"It's a terribly difficult language to learn"

"But I'm beginning to see that I can't hold out for long in this life as a hired man. It is becoming more and more impossible. Not because the work is so hard; I could stand that and not grumble too much, but I have lost all interest in this kind of work. As long as it was new it was interesting, but after I had once learned it I could keep my thoughts on it no longer. They wandered off into other worlds. Therefore I have decided to try something else. I am going to attend a Norwegian-American academy this winter -- in order to learn English, if for no other reason. I will leave for school in a few months."

 

Education always has been important to immigrants, as illustrated in this photograph taken at a one-room, sod school house in Custer County South Dakota. The year the photograph was taken is not given, but evidently it was before the area residents were able to afford a wooden structure requiring the use of sod. It is fascinating to study the faces of the "schoolmarm" and her charges. Other than the clothing being worn, the individuals present might be those in a 21st Century school. Being the curious sort, I cannot help but wonder if these boys and girls had happy, healthy, productive lives.

 

Growing Unrest -- 1898

"The Third Life of Per Smevik"

 

(Third of three parts)

 

Some believe and would argue that everything begins at a tribal level, and that the first tier of tribalism is the family. I tend to agree with that position.

 

I recently completed reading, "The Third Life of Per Smevik," by Ole Edvart Rølvaag, also known by the pseudonym of Paal Mørck. The bottom line of any book, I think, is would one person recommend it to another individual. In the matter of Per Smevik, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Here are three examples of why.

 

Smevik (Rølvaag) is speaking about learning the English language: "I have gotten pretty good at English now, although I must admit that it goes more slowly than I had expected. It's a terribly difficult language to learn. The worst of it is, the words are spelled so differently from the way they are pronounced. You have to learn each word twice, both spelling and pronunciation, and that’s not so easy .... The English word 'honor,' for instance, is pronounced 'ahner' but it has to be spelled honor. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? But I don’t dare say anything about it or people will think I am dumb and don’t understand anything."

 

Later, Smevik (Rølvaag) is writing about a split in a church congregation which included a dispute between the church sexton and his wife: "One day as they were eating dinner -- they had had an especially lively debate at breakfast that morning -- Andreas suddenly began to heave the dishes at the wall, first the coffee cups, then the saucers, and then the cream pitcher. He didn't get any further than that in his berserk rage. For when the cream pitcher went, the Madam arose in all her dignity and power, grabbed the poker, and people swear it's the truth that she used it effectively, too .... This happened more than ten years ago, but those two old folks are still acting like idiots. Andreas subscribes to one church paper; Anna to the other. She supports one congregation; he the other. When he gave twenty dollars to his church, she forced him to hand over another twenty dollars which she conscientiously gave to her church. I know this is true ...."

 

Finally, when Smevik (Rølvaag) was a parochial school teacher, he was asked by a father to conduct a funeral service for the man's young son. Against his better judgment, he did: "When I found a Bible text I thought I could use, I asked the parents if the child had been baptized. 'Yes,' said the mother. 'No,' answered the father. Then a cold chill ran down my spine. I felt sick. How these two people could sit there with the dead child between them, and one of them lie, was more than I could comprehend .... Who lied about the child's baptism, I do not know. Presumably what the mother said was true. She may have had the child baptized without telling her husband. We can hope so, at least."

 

Time to go a-roaming with a few words: "The Boat of Longing," was Rølvaag's favorite book among those he wrote and my second favorite behind, "Giants in the Earth." Much of the story in The Boat is set in Minneapolis, and holding the book in one hand I was able to trace many of Rølvaag's footsteps and see places he described in the novel. The story relates the experiences of Nils Vaag, a young Norwegian immigrant who leaves behind the life of a fisherman in Nordland and emigrates to the New World in 1912. There -- in downtown Minneapolis -- he sweeps saloons while living in a boardinghouse called "Babel" for the many languages used by its residents. Actually, Babel was a hotel which still exists and, actually, Rølvaag lived and worked in downtown Minneapolis for a while.

 

Some have described The Boat as poetry in prose form. I would agree with that description.

 

It has been a number of years since I read, "Giants in the Earth," so recalling details and specifics from the story are entering the realm of shadows. Never-the-less, if anyone were to read only one of Rølvaag's tales, this novel would be the "king of the hill" and my first recommendation. Giants is the story of Norwegian settlers on the Dakota prairie. Central characters are Per Hansa, a natural pioneer who sees promise in the windswept plains, and his wife, Beret, who misses the ways of her homeland to the point loneliness overpowers the deeper reality of life lived on the American frontier. She eventually loses her sanity.

 

A man filled with blind ambition, perhaps, describes Per Hansa best. At the end of the novel, he ventures out into a blizzard on skis to find help for his dying friend, but he never quits thinking about taking more land and fulfilling his ambitions. Per Hansa stops to rest along the way and freezes to death. His body is found in the spring by a group of boys:

 

"To the boys, it looked as though the man were sitting there resting while he waited for better skiing .... His face was ashen and drawn. His eyes were set toward the west."

 

This seems like an appropriate place to end these commentaries about Ole Edvard Rølvaag and some of the stories he told ....