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the complete review - fiction

Sinners in Summertime

by
Sigurd Hoel

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : a decent little curiosity, about 1920s Scandinavian modern life

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Mr. Hoel has a distinctive style, vivid, though at times too jerky for comfortable reading. It is very seldom that a sentence is more than two lines long, and many are only a few words." - The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "Sinners in Summertime, a somewhat sulphurous title for this report of a serious-minded and even noble experiment, tells about the summer holiday of four young men and four girls, Norwegians all, and all unmarried, emancipated, intellectual." - Time

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Sinners in Summertime is a novel of the 1920s, a group of twentysomethings spending a summer on the Norwegian coast. They think of themselves as modern and enlightened, familiar with the theories of psychoanalysis (and thus aware of the signs and dangers of certain behaviour), and not stuck in the ways of the older generation. They soon find, of course, that things are not quite that simple.
       A group of four young men, and one of four slightly younger women (and then a few visitors, unbalancing things even more), they rent a house for each and row back and forth to visit each other. They're a fairly impressive bunch, students finishing up significant projects or working towards the beginning of scholarly and professional careers, the women no less ambitious than the men -- though some have already moved towards the compromise of domesticity, so for example the girl engaged to a promising diplomat. They all have fairly grand plans of what they want to accomplish in these summer months -- deluding themselves that the setting and company won't get in the way. As the narrator, Fredrik, explains: "We only wanted to be comfortable, we wanted to be carefree and we wanted to work."
       Sex, inevitably, is a problem, and the possible permutations of romantic interest, jealousy, and obligation (as not everyone fully embraces enlightened attitudes) plus a good bit of deception eventually make for an incredible mess. The appearance of Astri's fiancé, Secretary of Legation Peter Mullendorff, and with him a Fearnley Jensen, -- neither of whom fit in among the freer ways of the vacation-spot -- makes for quite the clash and splash.
       Partner-swapping, misunderstandings, a suicide attempt (of sorts), and more make for a lively if occasionally muddled story: there are a lot of characters, doing a lot of things, and narrator Fredrik, quite overwhelmed by his own feelings, isn't always on top of all the goings-on. Comic exaggeration is one of the tools Hoel uses -- with some of the scenes (such as the opening one) very funny -- but the book isn't (or doesn't work as) pure satire.
       Early on Fredrik tries to get his bearings, coming up with this impressive piece of logic:

     Everyone deceives himself and no one cares to admit it. But then I was aware of that and admitted that I certainly deceived myself, so I in any case was not a self-deceiver.

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Links:

• Ig publicity page
• Gyldendal publicity page
• DTV publicity page

• Brigitte (German)
• Svenn Richard Mathisen (Norwegian)

• IMDb page - 1934 version
• IMDb page - 2001 version

• Sigurd Hoel site (Norwegian)

• A Fortnight before the Frost
• Meeting at the Milestone

• See Index of Scandinavian literature

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About the Author:

       Sigurd Hoel (1890-1960) was one of the leading literary figures in Norway in the first half of the 20th century.

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