Kjartan Fløgstad - Dollar Road

Details
Hardback - Used

Rating
3.6/5 Goodreads

Synopsis
One of the most acclaimed Scandinavian novels of the past decade, Kjartan Fløgstad's Dollar Road addresses the political and social forces that have shaped modern Norway. The novel spans a period of forty years-from the late 1930s to the late 1970s-and shows, through the experiences of a family from a small village, the transition of Norway from a predominantly rural, pastoral society to an industrialized welfare state.
Selmer Høysand embodies that transition. He leaves his family's small farm and finds work in a factory. Slowly the roots that bind him to his past are severed. The traditional val- ues of his family's rural existence, the close- ness of family life, the ties between man and his natural environment give way to a life ordered by the requirements of an international economy. Selmer's son Arnold, having known no other life, personifies the subjuga- tion of the individual even more completely. He quietly settles into the life prescribed for him, never challenging the accepted order. On the other hand, Rasmus, Arnold's cousin and the illegitimate son of Selmer's sister, forsakes life as a factory worker and seeks adventure on the sea, which takes him to Spain, South America, and finally the United States.
While Fløgstad displays an uncompromising drive to understand the changing nature of Norwegian society, Dollar Road is far more than a political novel. It is a celebration of hu- man life in all its variety, told in an exuberant and frequently humorous style. It is a novel of many textures, employing myth, irony, and social satire.