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In Norwegian, Længselens Baat (1921). This novel is the only one of Rølvaag’s novels in which a substantial portion of the action takes place in Norway. The Boat of Longing tells the story of a young immigrant’s life in Norway and in Minneapolis. The sections that take place in Norway are mystical and romantic, the sections that take place in urban America are harshly realistic. The novel emphasizes the relationship between art and cultural inheritance and points out that art does not easily thrive among the rootless and insecure. It is an indictment of an America that rejects and ignores the value and the very soul of the immigrant. It’s not strange that the story in this novel seems unfinished, for Rølvaag himself labeled it “Book One.” Unfortunately, he was never able to continue the story with a Book Two.
Susie Doheny, an Irish Catholic, and Peder Holm, a Norwegian Lutheran, fall in love and marry in South Dakota in the 1890s. Soon their marriage is tested by drought, depression, and family bickering. Susie believes they are being tested by their fathers' God. Peder blames Susie for the timidity of her beliefs; Susie fears Peder's pride and skepticism.
When political antagonism grows between the Norwegian and Irish immigrant communities, it threatens to split their marriage. Against a backdrop of hard times, crisscrossed by Populists, antimonopolists, and schemers, Rølvaag brings the struggle of immigrants into the twentieth century. In Giants in the Earth the Holm family strained to wrest a homestead from the land. In Peder Victorious the American-born children searched for a new national identity, often defying the traditions their parents fought to uphold. In Their Fathers' God, Rølvaag's most soul-searching novel, the first-generation Americans enter a world of ruthless competition in the midst of scarcity.
Susie Doheny, an Irish Catholic, and Peder Holm, a Norwegian Lutheran, fall in love and marry in South Dakota in the 1890s. Soon their marriage is tested by drought, depression, and family bickering. Susie believes they are being tested by their fathers' God. Peder blames Susie for the timidity of her beliefs; Susie fears Peder's pride and skepticism.
When political antagonism grows between the Norwegian and Irish immigrant communities, it threatens to split their marriage. Against a backdrop of hard times, crisscrossed by Populists, antimonopolists, and schemers, Rølvaag brings the struggle of immigrants into the twentieth century. In Giants in the Earth the Holm family strained to wrest a homestead from the land. In Peder Victorious the American-born children searched for a new national identity, often defying the traditions their parents fought to uphold. In Their Fathers' God, Rølvaag's most soul-searching novel, the first-generation Americans enter a world of ruthless competition in the midst of scarcity.