Pelle Erobreren - Barndom I

Pelle Erobreren #1

by Martin Andersen Nexø

Pelle's childhood is first and foremost coloured by his realtionship with his father. It gives warmth to the poor childhood environment that puts the groundstone for Pelle being exposed to the fighting working class.

The writer uses poetry and humour when he portrays his swarm of original people and dramatic events, the realistic tale about social disparity and the dawning of class struggle. It is together with "Ditte Menneskebarn" Nexø's main literary work.

Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction, Danish, Scandinavian Literature

236 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

Martin Andersen Nexø was born to a large family (the fourth of eleven children) in an impoverished district of Copenhagen. In 1877, his family moved to Nexø, and he adopted the name of this town as his last name. Having been an industrial worker before, Nexø he attended a folk high school and later worked as a journalist. He spent the mid-1890s travelling in Southern Europe, and his book Soldage (1903) (English: Days in the Sun) is largely based on those travels. Like many of his literary contemporaries, including Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Nexø was at first heavily influenced by fin-de-siécle pessimism, but gradually turned to a more extroverted view, joining the Social Democratic movement and later the Communist Party of Denmark; his later books reflect his political support of the Soviet Union.

Pelle Erobreren (English: Pelle the Conqueror), published in four volumes 1906-1910, is his best-known work and the one most translated. Its first section was made the subject of the DDR-FS movie Pelle der Eroberer in 1986[1] and the movie Pelle Erobreren in 1987. Ditte Menneskebarn (English: Ditte, Child of Man), written from 1917 to 1921, praises the working woman for her self-sacrifice, and a Danish film version of the first part of the book was released in 1946 as Ditte, Child of Man. The much debated Midt i en Jærntid (i.e. "In an Iron Age", English: In God's Land), written in 1929, satirises the Danish farmers of World War I. During his latter years, 1944 to 1956, Nexø wrote but did not complete a trilogy consisting of the books Morten hin Røde (English: Morten the Red), Den fortabte generation (English: The Lost Generation), and Jeanette. This was ostensibly a continuation of Pelle the Conqueror, but also a masked autobiography.

Danish police arrested Nexø in 1941 during Denmark's occupation by the Nazis, for his communist affiliation. Upon his release, he traveled to neutral Sweden and then to the Soviet Union, where he made broadcasts to Nazi-occupied Denmark and Norway. After World War II, Nexø moved to Dresden in East Germany, where he was made an honorary citizen. The Martin-Andersen-Nexø-Gymnasium high school in Dresden was named after him. His international reputation as one the greatest European social writers grew, especially, but not exclusively, in socialist countries.[citation needed]

Nexø died in Dresden in 1954 and was interred in the Assistens Kirkegård in the Nørrebro neighbourhood of Copenhagen. A minor planet, 3535 Ditte, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979, is named after the main character in his novel Ditte, Child of Man. [2]

Reviews

[Gitte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeg vil anbefale denne bog til: Danskere, der elsker klassikere, beskrivelser af landet og “gamle dage”.
Sådan begynder den: Det var den første maj, 1877, lige i dagningen.

Jeg kastede mig over Pelle Erobreren med stor begejstring. Jeg så filmen som barn og husker at være grebet af historien og karaktererne. En af de første ting, der slog mig ved romanen var de levende beskrivelser af Pelles fantasi – især i starten. Senere var jeg meget fascineret af den hudløst ærlige fremstilling af Pelles sind, en lille drengs tanker og natur på godt og ondt.

Det der bar romanen var især forholdet mellem Pelle og hans far, Lasse. Det var noget af det mest varmende, rørende og hjerteskærende jeg længe har læst. Far Lasse er en genial karakter! Så glimrende fortalt. Hans drømmes barske clash med virkeligheden var så fint beskrevet. Især når han ønskede hævn over andre og måtte indse sine begrænsninger pga. sin status og plads på gården var fantastisk skildret.

Sproget voldte mig dog store problemer. Det var noget af det mest knudrede jeg længe har læst. Der var sætninger, der for mig var direkte ulæselige. Her er et eksempel:

Nu skreg den blot fordi den blev slet fodret, og Pelle så sig godt gal på det roderi – en gris skulle spise op, det var den halve trivsel. Man kunne ikke sådan rende og slå oven i og oven i hver femte minut – når varmen rigtig meldte sig, ville den flå sur vom.

Forfærdeligt sprog! Der var mange sætninger jeg måtte læse flere gange for at få det til at give mening. Det betød, at der var store dele af romanen jeg ikke kunne nyde – selvom der var gode elementer i bogen. Jeg følte dog også, at der var lige lovlig langt mellem de ting jeg nød i bogen og der var mange sider, jeg fandt direkte uinteressante.

Bind 1 består af 2 bøger: Barndom og Læreår. Barndom sluttede helt fantastisk. Jeg tænkte “Nu sker der noget, nu er jeg fanget”, så jeg kastede mig grådigt over 2. bog, Læreår. Jeg blev slemt skuffet. Pelle tager til byen og kommer i lærer som skomager. Her mistede jeg interessen. 1. bogs styrke lå i beskrivelserne af livet på gården og Pelles forhold til sin far. Det manglede i den grad her.

Nu ligger Bind 2 så og kigger på mig … og jeg tror ikke det kommer til at ske. I hvert fald ikke i denne omgang.

[Morten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noget af en beskrivelse. Kommer nok til at skulle læse mere for rigtig at kunne vurdere, men den inviterede ikke til lige så stor fordybelse, som nogle af de andre klassikere jeg har været forbi. Jeg skal nok læse lidt op på baggrunden for bogen.

[MarieVerdo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeg har i mange år villet læse Pelle Erobreren: Ikke fordi jeg så frem til en kæmpe læseoplevelse, men mere fordi jeg aldrig havde læst noget af Martin Andersen Nexø og det syntes jeg var en mangel. Yderst velskrevet, persontegningerne er gode og de stærke beskrivelser af dagligdagen giver en god fornemmelse for livet på bunden af (bonde-)hierarkiet. Så som sædeskildring er det superfint , men der mangler retning og plot og jeg har svært ved at se at Martin Andersen Nexø stadig skal have en plads i vores kanon. Den store kommunistiske dannelsesroman vil på en gang for meget og for lidt. Men nu prøver jeg at læse videre i næste bog…

[Cristian Tomescu · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is very bad...

[Michal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4
reads a bit like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.