The BURIED Book Club discussion

Sigurd Hoel (December 14, 1890 - October 14, 1960) was a Norwegian author and publishing consultant, born in Nord-Odal. He debuted with the collection of short stories Veien vi gaar (The way we go) in 1922. His breakthrough came with Syndere i sommersol (Sinners in Summertime, 1927).

Veien til verdens ende (Road to the World's End, 1933) is a child's portrayal from a farm environment and is considered one of his key works, together with, among other things, the novel Møte ved Milepelen (Meeting at the Milestone, 1947). In this novel he both distances himself from Nazism and portrays the confrontation of war as a problem. The last novel, Trollringen (The Troll Circle, 1958), is also among his best-known works.

As the main consultant for Norwegian and translated literature for Gyldendal publishing, Hoel made an impression on a whole generation of Norwegian literature. From 1929-1959 Hoel was the editor of the publisher's "Gold Series", where he introduced a number of foreign authors, often with an astounding foresight for which works would remain. The series comprised 101 books -- among others, works from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Franz Kafka. Hoel wrote prefaces for all of the books, and the prefaces are collected in the books 50 gold (1939) and The last 51 gold (1959).

You know how you know someone is pretty damn buried? When you google their name on US Google you still get 98% of pages only in the writer's original language.

It appears that his major novels have been translated into English, and are all available for mostly reasonable prices (Troll Circle goes a bit higher than the others).

The Troll Circle
The Road to the World's End
Sinners In Summertime
A Fortnight Before the Frost
Meeting at the Milestone
One Day in October is not in the GR database, but appears to have been translated and published by Coward, McCann in 1932

I've got a copy of Meeting at the Milestone - I picked it up used because it was published by Green Integer, and that's how became familiar with the author - which I plan on reading later this month, or maybe February.

I finished reading Meeting at the Milestone a little while ago - my review of it is here.

The short of it: it's a great work of post-world-war-ii fiction, looking at the occupation of Norway, and attempting to wrestle with the motivations of those Norwegians who turned Nazi during the occupation - as seen through the eyes of someone who is fighting back as a member of the resistance.

It doesn't do anything fancy - there are no experimental elements to the book, not distinctly modern twists - but it's great nonetheless. Hoel was, as I mention in my review, an actual member of the Norwegian resistance - I think that alone makes this a necessary read, and an important one.

I read A Fortnight Before the Frost last night: my review of it is here.

It's odd, as I hadn't gone back to look at what I had said about Meeting at the Milestone, but I seem to have come up with the exact same conclusion on two different books:

"It doesn't do anything fancy - there are no experimental elements to the book, not distinctly modern twists - but it's great nonetheless."