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Emanuel, or Children of the Soil
Publisher: London: J. M. Dent Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.
- GenresDanish19th Century
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 16, 2010
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Henrik Pontoppidan
122 books87 followersAwarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1917 "for his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." (Award shared with Karl Gjellerup.)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 18, 2026
(I reviewed this on my blog along with a longer review of A Fortunate Man, which is why this review is full of references and comparisons to that book.)
Pastor Emanuel Hansted, newly qualified and earnest in his new role, is sent to serve as curate to Provst Tönneson in the village parishes of Veilby and Skibberup. The Provst – a title indicating a senior pastor, overseeing several parishes – lives a life of relative luxury in a grand house built by a rich predecessor. He is a strict adherent to the traditional wing of the Lutheran church, expecting obedience and much forelock-touching from the peasants under his authority. But a new movement is stirring in the land – a revivalist movement, led by lay preachers usually from the artisan class. The local meeting house in Skibberup is led by a weaver, Hansen, whom the Provst views as an ignorant upstart, a product of the new folk high schools which, in the Provst’s view, are giving the working classes ideas above their station. But Emanuel, struggling to connect with his new flock, finds himself drawn towards the more egalitarian style of the meeting house, leading to a schism between him and the Provst…
This is a much lighter novel than A Fortunate Man, written earlier in Pontoppidan’s career. The story consists of Emanuel’s awakening to the new ideas spreading as Denmark begins the slow transition from a traditional rural society to a more modern, industrialised one. Alongside this is the story of his love for a young peasant girl – a shocking crossing of class boundaries, which Pontoppidan uses to indicate the move towards a more egalitarian society.
As so often with Pontoppidan, it is his portrayal of the changes in society that interested me most, and he seems always to tie this into the various movements that gradually modernised the Lutheran church. My prior knowledge of Danish history and culture can be summed up as zero (though after my Pontoppidan immersion I’m beginning to feel like an expert… 😉 ), but he gives the strong impression that the church was the major force in Danish society in the mid-19th century, and that social change was often driven by lay movements which were not opposing religion itself but were challenging the elitism, wealth and power of the church hierarchy. Weaver Hansen’s lay movement isn’t part of the later Folk Church movement (shown in A Fortunate Man), but both movements fed into the gradual liberalisation of the mainstream church, and seem also to have laid the groundwork for what eventually became the modern social democracy of the nation. Pontoppidan also shows how, unlike Provst Tönneson, the higher church hierarchy guarded against possible schism by meeting the demands of the people for a more egalitarian church.
Where Per (from A Fortunate Man) is egotistical and indecisive, Emanuel is earnest and sincere. He never questions his faith, but does question how the church operates and whether its offer meets the needs of the people it is supposed to serve. Pontoppidan’s main characters often seem to have little existence beyond being vehicles for his portrayal of aspects of society, but Emanuel’s insistence on breaking class barriers for love makes him a more sympathetic character. As a story, I enjoyed Emanuel more, but it is a simpler book, with a tendency towards portraying the villages as a rural idyll. A Fortunate Man is the work of a more mature writer and thinker, bringing together themes he seems to have addressed throughout his career. I’ve enjoyed learning about Denmark through his writing, and will be glad if some enterprising publisher decides to translate more of his work. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Pastor Emanuel Hansted, newly qualified and earnest in his new role, is sent to serve as curate to Provst Tönneson in the village parishes of Veilby and Skibberup. The Provst – a title indicating a senior pastor, overseeing several parishes – lives a life of relative luxury in a grand house built by a rich predecessor. He is a strict adherent to the traditional wing of the Lutheran church, expecting obedience and much forelock-touching from the peasants under his authority. But a new movement is stirring in the land – a revivalist movement, led by lay preachers usually from the artisan class. The local meeting house in Skibberup is led by a weaver, Hansen, whom the Provst views as an ignorant upstart, a product of the new folk high schools which, in the Provst’s view, are giving the working classes ideas above their station. But Emanuel, struggling to connect with his new flock, finds himself drawn towards the more egalitarian style of the meeting house, leading to a schism between him and the Provst…
This is a much lighter novel than A Fortunate Man, written earlier in Pontoppidan’s career. The story consists of Emanuel’s awakening to the new ideas spreading as Denmark begins the slow transition from a traditional rural society to a more modern, industrialised one. Alongside this is the story of his love for a young peasant girl – a shocking crossing of class boundaries, which Pontoppidan uses to indicate the move towards a more egalitarian society.
As so often with Pontoppidan, it is his portrayal of the changes in society that interested me most, and he seems always to tie this into the various movements that gradually modernised the Lutheran church. My prior knowledge of Danish history and culture can be summed up as zero (though after my Pontoppidan immersion I’m beginning to feel like an expert… 😉 ), but he gives the strong impression that the church was the major force in Danish society in the mid-19th century, and that social change was often driven by lay movements which were not opposing religion itself but were challenging the elitism, wealth and power of the church hierarchy. Weaver Hansen’s lay movement isn’t part of the later Folk Church movement (shown in A Fortunate Man), but both movements fed into the gradual liberalisation of the mainstream church, and seem also to have laid the groundwork for what eventually became the modern social democracy of the nation. Pontoppidan also shows how, unlike Provst Tönneson, the higher church hierarchy guarded against possible schism by meeting the demands of the people for a more egalitarian church.
Where Per (from A Fortunate Man) is egotistical and indecisive, Emanuel is earnest and sincere. He never questions his faith, but does question how the church operates and whether its offer meets the needs of the people it is supposed to serve. Pontoppidan’s main characters often seem to have little existence beyond being vehicles for his portrayal of aspects of society, but Emanuel’s insistence on breaking class barriers for love makes him a more sympathetic character. As a story, I enjoyed Emanuel more, but it is a simpler book, with a tendency towards portraying the villages as a rural idyll. A Fortunate Man is the work of a more mature writer and thinker, bringing together themes he seems to have addressed throughout his career. I’ve enjoyed learning about Denmark through his writing, and will be glad if some enterprising publisher decides to translate more of his work. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
October 12, 2018
A very enjoyable read. The story of a young man from a privileged family becomes an assistant to a minister in a poor peasant community. The book I read was a reprint from Forgotten Books which is apparently bringing old out of print books back for the reading public to enjoy once more.
February 8, 2025
This early novel by Nobel Prize winner Pontoppidan is very naturalistic, but also not afraid to bring up social and religious issues in Denmark around the end of the 19th century. The prose is excellent, the story a bit predictable. It serves as a prelude to the more mature The Promised Land.
July 12, 2025
This is a story about the changes facing the Danish peasantry...religious, social, industrial. Written by a Nobel prize winner, the prose is lovely. The pace of the book, however, is a bit glacial.
September 6, 2016
It is a shorter novel about a minister who goes to a rural area to take over the parish. There are conflicts between the locals and the church, as well as Emanuel and the people and the church. There are the usual country vs city and educated vs uneducated conflicts in play, and Pontoppidian, being a former minister from the Danish sticks, promotes the simple pastoral life over the over blown superficial life in a city.
There is some incomplete conflict between being schooled and being unschooled (not about being smart versus dumb), and it's never played out as Pontoppidian has everyone go to school in some capacity and I think various revisions (and maybe some strange editing in the turn of the century translation) may have cut some of the full explanations out.
Emanuel is very happy in his place, growing as a man, as a minister and into what we presume is a simple land-tilling almost lay priest.
There is some incomplete conflict between being schooled and being unschooled (not about being smart versus dumb), and it's never played out as Pontoppidian has everyone go to school in some capacity and I think various revisions (and maybe some strange editing in the turn of the century translation) may have cut some of the full explanations out.
Emanuel is very happy in his place, growing as a man, as a minister and into what we presume is a simple land-tilling almost lay priest.
October 8, 2024
A bit of a snoozer, but glad I read it. My second from Pontoppidan, my first was Lucky Per (a masterpiece). Unfortunately, there are few translations of Pontoppidan's work and this is one of the few I was able to find. A quieter story following a wealthy young man who moves to the Danish countryside, falls in love with pastoral life, befriends the poor peasant community, and eventually challenges his parish to win over the people. The prose is impeccable, but unfortunately I wasn't attached to the characters much in this one.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews