Bibliograph

Lucky Per, Henrik Pontoppidan ; translated from the Danish by Naomi Lebowitz ; with an introduction by Garth Risk Hallberg

Type

Label

Lucky Per, Henrik Pontoppidan ; translated from the Danish by Naomi Lebowitz ; with an introduction by Garth Risk Hallberg

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Lucky Per

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Henrik Pontoppidan ; translated from the Danish by Naomi Lebowitz ; with an introduction by Garth Risk Hallberg

Series statement

Everyman's Library, 390

Summary

"A true neglected classic, this sweeping 1904 novel is a Modernist masterpiece and arguably "the great Danish novel"-- but is only newly available in English. Lucky Per is a bildungsroman about the ambitious son of a clergyman who rejects his faith and flees his restricted life in the Danish countryside for the capital city. Per is a gifted young man who arrives in Copenhagen believing that "you had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fanged beast. and capture and bind it." Per's love interest, a Jewish heiress, is both the strongest character in the book and one of the greatest Jewish heroines of European literature. Per becomes obsessed with a grand engineering scheme that he believes will reshape both Denmark's landscape and its minor place in the world; eventually, both his personal and his career ambitions come to grief. At its heart, the story revolves around the question of the relationship of "luck" to "happiness" (the Danish word in the title can have both meanings), a relationship Per comes to see differently by the end of his life"--, Provided by publisher

Classification