it is Polish translation imperfect or the book is actually "boring and inconsistent" as one of the discontented readers has written. We have a Norwegian representative here so if Fredrik can give me some information on how the book is perceived in Norway I'll be grateful.

Fredrik · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject:

Yes, autumn is the time for some heavy, melancholic Scandinavian literature....LOL!

Og bakom synger skogene by Trygve Gulbranssen is one of the books that every modern Norwegian has heard about, but few have read. It was published in 1933 and is the kind of book that you will find in every grandparent's book collection, but not in young people's.
The title (And behind the woods sing, directly translated into English) has become a kind of catch-phrase for kitchy pseudo-religious nature worship, the literary equivalent of the typical Norwegian kitch painting: Moose at sunset (aka British Monarch of the Glen).

Perhaps no wonder that Gulbranssen's triology from the deep, East Norwegian woods became hugely popular in pre-war Germany and was used by the Norwegian Nazi ideologists, although Gulbranssen himself cooperated with the resistance movement.

I haven't read the books myself, but I think I can say that they probably are a good read (after all, they were incredibly popular in their days), but don't expect it to be really great literature. My history of Norwegian literature book only spends 7 lines out of 569 pages on Gulbranssen, so his books don't count in the same way as Ibsen or other great authors.

If you want great literature about the deep, Norwegian woods, try Tarjei Vesaas, winner of The Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1963 and a candidate for the Nobel Prize. His early work, Det store spelet = The Great Cycle is the same kind of Blut-und-Boden literature as Gulbranssen's work, but intensely psychological, humane, tense, warm and heartbreaking.

I don't know wether his books were published in Polish, if you prefer that language, but one of Vesaas's later, less epic and more psychological novels, Fuglane = The Birds were made into a successfull Polish film, Zywot Mateusza, so there might have been some Vesaas translation going on in Poland.

And if you want the ultimate Norwegian nature literary treatment, try Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun's Markens grøde = Growth of the Soil - a tale of the loves and hardships of a settler couple in the harsh, North Norwegian nature.

And let's not forget the woman's perspective: Sigrid Undset's epic tale of love and tragedy in Medieval Norway, a triology of the fate of the woman Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath, The Wife and The Cross. (Now also in an entertaining movie version, directed by Liv Ullmann.)

KSa · Langcaffeine Addict Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 560

Fredrik · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 4:44 pm Post subject:

You are welcome!

When I wrote:

Deborah · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:08 pm Post subject:

Fredrik · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject:

LOL! Yeah, it's definitely not a movie for the typical male teenager, something which the reviewer seems to be!
The film was quite heavily critized for being a stiff melodrama with bad acting (= a typical Norwegian movie :P ), but if you don't take it too seriously, it's a nice insight into medieval, Norwegian romance. Lots of wonderful nature and medieval sex (ranging from an unsuccessfull mud rape to more tender moments...)

When I read the first book of the triology in school, I too enjoyed the historical stuff more than the romance. I was very annoyed with Kristin for falling in love with such an old, mature man. It almost served her well that she died of the Black Death!
I much more enjoyed the love story of Sigrid Undset's Olav Audunssøn i Hestviken, where the heroine falls in love with a young man of her own age... :wink:

Deborah · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:36 pm Post subject:

Is Olav Audunssøn i Hestviken also set in the Middle Ages?

Guest · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:44 pm Post subject:

Yes, but I don't think it is as good as Kristin Lavransdatter, (whose English name actually would be Christine Lawrence-daughter!)

Deborah · Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:36 am Post subject: