Akademik

(1915-1986)

   A Norwegian novelist and poet, Hauge is one of very few significant Norwegian writers who have been able to combine a personal commitment to Christianity with significant literary achievement. With his origins in a pietistic community in southwestern Norway, he studied theology for a while, but later became a teacher and finally a cultural journalist in the daily Stavanger Aftenblad (Stavanger Evening Paper).

   Hauge wrote his first novel, Septemberfrost (1941; September Frost), about Norway's difficult years of national isolation prior to 1814. Published during the German occupation of Norway during World War II, its patriotic theme was intended to strengthen Norwegian national resistance. Ropet (1946; The Call) describes his own situation as a writer who is torn between his artistic commitment and the frequent condemnation of fiction that is found in his fundamentalist environment. After experiencing a significant religious development that led him to abandon some of the more conservative notions of his childhood faith, Hauge published two related novels that together gave him his artistic breakthrough. Aret har ingen var (1948; The Year Has No Spring) and Fossen og balet (1949; The Waterfall and the Bonfire) are set in Hauge's home district and detail a family's search for salvation. Two other novels have regret as their theme. The protagonist in Ingen kjenner dagen (1955; Nobody Knows the Day), a minister, has sacrificed his talent as an artist for his religion, while the middle-aged man in Kvinner pa Galgebakken (1958; Women on Gallows Hill) belatedly realizes that he has sacrificed the legitimate needs of others for his own vain ambition.

   The story of the Norwegian emigration to America had long fascinated Hauge, especially because an early organizer of this movement named Cleng Peerson hailed from Hauge's home district. Hauge combined the story of Cleng's life and the history of the emigration into a trilogy, named for its protagonist, that is narrated by Cleng as an old man living in Bosque County, Texas. The first volume, Hundevakt (1961; Midwatch), tells about the social and economic background of the movement. The second volume, Landkjenning (1964; Landfall), tells the story of the journey of the vanguard, on board the sloop Restaurationen (The Restoration), from Stavanger to New York in 1825. The final volume, Ankerfeste (1965; Anchorage), tells about the westward movement of the Norwgian settlers, from upstate New York to the Fox River valley in Illinois, and for some of them, to Texas. Hauge emphasizes the spiritual conditions among the emigrants, showing that life in America was both economically and religiously unsettling. The trilogy is a representative example of the historical novel and the novel of emigration, which in Scandinavian literature has been practiced by such masters as Vilhelm Moberg and to a lesser extent by Johan Bojer. An English translation was published in two volumes as Cleng Peerson, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary celebration of Norwegian emigration to America in 1975.

   Hauge's most complex work is his Utstein Monastery Cycle, which consists of five novels and two volumes of poetry. The poetry volumes are Det evige sekund (1970; The Eternal Second) and I Rindbrads land (1983; In Rindbrad's Country). The first novel in the cycle is a highly experimental work entitled Mysterium (1967; Mystery), in which Hauge attempts to analyze the qualities of tenderness and empathy. A Jungian Bildungsroman that illustrates the ideals of Christian ethics, it is a book about suffering and about our obligation as human beings to assist others when they have to cope with the adversities of life. It was followed by Legenden om Svein og Maria (1968; The Legend of Svein and Maria), a reworking of Hauge's earlier book Vegen til det døde paradiset (1951; The Way to the Dead Paradise), which, like its model John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, is an allegorical representation of the struggle of good against evil. The second half of the cycle has the common title Århundre (Century), and consists of the novels Perlemorstrand (1974; Mother-of-Pearl Shore), Leviathan (1979), and Serafen (1984; The Seraph). Set in Hauge's home district of southwestern Norway, the trilogy examines the spiritual and environmental crises of the 20th century. Hauge finds that the ultimate cause of the misery of the century is those all too human emotions, greed and fear, which Christianity has largely unsuccessfully attempted to bridle. Hauge has also written three volumes of autobiographical narrative.