Susamel y.m. kertomuksia
by Jonas Lie

Buy a Printed Edition
"Susamel y.m. kertomuksia" by Jonas Lie is a collection of short stories written in the late 19th century. It portrays northern Norwegian coastal life with vivid, memory-tinged realism and folkloric color. The central tale follows the powerful fisherman Susamel and the delicate Arne-Nora through a mix of heroism, community rumor, and mounting jealousy, while another story turns to the quarrelsome boatman Rusten and his sharp-tongued wife. Expect sea-weathered adventure, everyday comedy, and quiet tragedy set against the stark light of the far north.
The opening of the collection begins with a brief biographical sketch situating the author and the pieces included, then moves into Susamel, narrated by a man recalling his Tromsø boyhood during the “Russian season” in port. He remembers the fearsome yet generous Susamel—of Finnish stock—whose feats at sea and in a notorious brawl contrast with tender care for Arne-Nora, the girl he once saved from drowning and later marries; jealousy stoked by the sly sister-in-law Kaisa and the handsome clerk Jakvist culminates in a fatal embrace, madness, and, after lucid intervals and brave rescues, Susamel’s own death at sea. The volume then opens Venemies Rusten ja hänen muijansa, a sharply comic domestic portrait: Rusten and the sailmaker Timme scheme for an afternoon’s drink despite the wife’s deft countermeasures; he returns tipsy to a bitter monologue, and soon white sheets in the windows mark the wife’s death, leaving him to wander the house in stunned grief. The excerpt breaks off as this second story lingers on his dazed solitude among everyday household traces. (This is an automatically generated summary.)