Norwegian Sketches; 10

We invite you to join us for a whole weekend sketch. A program of music and commentary produced from materials provided by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Opening Today's program is a like composition a march titled The little drum major by your early Cromwell Johansson. Thank you. Woman.

I EVER. Live. Live. However.

They know agents symphonic band under the direction of Captain Jaco bereft of performing the little drum major by the early climber you're handsome. Our featured presentation today on the region's got shoes. There's a talk by vigorous IG the Norwegian lecturer at the University of Glasgow on the Life and Letters of the return to the Future was the titles to give you instead gave to the books he wrote about her escape from occupied Norway in 1940. It tells about her journey through Russia and via Japan to the United States. Her escape from the political system she hated to the democracy she believed in. She was ordered by the Norwegian military authorities to leave her home at least in eastern Norway. With her fame and influence abroad she could serve her country better

in exile and she did. American publishers and editors were fully aware of her position in the literary world and she could write her a piece for the occupied countries of Europe in the world's leading newspapers and magazines. But so you unsaid is first and foremost known to the world as they water of the historical novel Christain love and started which together with her next book The master of history can gain her the Nobel Prize in 1928. This Swedish Academy awarded her the prize they stated for her vivid and powerful descriptions of medieval life in the Nordic countries and says a critic these two novels particularly Christian love around started ranks eagerly and said with Tolstoy and Hardy with Thomas Mann and Marcel posed as one of the truly great

novelists of our time. When we think of Europe after the first world war they are under arrest and there's a huge movement their revolt against tradition and authority and the priority given to everything that was new and modern It seems strange that this author is should so completely isolate herself from the literary trends of her day and set herself the task of bringing the medieval age to life in people's minds. Her position was unique but how did she come to hold such a position. It was a case of an exceptionally precocious child growing up in a milieu or that offered her the right opportunities to develop her genius signon says Fowler was a famous archaeologist and he had dreamed and hoped that his daughter might continue his work when ill health put an end to his own career.

The great tragedy in sequence its childhood was the death of her father when she was only 11 years old. Her book The Longest years contains her childhood memories up to that age. What details about her father's long illness and his death and funeral is intensely moving. And I quote one paragraph. Ing will is the name she gave to herself. Her father's name was involved. They went to their cemetery every day during this first period. It snowed and there's no thought again. The paths are Maddy and the black trees hang with drops. The flowers on the gray were withered and nasty and deranged with rain. The ribbons were limp and sodden. The grinning mound of yellow clay showed through more and more. They went up there with their

wreath which had arrived the day after the funeral. It was from papa's best friend in Denmark. It was of laurel leaves without a single flower. That was fine. On the broader red and white ribbon where some ribbons and underneath in danish a few better will come after. Ng When you very well aware that came from it was the conclusion of the inscription on the trigger on the stone and it was your wife who had raised it to her husband. And suddenly she seemed to see all men dying and dying and they had gone on dying through all the thousands of years and among all the forgotten dead there had always been so who's lost their nearest and dearest thought irrepairable and of whom they said few better will come after.

And then they went on living in many ways. This passage is characteristic of Sigmund said as a writer. Her exceptional knowledge of historical details and her uncompromising realism are summed up in a wider understanding of the life and history of mankind and also in their later essay a book that was a turning point in my life. She tells us about her first encounter with the Icelandic family saga. Sure ignore saga the Samara when she was only 11. This strong realism of this august caught her imagination at once and as she had helped her father in his museum she was also familiar with amongst other things the white king Saud's and the jewelry which the women wore in the sagas. She saw

everything so vividly that it was almost painful. Sometimes she had to put the book down and cooed her face in the grass. Her intuitive understanding of a complicated character like Scott piercing was remarkable and she adds the little girl in their shady summer garden trembled with a premonition of the feelings that can make women link their destinies with those of gifted misfits or neurotics. It is not surprising that this girl was later to write the most intense and passionate love stories in Norwegian literature. But see Gideon said had a long way to go before she could write Christian love around started. She had to help her mother to provide for her two younger sisters and for 10 years she worked in an office. But she was always reading and writing at home at night. When her

mother once complained that cigarette did not get enough sleep she answered when I have to spend the whole day doing things that do not interest me because it's necessary. Surely I have a right to live my own life at night. And her mother who was an independent person herself agreed with her. Her years as a typist gave her a new experience. She saw the lonely and dreary existence of many young women who were struggling to earn their living in a cold and unfriendly world. And she wrote about them and their dream of happiness and years of longing in several of her first successful books. One of them or rather ironically called the happy age. And here a young woman speaks with a voice of see Gideon sit. I wanted to write about the town you know all these trivial

districts behind a nice facade where we're respectable dredge just leave. There were dirty streets and a worn paving stones small apartments and small shops. I should really love to write about the windows of such shops. Oh when I know how many tiny path etic longings outside shirt shops have sprinkled layered you over every penny worth of happiness bought in them. I could live and make use of all the worn out little words which we all let fall so carelessly. Words we use when we drop in on someone words that go with some sign of love. Words whispered in grief or in surprise are some small joy. I could write a book about you or about myself or about any of us Office mice. We carry on and find a job which allows us to live. We cannot live for it.

See Gideon said sympathy for these young women it was so great that she felt almost disloyal to them when she herself was newly and happily married. She made her future has been the painter a Season 5 star in her own and this steady year among artist friends in Italy was perhaps the only period of her life when she could feel completely carefree and happy. Siggy unset had three children in her marriage and so far star who was the warst also had children in his first marriage. She got to know fully the responsibilities of married life and motherhood and she had a great sorrow for seeing her only daughter become ill and remain mentary retarded until she died just before the last war. Life was not easy for Seger and sit

and she did not take it easily either. Her thoughts are sometimes one might say her brooding over life and death love and marriage and religion are reflected in her books and essays from this period. In 1919 Seeger didn't set a mood with her children too little hammered to get more peace to work. Her husband kept his studio in Oslo during the next three years. She wrote a three While humans are Kristin lover and started the bridal wreath. The mysteries of who and the cross. Her greatest works. Most people would agree. Little armor is beautiful is situated on the lake near Santa and it is the gateway to good grounds down the valley of valleys that leads up to the Dove remount and this area and the historic region of Tranda larg form the setting of the life of Christian love around startled

and the scenery stands out in all its beauty. The way sea Gideon's it describes it she knew and levered the Norwegian then scape. She could see feel hear and since every detail and the characters of her novels move around in the scenery quite naturally. The scenic descriptions are fully integrated in the dramatic action. Her impressive knowledge of history gave her the solid framework for her story as well as innumerable details of great accuracy but she left it to her cremated imagination to fill in the blank spots where nothing is known and recorded with her own story. Christine is not a historical figure but some of her ancestors are. And the main events in the book might well have happened even if they didn't they are historical experts

say. The action takes place in the first half of the fourteenth century the period which saw the beginning of the decline of Norway's great medieval age. This period It's week three and defeat and made an early appeal to both the historian and novelist in her. Literary critics have pointed out that Gideon said has little or no style and that is true in a way she's not interested in a special artistic style or a new experiments in literary composition. She tells her story in her own natural manner and Temple. It may be slow and massive at times but it serves her purpose as she moves from one highly dramatic scene to another. She did however at depth in Medieval India which blends very well with her narrative style in the

original text in Norwegian but which unfortunately tends to stand out rather awkwardly in the English translation. Some critics also held the view that Cigna said projected modern psychology into her medieval characters. But she has given her answer to that in an earlier book manners and customs are always changing greatly as times pass and people's beliefs are altered and they think differently about many things. But the human heart alters not a whit through all the days. And her knowledge of the human heart was great again and again the reader can go back to Christine now that I'm started and feel quite overwhelmed by all that Syrians it knew about life and human character in her study of the Middle Ages and the family saga US

citizens it specially brought out the beneficial influence of the church on the pagan world and in her contemporary world which she in many ways came to consider as neo pagan. She felt strongly drawn to the Catholic Church in 1925 she became a convert to Rome. Her marriage to the previously divorced Smar stabbers dissolved but the full reason which caused her to take this step. We do not really know. She has said very little about it. Her Catholic faith permeates her writing from now on more separately in her novels more militant Lee in her many and interesting essays. She once said I usually write articles when I am angry. And sometimes her bad temper can be really unpleasant. It is her stories and novels that move us and her honesty in

trying to give an answer to the problems of life as she depicts a limb in her character from a Christian point of view. There is no essential difference between the leading motives in her medieval novels and those in her novels of contemporary life. Forced to get inside herself. Life still had sufferings in store in 1940 when she became a refugee. Her eldest son was killed in the war but during the years in America she wrote what is perhaps her most good humored and harmonious book Happy Days in Norway full of happy memories from the years that Leila her move when her children were young. When she returned to Norway. She was honored by being in awarded by King her call the highest no weeds in decoration the Grand Cross

of the order of Santa would laugh but she felt tired and old after those strenuous years in exile and unable to write a continuation of the book Madame Dorothea again a historical novel which she had published in 1939. In this book she turned to the eighteenth century in Norway. And we might well have seen her making this period her special field as well. Had she been allowed to go on that as a historical novel Madame Gautier remains it are so. See Gideon said died in 1949. Her place in the world of literature has been defined by the American critic Alaric Gustafsson as follows. Certainly see Gideon said stands among the great novelists of all time among living novelists one is prone to

rancor next to Thomas Mann. In most Scandinavian novelists she has no peer in among women novelists. She probably stands alone. When this is a thing of the churchyard there Seager dunes it is buried. One becomes strangely aware of the greatness and the loneliness of her life. The little brown the wooden church at missed nearly hammer is surrounded by silver birches and pine trees where three iron crosses mark the graves. See Gideon Sid and the two children she lost. In addition to the names of the crosses bear a personal inscription and on her are the words we also find in the last chapter of Christian love it all started when Kristin is dying. It is from Lucas chapter one worse 38

Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. That was a talk by the Norwegian lecturer at the University of Glasgow on the Life and Letters of sequencer. To conclude today's programme of Norwegian sketches another musical selection a bargain overture and titled What did I tell you. By spherical air the Norwegian broadcasting Orchestra conducted by or even there. To get. Bigger. The was. Saying.

The ex-SO.

But you and through. Me.

And. In a hundred. One thousand eight. Hundred. Thank.

The Norwegian broadcasting Orchestra under the direction of Ivan Basso performing a Bergen overture. What did I tell you guys. That again. Concluding this programme of Norwegians get use. To get. This programme was prepared at the University of Michigan by Marianne Woodson technical supervision by Robert Burke. This is broadly join us again next week. To go. This is an mi iar the

national educational radio network. Began.