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A review by rissaleighs
The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf
5.0
I didn't expect this book to be anything special. I actually stumbled upon it while researching some genealogy. One of my great great grandmothers had come to America in 1905 from the Värmland province in Sweden and the family line goes back there at least to the 1750s. This book is set in Värmland in the ....1830s or 40s maybe? And is supposedly recalling some of the local history and folklore. So I began to read it mainly for a glimpse into the lives of my ancestors. But I ended up being totally enthralled. This obscure old classic is a little unexpected in every way.
For one thing, Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize for Literature for it in 1909 and she was the first woman to ever be awarded it! --one of only 14 women, actually, to have received it in the 100+ years since its inception.
It reads like a loosely woven collection of vignettes. The title character, Gösta, isn't always present and the POV shifts around a lot. And most of the stories are a little larger than life, a little supernatural, the tone a little melodramatic. As it went on, Selma inserted herself from time to time as a little child who grew up hearing these tales, so we realize that we, too, are hearing these stories from the perspective of a child where a villain actually literally COULD be the devil, or a hunted bear could have articulate thoughts and feelings about things. There is, too, a run in with a wood nymph who MIGHT just be the product of one guy's insanity, but also might be real. For that reason, these stories kind of feel like they fit into the magical realism genre.
All in all, they come together to form a kind of lovely little story arc with themes of redemption and love. The setting is evocative--snowy forests, the metallic ring of the forge, a heroine racing over broken ice floes to try to save the day....Loved it!
Gösta can be kind of irritatingly unrealistic and "woe is me,", but it helps if you think of him as an enneagram 4.
For one thing, Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize for Literature for it in 1909 and she was the first woman to ever be awarded it! --one of only 14 women, actually, to have received it in the 100+ years since its inception.
It reads like a loosely woven collection of vignettes. The title character, Gösta, isn't always present and the POV shifts around a lot. And most of the stories are a little larger than life, a little supernatural, the tone a little melodramatic. As it went on, Selma inserted herself from time to time as a little child who grew up hearing these tales, so we realize that we, too, are hearing these stories from the perspective of a child where a villain actually literally COULD be the devil, or a hunted bear could have articulate thoughts and feelings about things. There is, too, a run in with a wood nymph who MIGHT just be the product of one guy's insanity, but also might be real. For that reason, these stories kind of feel like they fit into the magical realism genre.
All in all, they come together to form a kind of lovely little story arc with themes of redemption and love. The setting is evocative--snowy forests, the metallic ring of the forge, a heroine racing over broken ice floes to try to save the day....Loved it!
Gösta can be kind of irritatingly unrealistic and "woe is me,", but it helps if you think of him as an enneagram 4.