Sjur Gabriel and Two Friends

The peasant farmer Sjur Gabriel struggles to make a living on a rocky and windswept smallholding in southwestern Norway, battling not only the elements but also his wife Oline's intermittent alcoholism. The family lives in grinding poverty with no prospects of a better life for their children, until the birth of a late son, little Gabriel, brings joy and hope into the lives of all. It is a precarious hope, however, to set against ever-threatening ruin. Two Friends takes up the story of the family with the focus on Sivert, the grandson of Sjur Gabriel and Oline, who escapes from the shame of his grandmother's public drunkenness by going to sea as a cabin boy. Strong and quick-witted, he soon thrives on board, as the ship sails all the way to Jamaica; but his desire to impress leads him into subterfuges which become increasingly difficult to conceal. These two short novels by the Norwegian novelist Amalie Skram, both published in 1887, are minutely-observed depictions of a vanished way of life, a naturalistic presentation of a family's battle with their environment and inherited weaknesses reminiscent of Zola.