Lucky Per
by Henrik Pontoppidan
UK postage is £2.95, or free for orders over £60.
Available
online
Available
in Bath
Available
in Edinburgh
Available to order
in Ely
Available to order
in St Andrews
Description
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.
Details
Lucky Per
by Henrik Pontoppidan, Garth Risk Hallberg and Naomi Lebowitz
ISBN
9781841593906
Publisher
Everyman
Binding
Hardback
Publication date
March 7, 2019
Dimensions
21.1cm x 13.1cm x 3.5cm