Product Description

Vesaas conjures brilliantly from the somber north.""-TLS. Vesaas (1897-1970), shortlisted for the Nobel Prize on a number of occasions, was one of Norway's greatest modern writers. In this 1954 novel sixteen-year old Sissel and her young brother Olaf have been left minding their parents' farm for the night. But when a strange family descends upon them, lost, in a broken-down car, the children have to cope alone. Grete, who is in labor, is accompanied by her distraught husband, childish father-in-law, and a mysterious girl, Gudrun, who seems to have stepped right out of one of Oalf's dreams. Vesaas's novel is a beautifully rendered portrait of adolescent experience. But by the end of the spring night there has been not only a birth but a death in the house, and adolescence has vanished forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2203252 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-18
• Original language: Norwegian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Norwegian (translation)

About the Author
Author of The Ice Palace (published by Sun & Moon Press) and The Birds, Tarjei Vesaas is one of the most noted of Norwegian 20th century writers.

Customer Reviews

So good, so good
This is the book that can change your view of life. Two children, an accident... True life... One of the best books from Scandinavia ever...

Another one of the Vesaas' books that start nicely, but end up terribly bad
The book revolves around two youths being home alone one weekend, and all that happens to them in a single spring night. The beginning is so much like many other Vesaas-novels, in the good way, but then it takes a turn for the worse. It starts out like many of his books in a tale about young love, and this is where Vesaas is at his best. Then suddenly for some reason he starts adding all these very annoying and surrealistic items and happenings, and they only make the story one of utter despair and unhappy lives.

I appreciate that he tried to be very "deep" and philosophical, but this just doesn't work at all. I've read all his 35 books, but I can safely advice you to skip this one, because it is simply bad literature, and with the added horror of his occasional present humanist streak. Two thumbs down!

(I read a different edition)