Norwegian-American Studies

11 Rolvaag's Lost Novel by Einar Haugen Of all that Ole Edvart Rolvaag wrote the least read work is surely the story on which he lavished the most time, his apprentice work titled "Nils og Astri." It exists in a neatly handwritten author's copy, presumably his last redaction of 1910, in the Norwegian-American Historical Association archives at St. Olaf College. The present author's recent survey of Rolvaag's life and work characterized it briefly, and there are fuller accounts in the monumental studies by Jorgenson and Solum, in English, and by Gvâle in Norwegian.1 Rolvaag began writing it while still a senior at St. Olaf College, in 1904-1905, less than ten years out of Norway. He dreamed of selling it to finance his first trip back home, but Aschehoug, which would later publish his world-famous novels in Norway , rejected it out of hand, and he had no better luck in later years with Norwegian- American publishers. By 1912 he had finally thrown it overboard and embarked on his true literary career with his first printed novel, Amerika-breve (Americaletters ), which enjoyed a modest success.2 "Nils og Astri" is written in copybooks with numbered pages: Part One in 232 pages, Part Two in 201 pages. There is reason to believe that it was completed in the year 1910, as the preface is dated July of that year. Part One was probably composed in his senior year at St. Olaf; its content bears the 209 210 Einar Haugen mark of Rolvaag's parochial school teaching during the summers of 1903 and 1904. Part Two gives the impression of being hastily written in order to round off the story. By this time he had come to realize that his publishing-house critics were right. In a letter to his friend Ole Farseth dated October 26, 1910, he wrote that Waldemar Ager's novel Kristus for Pilatus (Christ before Pilate) had set a standard for NorwegianAmerican literature that he had not yet equaled.3' Even so, this youthful novel has much to interest the student of Rolvaag's career. It reveals a great deal of his background in both life and letters, while at the same time pointing forward to themes that would be more successfully integrated into his later work. First of all there is his choice of setting: the entire story takes place in a rural South Dakota community such as the one Rolvaag had experienced during his first years in America. He did not choose to describe the Norwegian scene, as did many other immigrant writers, and as he would do in one later novel, Lœngselens baat (Boat of Longing, 1921). He calls the community "Greenfield." The name, like the one he chose in Amerika-breve and Paa glemte veie (On Forgotten Paths), is reminiscent of the Northfield in which his college was located. The name of his hero Nils would be used again in Lœngselens baat about a dreamer with musical talent. His last name, Haugen , would recur in Paa glemte veie for the pastor who is to become the heroine's husband. Nil's father Ole is of course named for the author himself, and he is in fact the spokesman for many of Rolvaag's ideas about the failings of the American environment and the importance of preserving the Norwegian heritage. His querulous criticism of society is unlike Rolvaag's more balanced temper, but Rolvaag may have felt a certain unpopularity and suspicion not unlike that which Ole and after him Nils have to endure from an uncomprehending environment, The heroine's name, Astri, may come from a well-known Norwegian folk song about love, called "Astri, mi Astri." The noble schoolteacher, later pastor, is called Aasmundsen , possibly suggested by the first name of Aasmund Vinje, a well-known poet. The villain, Per Ammandus Skogen , bears a first name much used in Rolvaag's family, that of Rolvaag's Lost Novel 211 his father and a brother, but his second name suggests something foreign, ironically a name that means "one who is to be loved," since the character in this story is just the opposite. The story...