“The young novel in the States is the freshest and most original in the world, a source of renewal and an example for imitation to Europe”

In a recent post, I examined the influence of Henry Longfellow’s works in Scandinavia [see post]. This is the third post in a series of Hemingway’s influence in Europe. For this blog, I will examine the influence of Ernest Hemingway in Scandinavia, one century later, through the essay “Hemingway in Norway” by Sigmund Skard!

Hemingway’s strong Norwegian impact is somehow unexpected. The little nation of 3.5 million inhabitants had seen no war since 1814 (this essay was published in 1965). In the World War of 1914-1918, Norway maintained a profitable neutrality, at the safe edge of world catastrophe. As the European countries were exploring American authors who were “intellectual and academic”, Norwegian literature was marked by realistic fiction and lyrical poetry based on a literary tradition of religious, humanitarian, and social responsibility (Skard,128). It was felt by most readers to be relevant and close to life. However, even though Norway did not participate in the First World War, the country experienced a recession and unemployment.

This created a mood of despair in the youth of Norway which then created a movement of radicals, most of them communists of the Trotskyite type. They were internationally minded, sharing the idealism of their contemporaries abroad. They felt that the traditional Norwegian ‘reformism’ was old-fashioned and tied to the past.  [ Skard does not mention this in his essay, but I wonder how much of this unrest in the youth movement had to do with the abstaining from involvement in the World War, as many countries, including the United States, were sacrificing the lives of their youth for this war. I am not a historian, so I don’t even know which side the Norwegians would fight on].

Skard points out that Norwegian writers in the previous century were internationally minded, sharing the anguished idealism of their contemporaries abroad. This feeling intensified during the 1930’s by the growth of the totalitarian political systems. Literature at this time, in Norway, felt to be bourgeois, lacking in sophistication, and unconscious of post-war modernism. In this conflict, the United States came to play in an unusual way as Norway felt closer to America through their shipping agreements and sense of democratic fellowship (129).

Norway began to publish translations of American Literature in the 1930’s as Knut Hamsun stated, “the young novel in the States is the freshest and most original in the world, a source of renewal and an example for imitation to Europe”(En forleggers erindringer, Oslo). American literature became entrenched in the Norwegian reading public. In 1938 statistics, the Oslo public lending libraries showed that the American authors were the majority and Hemingway was at the very center of this new interest.

Sigurd Hoel, a recognized intellectual leader, vividly described the impression of Hemingway, “The Sun Also Rises made me calm and troubled at the same time. It responded to a vague longing; I had not realized that it existed before, and even now I have no words for it”(131). Hoel persuaded Harald Grieg, a publisher, to buy many of Hemingway’s short stories for a planned library of novels as the “Yellow Series”.

In 1951-53, Hemingway’s Collected Novels and Short Stories in pocket book form and, up to 1962, had sold around 270,000 copies. The most successful novel in Norway was A Farewell to Arms, selling more than 70,000 copies.

Quite important, however, is the continuous and effective propagation of the Hemingway legend in the magazines and illustrated press of Norway (as of this publication, 1965). Hemingway’s texts have since been included in anthologies and curricula for schools and universities.

As in all literary cultures, there are the critics who were irritated with Hemingway’s stories and found them “directly insulting, unbearable tedious with repetitious descriptions of surface detail”(134). They also felt that Hemingway was too wordy, loose in structure, and narrow interest in characters which showed the “shallow psychology of questionable relevance”(135). On the other hand, many of these critics saw the value in his works, according to Skard. From a Christian point of view, the Sun Also Rises  was praised in its honesty and courage showing “the moral beauty of being immoral”(Ronald Fangen, 135).

Hoel states that “Perhaps the novelty of his [Hemingway] form corresponds to something new in the reality of our time”(Janus, 2, 1934). Hemingway’s work was considered of : “serious honesty”, “chaste and sacred”, “simple purity”, and a completely new “eminently modern technique” (136).

According to Skard, Hemingway’s literary language burst upon European writing like an explosion with its deceptive simplicity. He was untouched by traditional expression, its abstraction, its decorative and bookish vocabulary and long-winded Latin syntax. “He built his effects on brief paratactic sentences, on dialogue phonetically transcribed, and on terse and concrete, pithy and precise verbs and nouns of popular origin”(145). Imagine being a translator for Hemingway and staying true to this unique language [a new challenge for me—to read Hemingway in French or German to observe the translator’s choices].

Hoel points out that the two styles, Norwegian dialects and Hemingway’s idiomatic language, come very close together. This comment was in response to the allegation that modern Norwegian literature is inferior to British writing because of a slavish submission to the Americans from which the British have now liberated themselves. “British authors, to their own detriment, have never learnt the writer’s discipline that is represented by Hemingway and they still need to learn from Norwegian writers who have”(147-148).

The impression of Hemingway the man and the struggle to understand his art has left an indelible mark on Norwegian writers.

Work Cited

Roger Asselineau. The Literary Reputation of Hemingway in Europe.  New York: University Press, 1965.