This spring feeling is scarcely perceptible in his last book, "Jacob" (1890), which is written in anything but a hopeful mood. It is rather a protest against that optimism which in fiction we call poetic justice. The harsh and unsentimental logic of reality is emphasized with a ruthless disregard of rose-colored traditions.
From the pedagogic point of view, I have no doubt that "Jacob" would be classed as an immoral book. But the question of its morality is of less consequence than the question of its truth. The most modern literature, which is interpenetrated with the spirit of the age, has a way of asking dangerous questions—questions before which the reader, when he perceives their full scope, stands aghast. Our old idyllic faith in the goodness and wisdom of all mundane arrangements has undoubtedly received a shock. Our attitude toward the universe is changing with the change of its attitude toward us. What the thinking part of humanity is now largely engaged in doing is readjusting itself toward the world and the world toward it. Success is but adaptation to environment, and success is the supreme aim of the modern man. The authors who, by their fearless thinking and speaking, help us toward this readjustment should, in my opinion, whether we choose to accept their conclusions or not, be hailed as benefactors. It is in the ranks of these that Alexander Kielland has taken his place, and occupies a conspicuous position.
JONAS LIE
The last Norwegian novelist who is in the Parisian sense arrivé is Jonas Lie.[12] The Figaro has occupied itself with him of late; and before long, I venture to predict, London and New York will also have discovered him. English versions of a few of his earlier novels appeared, to be sure, twenty years ago—in very bad translations—and accordingly attracted no great attention. "The Visionary," which has recently been published in London, has had better luck, having been accorded a flattering reception. Of its popular success it is yet too early to speak. But even if Jonas Lie were not about to knock at our gates, I venture to say that I shall earn the gratitude of many a reader by making him acquainted with this rare, complex, and exceedingly modern spirit. For Jonas Lie is not (like so many of his brethren of the quill) a mere inoffensive gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is a forceful personality of bright perceptions and keen sensations, which has chosen to express itself through the medium of the novel. He dwells in a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon the world and its manifold concerns. In a score of novels of varying degrees of excellence he has given us vividly realized bits of the views which his windows command. But what lends their chief charm to these uncompromising specimens of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament on the author's part, which suffuses even the harshest narrative with a rosy glow of hope. Though, generally speaking, there is no very close kinship between him and the French realists, I am tempted to apply to him Zola's beautiful characterization of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed him at that exquisite point where reality ends and poetry begins." Before he had yet written a single book, except a volume of flamboyant verse, Björnson said of him in a public speech: "His friends know that he only has to plunge his landing-net down into himself in order to bring it up full."
[12] Pronounced Lee.
The man who, in anticipation of his achievements, impressed Björnson so deeply with his genius, was, however, by others, who felt themselves to be no less entitled to an opinion, regarded as an "original," not to say a fool. That he was decidedly queer, his biography by Arne Garborg amply testifies.
"Two souls, alas, abide within my breast,
The one forever strives against the other,"
says Faust; and Jonas Lie's life and literary activity are apparently, in a very real sense, the result of a similar warfare. There was, indeed, a good ancestral reason for the duality of his nature. His father, a judge of sterling ability and uprightness, was descended, but a few generations back, from sturdy, blond, Norwegian peasants; while his mother was of Finnish, or possibly Gypsy, descent. I remember well this black-eyed, eccentric little lady, with her queer ways, extraordinary costumes, and still more extraordinary conversation. It is from her Jonas Lie has inherited the fantastic strain in his blood, the strange, superstitious terrors, and the luxuriant wealth of color which he lavished upon his poems and his first novel, "The Visionary." From his paternal ancestors, who were for three generations judges and judicial functionaries, he has derived his good sense, his intense appreciation of detail, and his strong grip on reality. His career represents at its two poles a progression from the adventurous romanticism of his maternal heritage to the severe, wide-awake realism of the paternal—the emancipation of the Norseman from the Finn.