Henrik Pontoppidan — Lucky Per: Introduction By Garth Risk Hallberg

Everyman's Library 2019 Hardback. "A true neglected classic, this sweeping 1904 novel is a Modernist masterpiece and arguably "the great Danish novel"-- but is only newly available in English. Lucky Per is a novel about the ambitious son of a clergyman who rejects his faith and flees his restricted life in the Danish countryside for the capital city. Per is a gifted young man who arrives in Copenhagen believing that "you had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fanged beast. and capture and bind it. " Per's love interest, a Jewish heiress, is both the strongest character in the book and one of the greatest Jewish heroines of European literature. Per becomes obsessed with a grand engineering scheme that he believes will reshape both Denmark's landscape and its minor place in the world; eventually, both his personal and his career ambitions come to grief. At its heart, the story revolves around the question of the relationship of "luck" to "happiness". DJ.", (ISBN: 9781101908099). Very Good.