A NORWEGIAN NOVELIST.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 13

A NORWEGIAN NOVELIST.

OLAV DUUN, NOBEL PRIZEWINNER. (By a Norwegian Correspondent of the ''Observer.") This year's Nobel Prieo winner, the Norwegian novelist, Olav Dunn, is a typical representative of the new orientation in literature since the war, in which the influence of the pragmatism of William James, the ideas of Bergson, and the progress of science have combined to bring about a new valuation of traditional things; which preaches a more austere and simpler moral, and encourages a new hope of happiness between men based on sacrifice and the will to endure. Above all, the feeling of life as a mystery is revived.

Born in 1676, in Fosncs, Namdalen, near Trondhjera, Olav Duun lived the first twenty years of his life in that desolate and' weather-beaten valley. He was educated as a teacher for the elementary schools, and he still earns his livelihood as a teacher, now in the small fishing village, of Holmestrand, some eidity miles south of Oslo. The scene in all his books is his native valley, and he uses the local dialect in all his writings. In this respect he is typical of the younger generation o> Norwegian writers, who prefer to choose one small district of the country and depict it.

"The Juvikingerae."' Olav Duun iias chosen the Nanidalen, and he tells the life of that district from tho earliest times, its traditions and its characteristic men, their struggles, and their daily life. His intimate knowledge of that special race lends a tone to his writing which is unsurpassed in Norwegian literature, and when in J9lB he began publication of the great family saga, _ "The Juvikinger'no," for which he is now awarded the Nobel Psize, he at once attracted attention. His name is now well known throughout Norway. "The Juvikingorne" is a family ?Rg£ in seven parts. The first part, which also bears the name of the whole snga, appeared in 1018. followed l,v "Blind" in 1919. "The Great Wedding" in 1920. "Adventure" in 1021. "In Youth" in 1922. "In the Gale" in 102.% ,-md "Blind Anders" in 1020. His last hook, published veoentlv. also in a wav continues the family saga, and hears the name "Stream and Creek." Beginning with the first settlors in Namdalen, Duun follows the family through generations to our own age. The Life of the Valley. The saga of the first settlers is the shortest. In the first volume we learn how they leave the coast and go up into the valley. Wo learn how they tight and stand up against all sorts ot superstition, and how their strength, both physically and mentally, secures for them the position of the leading people in the valley. In the following books, generation after generation is depicted, strong men and' weak men, all of them the bearers and the slaves of the family tradition, some of them too weak to carry on the tradition, and therefore choosing death; others so strong that they themselves create new traditions Taken as a whole, "The Juvikingerne" is one of the great works in Norwegian literature, and it will in time take its place among the great works in the world's literature, by force of its epic strength, the sincerity of its descriptions, and its rich spirituality. The great authority on literature, Kristian Elster, says in an essay on "Tlie Juvikingerae" : "This work has a special beauty in the way in which the different persons in it are placed in relation to Nature. Duun is an unequalled depicter of Nature: he can lend life to a landscape, to wind and weather, to the breeze along the coast, to the sun dancing on small waves, to the autumn gales, to winter—everything is equally dear to him. and he intimately knows it all. But all tho changing mood of these pictures from Nature only serves him for the essential—the tale about men."