PELLE THE CONQUEROR by Martin Andersen...

PELLE THE CONQUEROR by Martin Andersen Nexo; Volume I: Childhood, translated by Steven T. Murray; Volume II: Apprenticeship, translated by Steven T. Murray & Tiina Nunnally (Fjord Press: $9.95, each). Available for the first time in a modern, readable translation, the first two novels in Nexo’s epic saga depict a young boy’s coming of age in turn-of-the-century Denmark. American readers who saw the Oscar-winning film based on the first book will enjoy exploring this vast, social-realist novel. As a child, Pelle emigrates with his aged father, Lasse, from Sweden to the Danish island of Bornholm, where they find work on the grim estate of Stone Farm. Nexo skillfully juxtaposes Pelle’s burgeoning strength with Lasse’s bitter acceptance of the impotence of old age. In his introduction, Nexo stated that “Pelle” “is supposed to be a book about the proletariat,” and the burden of symbolizing an entire class sometimes weighs heavily on the character. When Pelle explores the fields of Stone Farm and establishes a rambunctious friendship with the illegitimate son of the master, he appears as a real, credible boy. But when he frolics naked by the stream as the embodiment of pre-industrialization innocence, the narrative slogs to a halt. Nexo’s story takes on a grimmer, more Dickensian tone in the second novel, as Pelle tries to adapt to life in a provincial town. During his dreary years as a shoemaker’s apprentice, he witnesses the gritty evils of hunger, drink and urban poverty. But too much of the story is devoted to illustrating Nexo’s dictum: “Where the proletarian fights, it is always for fundamentals; he still remains a martyr to the most basic demands for justice.” Again and again, Pelle fights the village ruffians who mock his rustic attitudes and the well-to-do who snub him, until the novel begins to read like a social tract. In the forthcoming third and fourth volumes, Pelle travels to “the King’s Copenhagen,” which he helps to transform into “the people’s Copenhagen.”