Lucky Per

by Henrik Pontoppidan

Social realism and fairy tale combine in Lucky Per, a bildungsroman about the ambitious son of a clergyman who rejects his faith and flees a restricted life in rural Jutland for Denmark's capital city. Per is a gifted young man who firmly believes that 'you had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fanged beast ... and capture and bind it'. He falls in with Copenhagen's Jewish community, and falls for Jakobe Salomon, a wealthy heiress, who is not only the strongest character in the book but among the great Jewish heroines of European literature.
Per becomes obsessed with a grand engineering scheme that he believes will both reshape Denmark's landscape and correct its minor position in the world. Eventually personal and his career ambitions alike come to grief. At the heart of Lucky Per lies the question of the relationship of 'luck' to 'happiness' (the Danish word in the title can have both meanings), a relationship which Per comes to view differently by the end of his life.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Nobel Prize, Danish, Denmark, Novels, Literature

664 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1917 "for his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." (Award shared with Karl Gjellerup.)

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per is a pastor’s son… He is unhappy in his parents’ house… He has nothing in common with his father and his siblings… Growing up he dreams to go away…

One pretty autumn evening, when the weekly passenger boat slowly steamed out through the endless bends of the fjords on the way to Copenhagen, Peter Andreas stood at the sternpost with a bag slung over his shoulder and looked back at the town that grew gradually darker against the pink evening sky. His departure from home had cost him no tears. Even his goodbyes to his mother were made without great emotion.

He makes a grandiose project… It is rejected… He tries to follow his heart in love… He isn’t determined enough… He is always in between… He is disappointed…

Bitterness was eating him up, making him as averse to company as to the dark, sickly notion still stirring in him of deliberately and consciously pursuing the chase…
In these days of bad luck, the same gloomy, irritable sense of loneliness came back that had oppressed him growing up in his childhood home, where, living with his parents and siblings, he had felt homeless, and now he felt himself a stray alien in conventional society.

He falls in love with a rich Jewish girl… By all possible means he conquers her reciprocal passion… He goes abroad to observe the world… Doing nothing he gradually becomes a man of idleness and indolence… He decides to break up with his sweetheart…

The thought had for some time been smoldering in him. His day-by-day development was leading him away from her. He realized how essentially different they were and how poorly Jakobe, with her peculiar, forbidding character, would be adapted to the free and easy exuberant life of pleasure that now was before him as the goal of a new Renaissance. With a joyous flare and the clang of cymbals, the troll attire could be buried in the earth at home.

He became prideful… He became arrogant… And his haughtiness and hubris turned into his own enemies… Now looking at his global project he sees that it is just a sandcastle… Whatever he attempts to do he remains an impractical half-baked idealist… A wild goose chase is his speciality…

With all his natural strength, he was a man without passion and without the instinct for self-preservation, or, more to the point, he possessed only the negative traits of passion – its cold, night side: defiance, selfishness, and obstinacy – not its stormy desire, its devouring longing, its hard and purifying, glowing flame.

There are always enough of those who wish to fight windmills.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a complete mystery to me why this book isn’t better known and why it hasn’t taken its place amongst the canon of great European novels. It wasn’t translated into English until 2010, and with that translation and now with a new one in 2018 under the title of A Fortunate Man perhaps it will gain a wider readership. It certainly deserves to. Its author Henrik Pontoppidan (1857-1943) was an acclaimed Danish author but is little known outside his native land – although in 1917 he was awarded, along with Karl Gjellerup (equally forgotten) the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his authentic description of present-day life in Denmark”. Lykke Per, or Lucky Per (the word lykke means both lucky and happy in Danish) is a Bildungsroman chronicling the life of Per Sidenius, a gifted young man, the descendant of a long line of clergymen, who rebels against the piety of his home, flees his restricted life in the Danish countryside and sets out to seek fame and fortune in Copenhagen as an engineer. He’s ambitious and self-confident but life doesn’t quite play out as he hopes. Set against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Denmark in an age of social and industrial unrest and the struggles between conservatives and progressives, Christians and atheists, the old and the new, it’s a panoramic portrait of a country and a people moving into the new century. Per wants to be part of that future. Complex and multi-layered, I found the novel a fascinating portrayal of Danish society in that era as well as a nuanced character study of Per himself. The people he meets are equally interesting, not least the remarkable Jakobe, one of his love interests, a vibrant and independent young Jewish woman, who, for me, was as important as Per himself in the narrative and can take her place among the great heroines of literature. The novel can rightly claim to be the “great Danish novel” and I hope it will become better known. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it wholeheartedly.

[Julie Rasmine Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For det vidste han nu, at han var født til på sit område at blive morgenvækkeren og banebryderen i dette dorske samfund af tykblodede præste- og degnesønner. Den lille Ivan havde ret. Der ventedes på ham. Netop på ham”.

Et mesterværk. Ganske enkelt❤️

Jeg har næsten ikke ord fine nok til at beskrive Henrik Pontoppidans Lykke-Per. Hans sans for sproget og menneskers åndsliv er som en behagelig mavepuster, der efterlader læseren fascineret og ordløs. Lykke-Per er en almengyldig fortælling om præstesønnen Per Sidenius, som i slutningen af det 19. århundrede rejser til København for studere til ingeniør og følge sin drøm om et nyt banebrydende kanalprojekt, der for alvor skal sætte Danmark på verdenskortet. Her forelsker han sig i den reserverede og jødiske rigmandsdatter Jakobe Salomon, og her følger vi så Per, når han skal forsøge at se, sejre og erobre. En rammende fortælling om en ung mand, der forsøger at frigøre sig fra barndommens religiøse skygger og blive til noget i kraft af sig selv. En verdenserobrer. En Lykke-Per. Det er videnskaben mod troen. Fredløs være den der trodser Herren. Lykken er idiotens formynder og heldet sorgens fader. Gør dig selv den tjeneste at læse romanen. Den er alle 800 sider værd, og med den nye udgave med moderne retstavning vænner du dig hurtigt til det gamle sprog. Romanen er som I nok ved blevet filmatiseret af Bille August med Esben Smed i hovedrollen som Per. Jeg skal se den på mandag og vender selvfølgelig tilbage med en anmeldelse. Men man må altså ikke snyde sig for værket her, bare fordi filmen kommer (senere også som mini-serie på TV2). De smukke dialoger er dog heldigvis blevet beholdt i filmen: “De skal være min, ikke sandt?” Åh, Per. Åh, Pontoppidan.

[Christina Stind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been with my boyfriend for more than 10 years. We met when we were in our late 20s and have often talked about, how I probably wouldn’t have liked him if we had met each other earlier.
This is how I feel about Lykke-Per, the protagonist.
He is not very like able, necessarily, for great parts of the book but he is so very young, with all the flaws this implies. He is not always very nice to the people around him, only if they can be if use to him. He is very selfish and mostly wish to promote himself and his ideas.
But actually, it doesn’t matter whether you like Per or not. He is so extremely real that it almost feels like reading a biography.
Pontoppidan’s masterpiece is more than 100 years old and is recognized as one of the best books in Danish literature.
It’s main character is born into a very religious family but doesn’t feel at home in it or in their version of Christianity and escapes, as soon as it is him possible. He strives to find meaning and happiness in his life and because of this, it is so very relevant for the reader of today.
And just so good. It details Per’s struggles throughout his life, the people who get caught up in this struggle for better or worse but also the society and the time, he lives in. There are some unpleasant ways of describing Jews and there is definitely different standards for men and women - but that is how it was, so nothing wrong with that being in the book.
Pontoppidan’s novel is just amazing. It is very long with its 800+ pages, but the pages just blow by while at the same time making you stop and think and ponder your own life, what you believe and how you find meaning.

[Hux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Andreas Sidenius (Per) is raised by a very religious mother and father (a pastor) and has several siblings. Per almost immediately rejects his father's worldview and deliberately isolates himself as an outsider from his family. When he is older, he moves to Copenhagen to become an engineer and continues to keep his family at arm's length. From this point on, Per has a series of love affairs and seems to fall in love with every woman he meets. Meanwhile he has great ambitions for new canal and harbour constructions which will make his name. He meets the Salomon family, progressives who will sponsor him, and falls in love, first with the younger daughter Nanny, before switching to the older daughter Jakobe. He cheats on her and continues flirting with other women, including Nanny, then later calls off the engagement (only after leaving her with child). After this he marries Inger and has three children and his life goes off the rails. These details aren't hugely important. The novel is about life, ambition, and (I think) the ever growing influence of liberalism in the west. That god shaped hole which no-one ever bothered to fill. 

It has to be said, Per is not a very likeable character. At no point did I fully understand his dislike of his own family. They're not exactly monsters or anything and yet he is determined to loathe them. Similarly, he falls in love with a woman right up until the moment... he meets another one. He's so capricious and self-absorbed that he cannot seem to help himself. Even when he does successfully ingratiate himself to people, he makes the encounters unnecessarily uncomfortable and awkward, his personality so guarded and superior that it's hard for anyone to like him. My favourite part of the book was his courtship of Jakobe when his behaviour and demeanour simultaneously make her feel repulsed yet attracted. When he has a goal, he comes to life but once he achieves it, he loses interest. At no point did I really sympathise with Per. I understood his ambition and desire to make an impact on the world, but I was bewildered by his general attitude and emotional despondency (his anti-social nature was either innate or created by his continuing desire to clash wit his father's religious worldview). He often comes across as dull and slightly morose which is an issue when you're the protagonist. Ultimately, he's a bit of a bore. I thought Jakobe was significantly more interesting and she does (thankfully) get her own arc separate from Per. That she's Jewish also plays its part in giving contrast to Per's simplistic atheism.

Pontoppidan appears to be strongly criticising the liberalism that was flourishing at the time, demonstrating that it was, by its very nature, likely to promote spiritual decay, avarice, and mercurial selfishness. Per is so utterly lost in this regard and gradually does that thing that most people do -- becomes more conservative (even embracing an aspect of his father's influence). Even 125 years ago, people were pointing out the flaws in a godless society obsessed with individualist priorities and a lack of consideration for the stabilising factors of consistency and structure (perhaps being an engineer was meant as a joke here). Per wants everything he sees but to no avail, and slowly becomes disillusioned with his own position until he recognises the wisdom (if not the truth) of the religious outlook he previously rejected but without ever ceasing to be an atheist. He appears to abandon his new family for fear of inflicting the same relationship onto his children that he had with his own father (which made little sense to me). It's all very tragic and heartbreaking. And yet I always saw these wounds as self-inflicted. Per is a fascinating character, very real, but ultimately a fool. He has allowed the idealism of his youth to blind him to the comfort offered by the contentment of tradition and norm. It's slightly annoying to witness. Especially when you consider that we still live like this today, still keep chasing individual (and transient) happiness at the expense of anything truly significant. That god shaped hole just keeps getting bigger. 

The ending is very sad. But what else could it be? The book is an absolute masterpiece, a profound, thoughtful, and realistic portrayal of the human condition and its inevitable lack of meaning. But as much as I recognise this, the fact remains there were large portions of the book that dragged, were overwritten, and were difficult to engage with or enjoy. Despite its obvious greatness, it never truly grabbed me. I liked it a lot but never quite fell in love. I kept waiting for each chapter to be the one to finally suck me in but it never quite happened. Nonetheless, I found it fascinating and impressive. The book explores ideas that are universally understood, and it reiterates the confusion and emptiness at the heart of being alive, of being human. I could explain this further but it's probably easier just to let Per tell you himself:

When we are young, we make immoderate demands on those powers that steer existence. We want them to reveal themselves to us. The mysterious veil under which we have to live offends us; we demand to be able to control and correct the great world-machinery. When we get a little older, in our impatience we cast our eye over mankind and its history to try to find, at last, a coherence in laws, in progressive development; in short, we seek a meaning to life, an aim for our struggles and suffering. But one day, we are stopped by a voice from the depths of our being, a ghostly voice that asks: "Who are you?" From then on, we hear no other question.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel the exact same way about Lucky Per as I do about War and Peace. Despite stumbling upon nuggets of brilliance here and there and enjoying exquisite depictions of times and customs long gone, I was never really swept off my feet. And just as with War and Peace, the amount of what felt like filler proved staggering. I realize that I lack both regional knowledge and academic training to wholly grasp everything Lucky Per has to offer: if a little late in the game, the translator’s afterword, a delicious and competent piece of writing, made that abundantly clear. But as a casual reader, I found this an uneven and generally underwhelming book. (Compared to, say, They Were Counted, by Miklós Bánffy, which targeted a similar historical period, also set its action in a foreign country, but successfully knocked the socks off me.)

In Lucky Per, a self-absorbed engineer wannabe, young Peter Andreas Sidenius, flees his oppressively religious family home in the Danish countryside for the more progressive and promising skies of Copenhagen, where he takes up the name "Per" to mark a clear break from his previous life. Without ever having proven his worth or even bothering to complete his studies, he expects great honors to come his way henceforth. Per shows abominable people skills, repeatedly reveals himself a horrible lover and breeds awkwardness and conflict pretty much everywhere he goes; simply put, Per is a jerk, really. One day, he dies, just as you’re developing a sliver of sympathy for him, and that delicious translator’s afterword reveals to you all the connections you’ve likely missed, hundreds and hundreds of pages later.

If you loved War and Peace, by all means, go for it. I did enjoy the running social commentary and the loss and questioning of faith, for what it’s worth, but Lucky Per is missing something for me.

[Елвира · Rating 5 out of 5]

Безкомпромисно страхотен роман.
Повече за пропедевтиката на умението да бъдеш (не)щастлив ще намерите на:
https://theblogforculture.wordpress.c...

[Bob Brinkmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second Danish novel I’ve read lately and, as in my other review, I’m going to bring a distinctly American literature perspective to what I have to say, American literature what I know best (at least in terms of literature). Anyway, Pontoppidan is certainly better known in Europe than in the US, despite having won the Nobel Prize in 1917 and despite having many of the most important European modernists as admirers.

Originally published in 1898, Lucky Per looks forward to the coming of literary modernism as well as the breakdown of traditional European life with its ensuing social disruption and confusion. The novel follows the life of Per, an aspiring civil engineer from the countryside who travels to Copenhagen with elaborate plans to re-route waterways and harness energy from the sea; he wants to transform Denmark into an import/export powerhouse. Not surprisingly things don’t go as planned, and most of the novel follows the ups and downs of Per’s efforts seeking success as he navigates through Danish society and deals with the roguish wheeler-dealers who control Denmark’s banking and mercantile industries. The novel also follows his tangled love life, most particularly that with Jakobe Salomon, an extraordinary woman who brings into the mix her own problems and desires and stands as a foil to Per. Fascinating here is that Jakobe is from a wealthy Jewish family, and her story adds a complexity and depth to the novel, especially as a novel of social realism that mines the many layers of Danish society, revealing the ugly anti-Semitism that, when not blatant, is always circulating just below the surface. Though not primarily her novel, Jakobe is a towering figure.

One might think early on that this is a fairy tale of sorts, as Per does seem to be incredibly lucky, landing on his feet after whatever setbacks he suffers. One thing he quickly learns, as he says, is that luck is not “something tumbling down like a lottery win. . . You had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fang beast, the fairy tale’s golden-brush boar, capture, and bind it—treasure for the fastest, strongest, and bravest.” That’s what drives Per.

Perhaps what makes Per so fascinating (and annoying) is that no matter what he does or achieves he’s never happy. He’s restless, always on the make, even when he seems to have all that he wants and needs. At one point he decides to go to America but never boards the ship, getting distracted once again. But America is probably where Per belongs, at least imaginatively, as he is a man who is always in motion, reminding one of Gertrude Stein’s observation that “it is something strictly American to conceive a space that is filled with moving.” That’s Per, all right—at least until late in the novel.

Without giving away too much of the novel’s ending (you might want to stop reading here), I will say that Per undergoes a striking transformation that allows him to settle down and ground himself, so that he can now pursue inner peace and meaning rather than fame, fortune, and love. Per pens a haunting observation in his diary, after observing that at some point in our life “our own true self becomes the Great Sphinx”: “Is what we call the soul merely a passing mood, a residue of our night’s sleep, or of our reading of the newspaper, something dependent on the barometer or the market readings? Or do we have as many souls in us as there are cards in the game of Cuckoo. Every time you shuffle the deck, a new face appears: a jester, a soldier, a night owl. I wonder, I wonder.” Finally, then, it’s probably best that Per didn’t make it to America, as the existential dilemmas with which he now wrestles are certainly not those of the American success story.

[Dax · Rating 5 out of 5]

While all novels are empathy machines, some are more so than others. Pontoppidan's 'Lucky Per' is one of the most challenging novels I have read in this sense. The characters are not unlikeable, but Pontoppidan does such a splendid job of laying out their thoughts and emotions that it is easy to become frustrated with them for their insecurities, foolhardiness, or self-centeredness. But all of those things are wrapped up in human nature.

Pontoppidan's primary areas of focus in this novel are spirituality in the age of industrial expansion and the psychological impacts of idealism, and in both areas he exceeds in bringing those clashes to light. It is eye-opening stuff. And while I was regularly angry with Per, Inger and Jakobe, I also appreciated them. An enriching novel, if also a sad one. 'Per' also has a lot of similarities to 'Stoner' and might be as good. If you liked that novel, you should read this one.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Det kan være svært at læse klassikere. Sproget er tit markant anderledes end i moderne romaner, og det er ikke lige til at skelne sin egen oplevelse fra en universel anerkendelse af bogen og dens forfatter. Måske særligt fordi store værker også ofte er indviklede og udfordrende at læse (altså ikke altid en fornøjelse i selve læseprocessen). I dette tilfælde er jeg dog ikke i tvivl: Lykke-Per er, til trods for et sprog fra en anden tid, rimelig at læse, men samtidig kompliceret nok til, at den åbner for utallige fortolkninger og dermed bliver ved med at være interessant hele vejen igennem. Ufatteligt nok er temaerne og personbeskrivelserne lige så aktuelle i dag som da den blev skrevet for over hundrede år siden. En fantastisk bog.

[Fernando Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Em 1917 partilhou com o seu compatriota Karl Adolph Gjellerup o Prémio Nobel da Literatura. De Pontopiddan, Thomas Mann disse que era "um poeta épico nato e um conservador que preservou para nós o grande estilo do romance.
Recomendo este livro a todos os que apreciam uma narrativa rica em nuances e que estejam interessados numa reflexão profunda sobre os dilemas e desafios da vida.

[Emil Outzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meget simpelt: Den bedste bog, jeg nogensinde har læst.

[Adam Nissen Feldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful by an extremely empathetic, razor sharp and witty writer. We have still to tackle many of the problems in our society and in ourselves that Per personifies. Highly recommended (English version available).

[Allan Schaufuss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Halvvejs er ikke fuldendt, men mere end godt på vej. Ikke siden ‘Forbrydelse og Straf’ har jeg midtvejs siddet med oplevelsen af at være igang med min nye yndlingsbog.

Lykke-Per antænder i mig tanker om, hvad man som menneske vil, hvorfor man vil dette og ikke det andet, og hvordan man ved, hvad man vil. Ikke mindst i lyset af, at man for ikke længe siden ville noget andet.

Lykke-Per er i mine øjne et pragtblad på en gren af formidabel litteratur, som formår at udforske og udfolde det, der lurer og ulmer netop under den menneskelige bevidste overflade, det, der syder og bobler lige akkurat udenfor menneskets erkendelses rækkevidde, som på forunderlig vis transformeres til ‘det, jeg vil’ og ‘det, jeg mener’ og ‘det, jeg vælger’.

Dernæst bruser, buldrer og bølger det snedigt, prøvende og virksomt, hvordan den enkeltes vundne vilje iscenesættes og søges virkeliggjort i virvaret af andres viljer.

Det er to vidt forskellige kunstarter, men ikke desmindre kunstarter begge to.

Kom an, del 2!!

“Jacta est alea!”

Anden del cementerer oplevelsen og forventningen fra første del som min nye yndlingsbog!

Hvis jeg skal koge min læseoplevelse af anden del ned til én overvejelse, så kunne det være hvorvidt det centrale i livet er oplevelsen eller tilrettelæggelsen af ens liv?

Det er naturligvis en vekselvirkning, men hvis man opfatter tilgangen til livet som en linje der 1) i den ene ende har den ekstreme, umiddelbare, tankeløse, impulsive, uovervejede og grænsende til den uansvarlige oplevelse af livet som det passerer forbi og hvor det måtte bringe én hen, og 2) i den anden ende den gennemtænkte, konstruerede, planlagte, målbare, indfrielsesfokuserede og fremadskuende livsorientering, hvor ville man så overvejende placere sig? Tæt på midten? Eller længere i hvilket retning?

Og i hvilken grad vil det være et aktivt, bevidst og selvstændigt valg, som individet selv kan tage æren for, snarere end defineret af sammensuriet af arv og miljø?

Lykke-Per er for mig en udforskning af forskellige placeringer på denne linje, hvor Per til forskellige tider hælder mere i den ene eller anden retning, med forskellige hændelser, følelser, tanker og valg som konsekvenser. Nok ikke ulig de fleste andre mennesker.

Efter denne overvejelse følger konklusionen, som på stærkeste vis skærer ind til benet på en livstilgang.

“...havde fundet sit naturlige voksested, hvor han alene ville kunne lære den højeste menneskelykke at kende: at blive sig sit eget selv fuldt og klart bevidst. Men da skolelæreren derefter spurgte ham, hvorledes man bar sig ad med at søge dette voksested, svarede han, at herom kunne det ene menneske ikke meddele det andet råd, her måtte enhver frygtløst give sig det selvudfoldelsens instinkt i vold, der var nedlagt i alt det skabte.”

Før min læsning havde jeg flygtigt ‘hørt’ at Per’s liv ender som en fiasko. Hvor det måske er rigtigt fra et resultatorienteret ydre samfundsperspektiv, oplever jeg, at hans liv ud fra hans egen indre logik, om “at blive sig sit eget selv fuldt og klart bevidst” ikke kan betegnes som andet end en succes. Men hvor Per lykkes som fuldt ud ansvarlig og tro mod sin egen individuelle integritet, kunne man måske anfægte, at han ikke tager tilstrækkeligt ansvar overfor de mennesker, han inddrager i sit liv og udøver stor indflydelse på. Har man et etisk ansvar for andres udfoldelsesmuligheder? Ikke desto mindre står de forladte taknemmelige tilbage, hvilket måske primært skyldes at de ender med at ‘forstå’ Pers indre logik og bevæggrunde.

Således står Per tilbage for mig som en helteskikkelse, der både lykkes og ender lykkelig. Han formår både at finde, tilrettelægge og udleve sin livsmening.

[Andrew]

So apparently this is the great Danish novel? I can see why – the parallels with other 19th Century novels in the psychological realist mode are obvious, complete with the plotline about how it’s dangerously woke to lust after a Jewess. And as in the other novels… these sorts of sensitive souls, life doesn’t go terribly well for them, does it? Julien Sorel, Madame Bovary, Count Pierre… and Lucky Per. It’s not the best of the bunch, but I’m glad this has gotten the attention in the Anglophone world, even in a limited sense, that it has. Give a copy to the self-styled coquette at the cocktail bar next weekend, even if you’ll almost certainly strike out anyway.

[Mette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like the star rating subtitle says so accurately: "It was ok".
Jakobe is worth at least one star for being one of the best written female characters in the part of classic Danish literature that I have read. I love that she gets her completely own arc, so that we can see the story from her viewpoint even when Per isn't there.

Which brings me to my main complaint: not only is Per an increasingly unlikable character (I've read books before where that didn't bother me) but he is also dull. I had no interest in his story whatsoever and the few sympathies I had for him vanished as the novel went on and on and he kept being awful to everyone around him (especially the women).



That being said, the writing was beautiful in this one and really impressed me. That's what drew me in to begin with. However, it's just not enough to make a 700+ page book engaging enough. In the end, I forced myself to listen to the audiobook even when I wasn't focusing on it, the equivalent to skimming pages I guess.

In the end, it's a classic and a good reflection of what Denmark was like in the 1800s... But it's not really holding up that much in my opinion.

[Tod Wodicka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now here is a book I almost gave up on numerous times over the first 100 or so pages; even setting it aside for a few weeks. Eventually I picked it up again, I don't know why. I like the cover. Turned out to be one the greatest novels I've read. Talk about accumulative effect. It's left a certain part of me reeling.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pontoppidan won the Nobel in 1917, and this book was only recently translated. Like Pontoppidan, Per lives in Jutland, Denmark. More than just a bildungsroman, it encompasses his life, dreams, and plans for the future of his country. Written in beautiful prose, this book explores religion and social justice as we follow the journeys of Lucky Per.

[Sanjana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece! Peak storytelling and character building! Highly recommended to everyone on my list.

[Steve]

Peter Andreas Sidenius, Per, is the son of a provincial Danish pastor, one of a long line of devout ancestors. As we learn from his life story that spans childhood to grave, Per is different. He becomes inspired with innovative, grand engineering ideas, and owns amorous inclinations, that all depart fundamentally from his family’s temperaments, which are calibrated against traditional, unbending, frugal Christian values. He further tests his roots with an engagement into a wealthy Jewish family in Copenhagen. Is Per lucky, then? Does his independent fortune shine?

Per cannot outrun fate, unfortunately. He feels the call to return and does just that. Herr Pontoppidan framed the shame of it all, this default to dour social conformity – therefore, if happiness is to be had, it must come from within those long-established boundaries. The questions regarding modernity, religion, and ethnicity were answered to Denmark’s detriment. The rigid, insular thinking, while time-tested, begged for a therapist’s couch. If these folk could only express their feelings openly perhaps the doors to enlightenment would swing wide – words too easily issued, however, for each major character in this drama suffered from severely repressed thoughts. Along this line, the plot offers up two tangential suicides. Even in America today, we easily observe plenty of archaic thinking, and in confounding scope and volume. The cultural environment Herr Pontoppidan described extends well beyond his intimate corner of late nineteenth century Jutland.

[Nene La Beet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ikke for første gang og næppe heller for sidste gang må jeg konkludere, at romaner bliver udnævnt til klassikere af en årsag. Og årsagen er i reglen, at de er helt igennem fremragende og modstår tidens tand. Således også Lykke-Per.

Pontoppidan havde det skarpeste blik for sin tid og for den danske folkesjæl. Ikke så få af de mange rige personkarakteristikker kunne snildt passe på nulevende personer.

Kritikken, der nu igen er dukket op, om at Pontoppidan var antisemit, gider jeg slet ikke høre på. Prøv at tjek aviser - uanset partifarve - fra den tid og se, at jødehadet gennemsyrede hele samfundet, så det nærmest var en vedtaget sandhed, at "en jøde er sådan-og-sådan" (noget negativt). Romanens anden hovedperson, Jakobe, er jo jødinde og nok romanens mest sympatiske person, så altså...

Lykke-Per selv - jeg kan ikke lide ham før til allerallersidst i romanen. Men det er ikke det samme, som at jeg ikke kan genkende mig selv i nogle af de indre monologer han har, hvor han retfærdiggør sine egne ikke særligt prisværdige handlinger. Det er noget af det allermest utrolige, Pontoppidan præsterer - at være helt ufiltreret inde i Pers hoved, mens han farer afsted og i lyntempo lægger sporene foran sig.

Jeg hørte den oplæst i E-Reolens lydbogsoplæser. Kun en virkeligt god roman kan modstå den ELENDIGE app. Ah men, seriøst, forlagene må være lykkelige over, at bibliotekernes app'en er så miserabel, så kun de allermest tålmodige (og/eller fattige) kan holde ud at bruge den. Man bliver jo nærmest tvunget over i en af betalingstjenesterne. Udover at den altid starter et tilfældigt sted, når man har trykket på pause, så findes der ingen information om romanen, ingen kapitel oversigt, intet. Og hvis man ønsker at bruge en sleeper-funktion, er man nødt til at bruge telefonens timer (tak til @mariebilde for det tip). Det er jo helt til grin!

Romanen var i øvrigt udmærket oplæst af Dan Schlosser.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what to make of this novel. Definitely interesting, but something was off. I had to put the book down and pick it up much later, so that may have interfered with my reading. It may just be that I was a shallow reader of this novel. If you read the translator's afterword, you will surely want to read " one of the greatest novels of European literature."
#LuckyPer2019

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucky Per is the story of Cain, that ancient man, cursed to wander for all time. There are figures throughout the book who represent these wanderings, those with whom Per identifies. Per himself is often described as wandering. The whole middle of the book chronicles his extensive travels, leaving him questioning where his true home is. He is constantly vacillating between “options,” be they economic, religious, or romantic, and his chronic indecision signifies his seemingly eternal state of indecision. Per is the story of every human being.

Per grows up as Peter Andreas, eventually leaving his religious family to establish himself in Copenhagen as Per, imagining himself as the “Modern Man,” upon whose shoulders modern society will rest, advance, and flourish. Jakobe, the brilliantly Nietzschean figure of the book, says this: “She had imagined that the heroes of the future would be made of finer and nobler stuff, through righteousness and beauty, bring about mankind’s liberation. But perhaps it was just [Per’s] coarse fists and broad shoulders that were needed” (171). One character confirms Jakobe’s thought to her: “I believe I have before me the prototype of the active man of the twentieth century” (216). Later in the novel, Per and Jakobe shoot an icon of Jesus Christ, claiming to usher in the new century. And yet, Pontoppidan, in the figure of Per, dismisses the naive hope of simple technological progress. Per’s eternal restlessness and depression cause him to fold into himself, collapsing everything around him. Time and time again, Per tragically self-sabotages, unable to actually deal with his meteoric success. In this way, one of the book's central questions is this: What do we do if we aren’t resilient enough to hold up our burgeoning, technological, modernizing nation? What do we do if we get everything we want?

A related question and one more fundamental, though, is the religious/spiritual question. Per is raised in a religious family, under a father whose religion Per experiences as soul-stifling and oppressive. Indeed, this version of Christianity rightfully succumbs to Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity: It places the significance and meaning of life in the next life such that this life is rendered meaningless. While Pontoppidan pushes back on this criticism (in the beauty of his father’s funeral), there is very little sense of goodness and beauty in the pietism of Per’s family. Later in the novel, however, Per experiences a more accommodating, liberal form of Christianity that Pontoppidan relentlessly satirizes in the form of Pastor Blomberg. This form of Christianity is merely humanism, which lacks the resources to understand suffering, evil, and depression. Interestingly, the only thing not satirized in the book is the quiet pietism of Per’s family (Christopher Beha pointed this out). Of course, Pontoppidan does not endorse conservative Lutheranism -- he was an atheist. But I think he respects the other-worldly religious element of this version of Christianity, one drastically different from the ever-optimistic, broad, ill-defined liberal Christianity of his day. In the end, Per rejects all forms of Christianity, ending in some vague, mystical respect for nature (the Afterword rightly calls this a kind of “natural theology”), symbolizing that which he failed to overcome, bested, humbled, and reduced by forces far greater than him. All of this undergirds the previous question: What do we do if our will is not strong enough to carry on the project of human civilization? What if there are, in the end, no spiritual/metaphysical/philosophical/humane resources that can sustain us? All that is left is “the pathetic reliance of the human will on that which is will-less” (594). All that is left is Nietzsche's amor fati. All the same, though, Per experiences some level of (human) redemption, signifying that he, in the end, found what he was looking for, indeed, what we are all looking for: happiness. In his death, Per finally finds himself, the one he always wanted to be. Just Per.

There is so much to say about this book. I could (and probably should) spend more time extolling Jakobe, the Nietzschean heroine of the novel. His descriptions of Copenhagen are simultaneously cosmic and personal. His prose is rich with the classic, 19th-century European style, reflecting the literary virtues of Realism and burgeoning Modernism. It reads so much like Dostoevsky, interested in the psychology of characters, wherein the diction and cadence begin to reflect a character's inner life. This is especially the case in the planetary Alps scene: “At that moment, a sigh seemed to go through nature. From the valley, a hollow boom sounded that, while growing quickly louder, was tossed back and forth between the mountain walls like a long-drawn-out infernal thunder” (259). Sentences like this contain the whole story of Lucky Per. It is a truly fantastic novel and deserves to be acclaimed alongside the literature of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Dickens, or Goethe. I am glad to have read this at the end of 2022. This book is a new favorite, sitting in my top 5 fiction books of all time.

[Annie Su · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!!! This is an amazing, sweeping book that follows the life of a man named Per Sidenius. What a huge undertaking of a book. Per grapples with questions of faith, what it means to live a good life, identity and self-actualization, all against the backdrop of Denmark's period of industrialization in the start of the 1900s. Pontoppidan eloquently shows us the inner canvas of Per's life and his long journey of self-discovery. He also characterizes the competing agrarian versus capitalist ideologies in Denmark at the time.

The themes of faith reminded me of Dostoevsky with similar ideals of a real faith being one that you actively reaffirm (without doubt, there cannot be faith). Pontoppidan won the Nobel Prize in 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature. It's truly a shame that he's not widely known among English readers. Giving 5 stars because I hope more people can read this book. <3

[Erich C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gradually it dawned on him what it was, in general, that crippled the power of human beings and made the world a big hospital for invalids. Some sought consolation in drink, others drowned out the 'inner voice' with childish boasting and wild games, a third kind, anesthetized, shut themselves up as in a snail's shell during a storm, while a fourth lost themselves in idle dreams of a future anarchistic brotherhood among men - so everyone, in general, belonged to one of these groups and struggled with ghosts, while life, ruddy-cheeked and smiling, invited them to the celebration around them.

'Humble your spirit' ... 'bitter regret' ... 'sin' ...'Grace.' How well he knew the lecture. The whole ghostly catechism repeated anew! And how typical it was - an indigenous 'Sidenian' characteristic - to use sickness and death as an occasion to try once more to scare him back into the fold of home and church - to use death itself as a recruiting officer for the solemn crowds of cross carriers.

It was again 'conscience' that had crept upon him, that indefinable, eerie something that suddenly revealed him in a magic mirror in which he saw himself as hateful and distorted.

My primary complaint against Christianity's hope of eternal life is that it robs this life of its deep seriousness and, with that, its beauty. When we imagine our existence here on earth as only a dress rehearsal for the real performance, what remains of life's festiveness?

Or there were individuals like Jorgen Arnfeld in whom an ancient savagery expressed itself as bloody religious fanaticism, who, with a voluptuous faith, set up secret pipes to carry sounds from the castle's cellar prison up to his room so that his soul could gloat over the wretched screams of witches and other diabolical rabble he had tortured to death in those dark pits and mud-filled caverns in the blessed name of the dear Lord Jesus Christ.

In his arguments, Pastor Fjaltring always came back to doubt as the presupposition of faith, the 'ever warm and fertile womb. As the day is born out of the night and, again, night from day, and as all life on earth comes out of that exchange between darkness and light, so is the religious life conditioned by an inevitable relationship of contrasts, a conflict that keeps the soul restless. A faith that doesn't constantly renew itself through doubt is dead, a broomstick, a crutch with whose help we are, perhaps, able for a time to forget our lameness, but that could never be a life-enhancing power.

The great happiness he had blindly sought was really great suffering, an incurable feeling of lack that Pastor Fjaltring so often had praised to him, calling it divine grace to the chosen.

When, at another time, the teacher pressed him to tell him how this 'highest happiness' feels, he answered, with some irony, not wanting to say much more: 'Ask your pastor.' Later, however, he elaborated that 'what it comes to is that each individual has to bring himself, as far as possible, into an independent and unmediated connection with things instead of taking them from the mouths of others as, for example, those do who live by handed down precepts and perspectives. A genuinely immediate relation to life is the essential prerequisite for reaping a glad harvest from any experience, from the poorest and even most painful as from the best. Whoever does not know that happiness, how it feels when a hitherto closed corner of the mental world or reality, itself, opens up, does not know what it means to live.'

[Checkie Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Pontoppidan creates a cast of vivid, interesting and complex characters, not least Per himself as we follow him throughout his life. An interesting take on a typical Bildungsroman, rather than striving to succeed in the artistic world as an artist, a writer or a poet, Per moved from the countryside to cosmopolitan Copenhagen with dreams of becoming an engineer. Through Per's encounters with a variety of vivid characters, Pontoppidan paints a detailed portrait of life in the Danish capital at the turn of the century, and the changing, increasingly industrial and mechanised world that Per lives in. Per's changing relationship with the Christian faith was a particularly interesting and valuable element of the novel that played out into an almost parable-like ending.

I particularly enjoyed reading the translator's note at the end of the Everyman edition for shedding light on how the novel fits in to the wider Danish literary canon, particularly with relation to the significance and influence of fairytales in Danish literature.

In my opinion this is an unjustly neglected novel that should be recognised as a real European classic. It also served as a reminder to me just how much I enjoy reading pre-twentieth century literature...when I get around to reading it...

[Molly Dektar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh no, I’m really upset now! Good book I read slowly and I’m sad it’s over.

[Caroline Garred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dansk verdensklasse! Pontoppidan skriver med en suveræn friskhed, der føles overraskende let. Historien om præstesønnen Per Sidenius’ liv rørte mig dybt. Særligt det sidste kapitel er hjerteskærende.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I’ve ever read. It’s amazing that it’s not so popular as some of the mostly known great novels, like War and Peace

[Michael Hanquiniouax · Rating 4 out of 5]

A life story in the same vein as 'Of Human Bondage' detailing a young man who rejects his family's Christianity and spends the rest of his life dealing with his strained relationship with his family and his worldview. Enormously accomplished work, epic, sweeping, etc. But might not necessarily be for everyone.

But if you like dense prose which explores big themes and has a foot in the encroaching cynicism of encroaching modernity, it's highly recommended.