Growth of the Soil (Nobel Prize-winner) [B2179]

2008 PB printing of the 1920 classic of European literature, in nice clean condition. This is the novel by Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. It is the story of Isak, 'a worker of the land without respite' which sinks its roots into man's deepest myths about his struggle to cultivate the land and make it fertile. Rich in narrative incident, Hamsun's novel moves at its own steady pace - the pace of the growth of the crops, on which the characters' lives depend, and that of the passing seasons. His themes of the self and its perversion by society, and the fundamental human need to reconcile man with the natural world, speaks to us even more clearly now than when the book was first published.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "What a great storyteller Knut Hamsun is! Growth of the Soil is one of the better books I have read. There is plenty here of optimism and bleakness, deceit, crime and piety. The strange thing is that this book does not feel outdated or irrelevant today-which is what you might actually expect. There is something about the way Hamsun writes about the way human beings make use of, and are connected to nature-that makes it interesting even in our own time. How land should be used, how people pull one another in a more materialistic direction, mining for rare earth elements and metals-these are still highly relevant and contentious issues today."

"A central theme of the novel is that simple hard work and connection to the natural world bring success and satisfaction while trying to make it any other way brings stress and leaves one feeling discontented. I found this perspective to fit well with the relaxing steady pace of the novel."

"One of the best books I've read in my life. It has that strange quality that makes you still think about the book, about some passages or some episodes, months after you finished it."