Customer Reviews

Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie

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Rolvaag's classic is a treasure. I feel cheated that I didn't discover until I was 48 years old. On the other hand, a half a century of life's experience only enhances one's enjoyment of the book. Rolvaag's characters are unbelievably rich and psychologically deep: Beret, the troubled homesteader's wife, Pers Hansa, her resourceful and cunning husband, their solid neighbor Han Olsa and his able and gentle wife Sorrine, the ebullient and politically crafty Syvert, and his wife Kjersti, who longs for a child she will never have but adopts her little community instead. These core characters and many others give lessons in the mysteries of the Universe, not the least of which are the fine line between piety and insanity, the contradictory emotions that form the bond between a mother and child, and man's lust for a place of his own. Ole Rolvaag was quiet professor at St. Olaf's college with a typical emigrant's bio, but in that mind of his, wonderful and horrible tales raged that invested the flat prairies of the Dakota Territory with fearful storms, mischievous trolls, plagues of Biblical proportion and daily struggles of a man and a woman in conflict in a land that shows no mercy. I understand that this book is sometimes assigned as mandatory reading for high schoolers. In a way that's a shame; this is a book for grownups who know where the characters have been and are going.

O.E. Rolvaag's epic GIANTS IN THE EARTH is truly an American classic, especially for those of Norwegian or Scandinavian descent or those who've lived in the Great Plains. It seems to be a true description of the life the early settlers lived, the desperation of opressive freedom, and the claustrophobic effect of too much open space.

Per Hansa, the protagonist of our story, moves his family from a fishing village in Norway to the plains of the Dakota Territory in the last part of the 19th century. They are homesteaders, the people who settled the untamed prairie and bound themselves to it, sometimes at great personal cost.

Rolvaag brilliantly describes both the psychological effect of early prairie life and the Norwegian immigrant culture of the time. Being a new land, there were new challenges, new ideas, and new opportunities. In Per Hansa, Rolvaag invents a character that displays the passion and drive of the early settlers. His wife, Beret, like so many wives of the time, follows him with little idea of the hardships and, unfortunately, none of the psychological tools to deal with them. Their neighbors are wonderfully crafted: Tonesten, the whiner; Kjersti, his strong, capable, disrespectful wife; Hans Ola, the solid, dependable Scandinavian whose success is not so much from following his dreams as it is making no mistakes.

One comes to love the settlers even as they deal with squatters, locusts, sod houses, and the endless winter of the northern Plains. Midwestern Americans of Scandinavian descent will know that this is our story - our great-grandparents and great-great grandparents were contemporaries of Per Hansa and Beret.

Rolvaag should know this story - he himself was an immigrant and lived in Northfield, Minnesota for many years. The book was originally written in Norwegian and published in Norway, so in translation some idioms and cultural forms are hard to understand, but the translators and editors of the current text do a fine job with footnotes and introductory material.

This is the first in a trilogy of books about the Norwegian settlement of the Dakota Territory. The second book is titled, " Peder Victorious", and the third and last book is titled, "Their Fathers' God." The author, a Norwegian who emigrated to the United States in 1896 and eventually became a professor at St. Olaf's College, wrote it in Norwegian, but it is every bit as American as apple pie.

This is a beautifully written, lyrical book about the experiences of the early Norwegians who settled in the vast prairie of the Dakota Territory during the latter half of the nineteenth century. It speaks of their isolation and desolation, as well as of the hardships inherent in pioneering so far West with so little resources at hand with which to do so. Dependent solely upon their inner resources, hard work, ingenuity, and whatever goods they had managed to haul with them, these peasant, would-be-farmers from Norway would be the stuff of which this country was made. Their resilience in the face of relentless hardship, adversity, and deprivation is stunning, as is their belief in a better life.

The story focuses on a small group of Norwegians who traveled together from the same small fishing hamlet in Norway and formed a settlement. Pioneers, they paved the way for those who were yet to come. The author details their trials and tribulations, with the focal figure of this group being an individual by the name of Per Hansa, who arrived in the vast prairie of the Dakota territory with his wife, Beret, and their three children. Yet, despite these central characters, all that happens revolves around the land and the elements that sustain it and drain it from season to season.

It is Per Hansa, however, who, perhaps, best epitomizes the enterprising spirit of the first settlers to the Dakota Territory, while his wife, Beret, represents those whose coping mechanisms were less able to make a smooth transition to their new environs. Per Hansa, bursting with energy and enthusiasm, is a man who thinks out of the box and refuses to let the elements get the best of him. He is a natural leader upon whom the others rely, a symbol of the pioneering spirit that revolutionized this country and made it great.

Beret, on the other hand, symbolizes those who see a relentless uphill fight to try to make something out of seemingly nothing. She fails to see the beauty around her, seeing only the stillness, the isolation, and what she perceives as the interminable loneliness. Therein lies the heart of the dichotomy in their relationship, as Per Hansa sees his cup as half full, while Beret sees hers as half empty.

Yet, despite Per Hansa's joy in the land, there is an underlying bittersweet moroseness that permeates the book that serves to underscore the great sacrifice that these early pioneers had to make in order for their settlement of the Great Plains of the Dakota Territory to work. It is grounded in an understanding by the author of the Norwegian immigrant culture and experience. It is a book that is brimming with feeling and written by an author who had the soul of a poet. Those who have read and enjoyed the quartet of books written by Swedish author, Vilhelm Moberg, about the early Swedish settlers of Minnesota, will likewise enjoy this book, as will all those who love lyrically written historical fiction. I very much look forward to reading the remaining two books in this trilogy.

Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth will forever remain as of the truly epic works of American literature. A descendant of the Trottlander tribe of southern Norway myself, I grew up on a farm in midwest Minnesota and experienced the identical landscapes so vividly described in Rolvaag's masterpiece. Needless to say, I have always felt a profound connection to this work through how its rich pathetic fallacy largely mirrored my childhood fantasies and dreams.
Giants in the Earth is a novel about dichotomous relationships. And in a novel that depicts how relationships ultimately define their participants, the central figure in this important work is the land itself. It is interesting to note the order of effects the pastoral loneliness produces in its inhabitants. Beret, like many other non-natives living on the Great Plains, views the land as a lethal threat too pervasively gargantuan to overcome. Per on the other hand, views the land like so many of my father's generation: a fertile blessing that contains some of the most arable land on the entire planet. The attitudes of the novel's central characters towards their situation comes to reveal their strengths and weaknesses in a poignant, bittersweet saga as morose and sublime as the land itself. Compelling, tragic, humorous and underspoken, Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth reflects the feelings and goals of an entire generation of immigrants striven to succeed at all costs. Thankfully for us all, they did.

There are better-known stories of the homesteading experience, such as Willa Cather's "My Antonia" and Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series, but none of them hit as close to the truth as did O.E. Rolvaag in "Giants in the Earth."

It is translated into something of an epic style, somewhat like James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking series, but its subject matter almost demands such a style. Because it tells an epic story, of Per's struggles against the prairie, the harsh weather, and against the burden of his well-meaning wife, who lacks Per's inner resources to thrive, despite the forbidding conditions.

But of all the homesteading fiction, "Giants in the Earth" is the closest to the truth of any I have read, in capturing the beauty and violence of the prairie, and the sincere, honest, hard-working beauty of the pioneers who tamed it. Because the truth isn't the pretty pastels of the Little House books. The prairie homesteader had a bleak, harsh, spartan existence, especially before the sod was broken and the trees were planted. There are substantiated accounts of homesteaders and their young families dying out here--starving in the winters if the food carried over from the fall ran out, or freezing to death in blizzards when the snow covered the sodhouses and the fuel was used up. Waves of diphtheria, tuberculosis and influenza killed still more, sending the remnants of the broken families back East. (But when the truth isn't pretty, it is usually covered up.)

So in my opinion, this is a story about greatness, and how even the most apparently humble men can become truly great--daring and achieving things that should be impossible. And as in Per's story, the reward doesn't always recompense the labor when one attempts to wrest a living from the prairie; even 140 years later, many prairie towns still teeter on the brink of existence. It's a struggle that continues today, and there are still men like Per out here, who won't give in, no matter what is thrown at them. Rolvaag had it right; they are giants.

As for me, I'm a Johnny-come-lately, only a South Dakotan for 27 years. But I would not want to live anywhere else.

Kirk F. Sniff said "I understand that this book is sometimes assigned as mandatory reading for high schoolers. In a way that's a shame; this is a book for grownups who know where the characters have been and are going." I would have to disagree. I am a 16-year-old girl who has just finished her junior year. I read this book because I saw it on a list of recommended high school reading. And I absolutely loved it. Even I can appreciate the depth, the strength, and the life of the characters. O. E. Rolvaag gives a stirring account of the Norwegian midwest, but he also gives an in-depth perusal into the minds and hearts of the people who settled it. If anyone can enjoy this book, it's us high schoolers who read so many of the other classics that pale in comparison to this story. In summary, I loved this book and I recommend it to everyone, not just adults!

For years, my father repeatedly urged me to read this book about the pioneer life of Norwegian immigrants. Although my father is from Texas and has no Norwegian roots, he read this book in high school and it apparently made quite an impact upon him. Moreover, my great-grandmother on my mother's side immigrated from Norway around 1900 and this gives me some insight into her experience. The author does an outstanding job of conveying the mental as well as the physical struggles that pioneer families faced in the 1870's. I never contemplated that the isolation of pioneer life could be so difficult. The book was a quick read after the first 50 or so pages, and I am now moving on to Peder Victorious. I am glad I finally followed my father's advice.

Having grown up on the prairie, I have always found the tales of pioneer life absolutely intriguing. Both sides of my family come from pioneer roots and stories such as "Giants in the Earth" never fail to move me.

This novel was particularly wonderful. I wasn't sure what to expect when I began to read "Giants in the Earth." Having never read Rolvaag I was a little nervous, but it has turned out to be an experience that has helped to guide my course of studies over the past year.

The character development is extraordinary. One can't help but feel an intimate attraction to the characters and Rolvaag's dramatic portrayal of their lifestyle can't help but inspire empathy in readers.

The characters each inspire different emotions - Per Hansa: Pride; Beret - Frustration!

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for an absolutely unbiased portrayal of pioneer life. It will inspire you.

A refreshingly stark view of pioneer life -- the hardships, fear and depression that one women experiences when her husband takes her from her Norwegian homeland and moves her steadily westward across the northern plains. This novel is gothic in dimensions -- the physical landscape becomes the characters' mental landscape -- the vast expanse of snow in winter and grass in summer become a metaphor for boredom and isolation. And yet, Rolvaag's work does not devolve into a catalogue of mental horrors, even while we watch the protagonists slowly fall apart. His book is fascinating and enthralling from start to finish. He writes of a lifestyle and of motivations unimaginable to the modern American, and yet, he writes of a time that was shockingly recent in the history of the Midwest

I read this book as a required reading in high school, back in the early 60s. I read it again because I remembered how I was taken by it back then. This time it was even better. It brought me into the lives of the people that gave up so much to better their world...and our current world. It tells about the good and bad times of those early Norwegian pioneers. It reminded me of just how much we take for granted today. I recommend it highly!