Reason read: January 2024 botm Reading 1001. Author is winner of Nobel Prize for Literature, in fact she is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. This work was a collection of sagas, or folktales. I think sagas might be a common form of literature in the Scandinavian countries. Iceland is famous for their sagas. This one is Swedish. Gosta Berling is a defrock clergy. He got into drink and then he became a cavalier which sounds like a bunch of men who drink and carouse but in general mean no harm. The stories are interconnected and that is what makes it a novel but it really does have a plot. It may have symbols, motifs, etc, but no real plot, no rising action, etc. The land is a part of the story. The culture is interesting. I enjoyed listening to the reader on Librovox because he had that Scandinavian accent. Fund to hear the words but also funny when I heard him pronounce “fatigue” as fa-ta-gue. The whole book was read by the same reader. Something that doesn’t always happen with Librovox. It was a so so read for me. Took up way too much time. ( )

Dreadful. Author's name anagrams to "llama-free slog" and while I don't think there are any llamas in this book, I can't say for sure because I Did Not Finish. ( )

Selma Lagerlöf hat mit "Gösta Berling" eine literarische Liebeserklärung an Värmland, ihre Heimat geschaffen: Auf dem Gut Ekeby hausen in den 1820ern ehemalige Offiziere und verarmte Adelige und verbringen ihr Tagwerk mit allerlei kurzweiligen Vergnügungen. Um diese sogenannten Kavaliere und im besonderen um Gösta Berling, einen gefallenen Priester, drehen sich einzelne in losem Zusammenhang stehende Episoden.

Lagerlöfs naiver Erzählreigen bildet ein Kaleidoskop des schwedischen Landlebens in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wenngleich das Werk durchaus dramatische und ernste Themen, wie unglückliche Liebe, Charakterschwäche, Not, Tod und Intrigantentum behandelt, verbleibt ein der romatischen Erzählweise geschuldeter heiterer und unschuldiger Grundtenor.

"Gösta Berling" ist auch wegen der cleveren Verknüpfung von transzendenten Elementen und schwedsichen Volkssagen mit den realistischen Darstellungen des Landlebens und den beeindruckenden Landschaftsbeschreibungen lesenswert, wenngleich der Roman durchaus Längen aufzuweisen hat und in manchen Bereichen vorhersehbar und klischeebehaftet ist. ( )

Gösta Berlings saga är en roman från 1891 av Selma Lagerlöf, hennes debutroman. Handlingen utspelar sig i Värmland under 1820-talet, och rör sig i huvudsak kring den avsatte prästen och kavaljeren Gösta Berling, och är en skildring av livet i Värmland under 1820-talet. Boken består av en inledning i två delar och 36 kapitel. Många kapitel bjuder på alternativa historier, där bipersoner skildras ingående och färgstarkt. Den är idag (2011) översatt till ca 50 språk.

This book is a loosely constructed narrative, with Gosta and a few other recurring characters pulling it together from time to time, but mostly seeming like disconnected tales of Swedish life. Some of the vignettes were priceless and moving.

The base story is a Faustus tale. The estate at Ekeby’s mistress, the Major’s wife, takes in wayfaring cavaliers, among them is Gösta Berling. As their leader, he makes a pact with Sintram, a representative of the devil, ousting the Major’s wife and giving the cavaliers control of the estate, which they will retain if they manage to do nothing worthy for an entire year. As the group is rendered, this would seem to be a fairly easy bargain to keep.

After having done so much good for others, the Major’s wife is turned out of her home and made to be destitute and a beggar.

“It had become a matter of conscience with them, poor cavaliers, to persecute the Major’s wife. People so often have been cruel and persecuted one another pitilessly in trying to save their own souls.”

The saga is interwoven with tales and folklore and history, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and laced with a bit of humor.

A bullet of mingled silver and bell metal, cast on a Thursday night at new moon in a church tower, without the priest or sexton or any other living mortal knowing about it, would certainly bring him down, but such a bullet was not easy to procure. Indeed.

Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) was the first woman, and the first Swedish author, to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1909. In 1914 she also became the first woman to be elected to the Swedish Academy. Gösta Berling was her first novel, written at the age of 33, and it has stood as a classic since.
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