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Summary: A very loved book from my highschool years
Review: I think this was the first book that made me realize that great literature could be very compelling and fascinating while being enjoyable.Forty four years later this book often comes to my mind as I remember having to do a novel analysis on it in the 10th grade. We were required to analyze it in great depth and the universal lessons I learned from that book that I carried on into life in "the real world"I thank my english teacher for introducing me to this novel and the lessons I learned from it.
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Summary: The BEST book I ever read !
Review: I was completely drawn into this novel and the characters. Rolvaag is able to share a deep understanding of the psychology of the Hansa family as well as the intimate details of their difficult daily lives as they toil to establish their new homestead. The characters have stayed within my heart for many years. I also highly recommend Peder Victorious, the sequel.
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Summary: My Mom's Favorite Book
Review: It's true that I've never read this book and almost certainly never will, but it's also true that this was my mother's favorite book when she was a girl and my mother has excellent taste in literature so, via her, I highly highly recommend Ole Edvart Rolvaag's immortal classic, "Giants in the Earth". Trust her, you'll love it.
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Summary: An immigrant classic
Review: O.E. Rolvaag's epic GIANTS IN THE EARTH is truly an American classic, especially for those of Norwegian or Scandinavian descent or those who've lived in the Great Plains. It seems to be a true description of the life the early settlers lived, the desperation of opressive freedom, and the claustrophobic effect of too much open space. Per Hansa, the protagonist of our story, moves his family from a fishing village in Norway to the plains of the Dakota Territory in the last part of the 19th century. They are homesteaders, the people who settled the untamed prairie and bound themselves to it, sometimes at great personal cost. Rolvaag brilliantly describes both the psychological effect of early prairie life and the Norwegian immigrant culture of the time. Being a new land, there were new challenges, new ideas, and new opportunities. In Per Hansa, Rolvaag invents a character that displays the passion and drive of the early settlers. His wife, Beret, like so many wives of the time, follows him with little idea of the hardships and, unfortunately, none of the psychological tools to deal with them. Their neighbors are wonderfully crafted: Tonesten, the whiner; Kjersti, his strong, capable, disrespectful wife; Hans Ola, the solid, dependable Scandinavian whose success is not so much from following his dreams as it is making no mistakes. One comes to love the settlers even as they deal with squatters, locusts, sod houses, and the endless winter of the northern Plains. Midwestern Americans of Scandinavian descent will know that this is our story - our great-grandparents and great-great grandparents were contemporaries of Per Hansa and Beret. Rolvaag should know this story - he himself was an immigrant and lived in Northfield, Minnesota for many years. The book was originally written in Norwegian and published in Norway, so in translation some idioms and cultural forms are hard to understand, but the translators and editors of the current text do a fine job with footnotes and introductory material.
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Summary: An immigrant classic
Review: O.E. Rolvaag's epic GIANTS IN THE EARTH is truly an American classic, especially for those of Norwegian or Scandinavian descent or those who've lived in the Great Plains. It seems to be a true description of the life the early settlers lived, the desperation of opressive freedom, and the claustrophobic effect of too much open space. Per Hansa, the protagonist of our story, moves his family from a fishing village in Norway to the plains of the Dakota Territory in the last part of the 19th century. They are homesteaders, the people who settled the untamed prairie and bound themselves to it, sometimes at great personal cost. Rolvaag brilliantly describes both the psychological effect of early prairie life and the Norwegian immigrant culture of the time. Being a new land, there were new challenges, new ideas, and new opportunities. In Per Hansa, Rolvaag invents a character that displays the passion and drive of the early settlers. His wife, Beret, like so many wives of the time, follows him with little idea of the hardships and, unfortunately, none of the psychological tools to deal with them. Their neighbors are wonderfully crafted: Tonesten, the whiner; Kjersti, his strong, capable, disrespectful wife; Hans Ola, the solid, dependable Scandinavian whose success is not so much from following his dreams as it is making no mistakes. One comes to love the settlers even as they deal with squatters, locusts, sod houses, and the endless winter of the northern Plains. Midwestern Americans of Scandinavian descent will know that this is our story - our great-grandparents and great-great grandparents were contemporaries of Per Hansa and Beret. Rolvaag should know this story - he himself was an immigrant and lived in Northfield, Minnesota for many years. The book was originally written in Norwegian and published in Norway, so in translation some idioms and cultural forms are hard to understand, but the translators and editors of the current text do a fine job with footnotes and introductory material.
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Summary: The wonders of Rolvaage
Review: O.E. Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth is the facinating tale of Norweigan immigrents traveling by caravan to the Dakotas. They have come along way, starting in Norway, moving to Quebec, then onto Fillmore County Minisota and now to the Dakota territory.
This book illustrates the hearships and troubles of settling in the west during the 1870's. It also gives an accurate dipiction of how men and women react diferently to this great move.
This story is full of good life lessons and colorful charactures. This book is a challenging read. The charactures names are somewhat the same initialy making it a bit hard to follow.
It was also hard to keep up with some of the events and main points. But towards the middle of the book you get a good grasp on just who the charactures are. You almost fall in love with them, additionaly the pace of the plot increases.
It took alot of re-reading to be able to grasp the progress of the plot. The begining is extremly boring and dull, but it does get much better.
This book is for an older audiance with a good knowledge of history. History buffs and people with a Norweigian decent would be most satisfied in reading this. Alot of time, patients and dedications is needed to get throught this book.
Rolvaags writing style is very diferent and a bit unusual. To truly understand and enjoy this book you must take care in reading it, a highlighter helps as well.
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Summary: Pioneer strife and hyperbole on the prairies of South Dakota
Review: Originally written in Norwegian, this novel is a self-proclaimed "saga of the prairie" that traces the Norwegian settlement of southeastern South Dakota in the latter part of the nineteenth century. What is unique about this novel is that it adheres to Norse literary traditions as it tells an inherently American story; and although the results are not always completely satisfactory, the novel offers an interesting reading experience. This combination of Norwegian-American influences makes for some interesting literary devices. Often nature is personified (the sun lives in a house), many of the male characters become combinations of John Wayne and Thor, and the women stereotypically dutiful, loyal, and good-hearted pioneers. One character breaks away from the stereotype. Beret, the wife of Pier Hansa (the consummate pioneer) does not fit the immigrant profile at all. She is constantly homesick, melancholy and afraid. Her first ipression of the prairie is that "there is no place to hide." During the time she spends in the sod house on their Dakota farm, her melancholy becomes chronic and she begins to withdraw from her family, has visions of her dead mother, and contemplates the sacrifice of her youngest child. Although she has a religious rebirth and regains her sanity in part, religion becomes an obsession with her and ultimately leads to the tragic conclusion of the novel. Rolvaag is interested in the psychology of the immigrant pioneer, and as long as his attention is centered on this aspect of his characters, the author is successful. However, when he becomes concerned with simply moving the narrative along, he is less successful and the novel becomes trite, almost comical in its hyberbolic story telling.
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Summary: Pioneer strife and hyperbole on the prairies of South Dakota
Review: Originally written in Norwegian, this novel is a self-proclaimed "saga of the prairie" that traces the Norwegian settlement of southeastern South Dakota in the latter part of the nineteenth century. What is unique about this novel is that it adheres to Norse literary traditions as it tells an inherently American story; and although the results are not always completely satisfactory, the novel offers an interesting reading experience. This combination of Norwegian-American influences makes for some interesting literary devices. Often nature is personified (the sun lives in a house), many of the male characters become combinations of John Wayne and Thor, and the women stereotypically dutiful, loyal, and good-hearted pioneers. One character breaks away from the stereotype. Beret, the wife of Pier Hansa (the consummate pioneer) does not fit the immigrant profile at all. She is constantly homesick, melancholy and afraid. Her first ipression of the prairie is that "there is no place to hide." During the time she spends in the sod house on their Dakota farm, her melancholy becomes chronic and she begins to withdraw from her family, has visions of her dead mother, and contemplates the sacrifice of her youngest child. Although she has a religious rebirth and regains her sanity in part, religion becomes an obsession with her and ultimately leads to the tragic conclusion of the novel. Rolvaag is interested in the psychology of the immigrant pioneer, and as long as his attention is centered on this aspect of his characters, the author is successful. However, when he becomes concerned with simply moving the narrative along, he is less successful and the novel becomes trite, almost comical in its hyberbolic story telling.
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Summary: Our forefathers and mothers were indeed brave.
Review: Per Hansa,the Nordic and absoultley opptomistic main figure has the strength in his heart to help all in the settlement except for his wife Beret. Beret too far from her Norway has nothing to look at but the big sky. No doubt out of her element. She is tormented even by looking outside at the vast landscape. Written in Norwegian and translated into English I have learned that this Norwegian story writing tradiition has alot to teach writers who write from the heart. The text is so mature and inspiring. I always like a strong ending and I'd say next to Invisable Man, by Ralph Ellison this is as extraordinary. Read Giants in the Earth even if you never intended to. You should not miss this tale of bravery on the prarie frontier.
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Summary: A Homesteader's Guide to Mysteries of the Universe
Review: Rolvaag's classic is a treasure. I feel cheated that I didn't discover until I was 48 years old. On the other hand, a half a century of life's experience only enhances one's enjoyment of the book. Rolvaag's characters are unbelievably rich and psychologically deep: Beret, the troubled homesteader's wife, Pers Hansa, her resourceful and cunning husband, their solid neighbor Han Olsa and his able and gentle wife Sorrine, the ebullient and politically crafty Syvert, and his wife Kjersti, who longs for a child she will never have but adopts her little community instead. These core characters and many others give lessons in the mysteries of the Universe, not the least of which are the fine line between piety and insanity, the contradictory emotions that form the bond between a mother and child, and man's lust for a place of his own. Ole Rolvaag was quiet professor at St. Olaf's college with a typical emigrant's bio, but in that mind of his, wonderful and horrible tales raged that invested the flat prairies of the Dakota Territory with fearful storms, mischievous trolls, plagues of Biblical proportion and daily struggles of a man and a woman in conflict in a land that shows no mercy. I understand that this book is sometimes assigned as mandatory reading for high schoolers. In a way that's a shame; this is a book for grownups who know where the characters have been and are going.
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