Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun: A Review

 Growth of the Soil

A story about a near God-like figure. Isak is an illiterate, ugly Norweigan peasant who stakes his own plot of land and is a farmer. Along comes a hair-lipped Lapp who he takes for a wife and sprouts off several kids to help on the farm. We see the world change around Isak and Selanraa. Swedes come through and buy up land to mine. New people settle in the valley and bring with them new technologies. And there still is Isak. Sowing the soil. Wearing woolen clothes spun from his own sheep and leather boots made from his own cow hides.
Isak does not change. Rather it is the world around him that changes. He is of the old bread. There to gather the fruits that the land offers and not much more. Herrigud!

Hamsun

A peasant