Classics Challenge: Giants in the Earth

Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag (translated by the author and Lincoln Colcord) has been on my to read list for quite a while. I'm not sure why I never got to it other than to say that it's a book I own in hard copy.  I read much more as e-books that physical books because a large percentage of my reading time is nursing and/or in the dark waiting for babies and toddlers to fall asleep time. And there isn't the time pressure of a library book. So it sat there unread year after year with me always saying "Oh, I need to start that one" but never actually starting it. So I picked it as my end of pregnancy/postpartum baby moon read.

Now, I am glad I read it but I will warn you, it's not a good postpartum read! Especially since I, for the first time, experiences postpartum depression and anxiety. Overall, it's much less tragic that I anticipated, but one prominent story line involves a mother and her emotions and it was just a bad combination. So I had to stop and start this one quite a bit.

But, if you aren't currently postpartum, which is probably most of you, I do recommend it. It's like the grown-up and realistic version of Little House on the Prairie. I don't mean that as a slightly on LHOP, I love that series but the last time or two I read it to my kids and then when we visited all the sights a couple years ago, you start thinking about poor Ma and how she must have felt. beyond just the physical struggles they endured, there are the complexities of community, religion, superstition, and loneliness to battle. Giants in the Earth captures some of that as it gives a poetic but it certainly unglamorized account of the hard life of the Dakota settlers. Having married into a family of sturdy Norwegian immigrants stock, I found this to be greatly interesting but also something I am very glad I did not nor experience. Give me the green forests of the pacific northwest or the Appalachians over the flat prairie any day!

I do want to add that I struggled with the names and keeping straight who was who but I found it to be a bit like the Russian novels I've read. You can get stuck on the first chapter bogged down trying to figure out who is who or you can just keep going without worrying too much about it, as eventually they get straighten out in your mind - at least if the author is doing a good job.

Giants in the Earth is my  Classic in Translation selection in the Back to the Classics challenge.