Giants in the Earth-More than a little house
Giants in the Earth, A Saga of the Prairie, by O.E. Rölvaag.
I love this book for so many reasons. Here are three.
Reason 1: The author’s first language was Norwegian, and he wrote the book originally in that idiom. Rölvaag himself translated the book into English. How delicious to read a book in translation and know with certainty that the author’s vocabulary and syntax are absolutely what he intended.
Rölvaag’s biography is fascinating. His parents thought school a waste of time for their son, because he was so slow. He attended only nine weeks of school a year, and quit completely at age fourteen. He very nearly stayed on the island of his birth as a fisherman. His boss was so taken with him that he offered to buy young Rölvaag his own boat. But, the young fisherman sailed from Norway to start a new life with an uncle in the landlocked state of South Dakota.
Rölvaag educated himself to a professorship at St. Olaf’s College, where he wrote Giants in the Earth in 1923. The book was published in Norwegian, in two volumes, in 1924 and 1925. It appeared in the United States in 1927.
Reason 2: Rölvaag serves a feast of details. The stories of the every day lives of people in history have always interested me more than the repetitious and predictable rise and fall of the powerful. Rölvaag tells us what settlers of the Northern Plains ate, drank, wore, bought, sold, said and thought. I came away thinking I could build a sod house, if I ever found myself stranded in a primordial savannah. I could smell the musty walls when it rained in spring, and taste the dust that swirled on the floor in summer.
The dreams and fears of the characters are as clearly revealed as their physical environment. A small group of people voyage into the tall grass sea without maps or how-to books to guide them. The main character, Per Hansa, possesses all the bravery, optimism, and tenacity we expect from our homesteading ancestors - and believe we possess without being tempered by the hardships they accepted and endured. Beret Hansa, his wife, struggles with fear and homesickness. While he worships Beret, and drives himself mercilessly to build a home for her, Per Hansa knows he can never give her the life he believes he owes her in exchange for accepting him as her husband. As the homestead prospers and suffers, by turns, Beret relentlessly descends into madness. The reader follows her, feeling the same helplessness to save her from which Per Hansa suffers silently and deeply. We know the minds of these characters because of Rölvaag’s ability to dissect them so expertly for us.
Reason 3: There is an element more fascinating, to my mind at least, than Beret’s madness or Per Hansa’s trials. Early in the story, while clearing a new piece of his land, Per Hansa discovers a marker left by an earlier settler. The marker is sacred to the homesteader. Moving a marker is thievery of the lowest sort. Per Hansa removes the marker, after convincing himself that the Irishman who set the marker has not earned it by staying and developing the land. The reader may join Per Hansa in believing that this wrong is justified, but Beret does not. Furthermore, she believes that she has been tainted by the sin of her husband. Her guilt is perhaps the strongest of her demons.
In my opinion, the second half of Giants in the Earth is about redemption - Per Hansa attempts to redeem himself for moving the marker by the physical sacrifice of hard work and the psychological torture of watching his wife’s growing madness. His efforts fail, as they must. It is this theme that makes the book such a profound portrayal of the pioneers, and forces readers to re-examine our pride as their worthy successors.
I love this book for so many reasons. Here are three.
Reason 1: The author’s first language was Norwegian, and he wrote the book originally in that idiom. Rölvaag himself translated the book into English. How delicious to read a book in translation and know with certainty that the author’s vocabulary and syntax are absolutely what he intended.
Rölvaag’s biography is fascinating. His parents thought school a waste of time for their son, because he was so slow. He attended only nine weeks of school a year, and quit completely at age fourteen. He very nearly stayed on the island of his birth as a fisherman. His boss was so taken with him that he offered to buy young Rölvaag his own boat. But, the young fisherman sailed from Norway to start a new life with an uncle in the landlocked state of South Dakota.
Rölvaag educated himself to a professorship at St. Olaf’s College, where he wrote Giants in the Earth in 1923. The book was published in Norwegian, in two volumes, in 1924 and 1925. It appeared in the United States in 1927.
Reason 2: Rölvaag serves a feast of details. The stories of the every day lives of people in history have always interested me more than the repetitious and predictable rise and fall of the powerful. Rölvaag tells us what settlers of the Northern Plains ate, drank, wore, bought, sold, said and thought. I came away thinking I could build a sod house, if I ever found myself stranded in a primordial savannah. I could smell the musty walls when it rained in spring, and taste the dust that swirled on the floor in summer.
The dreams and fears of the characters are as clearly revealed as their physical environment. A small group of people voyage into the tall grass sea without maps or how-to books to guide them. The main character, Per Hansa, possesses all the bravery, optimism, and tenacity we expect from our homesteading ancestors - and believe we possess without being tempered by the hardships they accepted and endured. Beret Hansa, his wife, struggles with fear and homesickness. While he worships Beret, and drives himself mercilessly to build a home for her, Per Hansa knows he can never give her the life he believes he owes her in exchange for accepting him as her husband. As the homestead prospers and suffers, by turns, Beret relentlessly descends into madness. The reader follows her, feeling the same helplessness to save her from which Per Hansa suffers silently and deeply. We know the minds of these characters because of Rölvaag’s ability to dissect them so expertly for us.
Reason 3: There is an element more fascinating, to my mind at least, than Beret’s madness or Per Hansa’s trials. Early in the story, while clearing a new piece of his land, Per Hansa discovers a marker left by an earlier settler. The marker is sacred to the homesteader. Moving a marker is thievery of the lowest sort. Per Hansa removes the marker, after convincing himself that the Irishman who set the marker has not earned it by staying and developing the land. The reader may join Per Hansa in believing that this wrong is justified, but Beret does not. Furthermore, she believes that she has been tainted by the sin of her husband. Her guilt is perhaps the strongest of her demons.
In my opinion, the second half of Giants in the Earth is about redemption - Per Hansa attempts to redeem himself for moving the marker by the physical sacrifice of hard work and the psychological torture of watching his wife’s growing madness. His efforts fail, as they must. It is this theme that makes the book such a profound portrayal of the pioneers, and forces readers to re-examine our pride as their worthy successors.
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