“"Bright, clear sky over a plain so wide that the rim of the heavens cut down on it around the entire horizon. . . . Bright, clear sky, to-day, to-morrow, and for all time to come"
The opening lines of Ole Rolvaag's 1927 story of Norwegian settlers who start a difficult new life in South Dakota is deceptively optimistic, because the the book is full of the paradoxes of the time. While the new land was beautiful and fertile, it could also be deadly. On the one hand there were acres of land to settle, so rich that wheat sprang from the earth, but on the other hand there were plagues of locusts, killer snowstorms, and isolation that drove more than one person to madness. I enjoyed this story, written in clear lovely prose, and am glad I didn't read it when I was younger. Reading it now, after I have traveled to the area, after I have seen the grasslands and an example of a sod house, and know something of my own family's story, it was a revelation. Stark, beautiful, and inspiring are all words that describe this tribute to emigrant settlers.”