Rølvaag & the question of roots

"After I read your letter, I put on my hat and coat and walked far out into the country to a lonely place.  I had to be alone. There I sat down and read your letter one more time. And then, finally, the dam broke, and I wept like a little boy who has had a whipping. It wasn’t very manly of me; but manliness would scarcely have given Mother back again. When I went home after a while, I felt as if a secret place in the innermost recesses of my heart had suddenly become locked and could never again be reopened. The worst of it was that in that inner room I had hidden everything that was beautiful and precious and worth preserving. At times I can hardly believe that Mother is really dead."

Losses and Gains -- 1901

"The Third Life of Per Smevik"

(Second of two or 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. This novel is written in the form of letters from a young fisherman newly arrived in the United States from Norway at the close of the Nineteenth Century to his father and his brother back in Norway. The book contains passages with thoughts that never before occurred to me in terms of belonging to a place and completely uprooting oneself from that place and moving on into an alien environment. Here are some of those passages:

"When we severed our ties with our Fatherland, we became not only strangers among strangers, but we were cut off from our own nation and became strangers to our own people. Our pulse no longer throbs in rhythm with the hearts of our own kindred. We have become strangers; strangers to those we left, and strangers to those we came to .... Let me repeat: We have become outsiders to the people we left, and we are also outsiders among the people to whom we came. Thus we have ceased to be a harmonious part of the greater whole; we have become something apart, something torn loose, without any organic connections either here in America or over in Norway. Our souls can no longer burn with genuine national enthusiasm. That uplifting and ennobling of the spirit which every true citizen experiences in a national crisis can never be felt by us. In short, we have become rootless. One of our most important nerves has been cut. We are alienated. This speech is perhaps unclear to some of you. Let me, therefore, ask a question or two: Have you ever felt that you are a real American? Do you feel that the American people are really your people? A small, a very small percentage of Norwegian-Americans seem to feel that way but I doubt that they really do, deep down in their hearts. This I know, most of us do not; we are simply unable to. As a result, we can never enter into the public life of this country to the degree that our education and intelligence give us the unquestionable right to. Well then, suppose we sold out and went back to Norway to live. Would we not feel at home then, we who are so Norwegian in all respects? No, herein lies the greatest tragedy of all. We would feel like strangers there too."

It probably should be easier to capture those words and identify with them and understand them fully if an individual has read the entire book up to that point, but, even having done so, I remain bothered by them and cannot make an orderly transition between myself and Rølvaag with them.

I do have certain principles I will not break or even bend, but, conversely, I always have been a bit of a mercenary and can surrender most of myself to the highest bidder. That tendency has created some complicated situations, and a few awkward relationships. In fact, I often have described myself as a chameleon, able to identify with any individual in any role .... but, I am not certain that "talent" has ever been put to a severe test.

Then, too, I have a tendency to "write" myself into some stories, which is to say to compare a book character's actions and reactions to what I believe/feel/think my own actions and reactions would be in the same circumstances. In this instance, I can neither agree nor disagree with the actions/thoughts of Per Smevik. I have tried moving to other countries, and in a matter of months have jumped aboard an aircraft and returned to America, usually for a variety of reasons (rationalizations?). However, had I lived around 1900 or earlier when travel was much more difficult and time consuming, I am not so sure what I would have done –- stayed there, in the country to which I had "moved," or returned "home." That is a question which never can be answered. Another installment, perhaps the final one, will appear in a few days.