The Immigrant and the University: Peder Sather and Gold Rush California
By Karin Sveen
3/5
()
About this ebook
Karin Sveen, one of Norway’s most accomplished writers, pieces together a story yet untold—a beautifully crafted biography based on her dedicated search for scraps of information. The result gives readers a look at the life of a successful entrepreneur and a leading California patron who engaged in public education on all levels; supported Abraham Lincoln; and worked to give emancipated slaves housing, schooling, and employment after the Civil War. His legacy and vivid persona and the frontier city of his time are brought to life with interesting anecdotes of many famous people— General William T. Sherman, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, and above all, his close friend Anthony J. Drexel, legendary Philadelphia financier and one of the founders of Wall Street.
Karin Sveen
Karin Sveen is a Norwegian poet, novelist, and essayist. She was awarded the Norsk språkpris (Norwegian Language Prize) in 2007. Barbara J. Haveland has translated for many notable Scandinavian authors, including Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann, and Jan Kjærstad.
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Reviews for The Immigrant and the University
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Really annoying. There's a lot of good facts in here, and she worked hard to dig them up - Peder Sather was a very private man, and not one to commit his thoughts to paper. But there's parts of three books here - a study of forensic biography, the aforementioned digging up of data; a straightforward biography of an interesting man; and a novelized biography, staying true to the facts but inventing most of the dialog and all of the feelings. And any one of those would have been interesting to read. But a chapter of moaning about how little info there was on Sather, followed by pages of lyrical envisioning of his feelings just before he disembarked in New York for the first time, followed by "and then he lived here, and then he worked there, and..." is hard to read, hard to keep straight, and very hard to admire. She also gets the timelines confused in the straight biography, far too often. And...I don't know if it's the difference between Norwegian history and American, or just that Sveen isn't familiar with the period, but she's surprised and puzzled by things that were matter-of-fact at the time (a middle class or better woman usually married who her family chose for her, for instance). I don't _think_ any of this was caused by the translation, but it also wasn't fixed by the translation. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also very glad I'm finished and I don't intend ever to reread it. I dropped the book in disgust a dozen times, but always picked it up again because I wanted to know the rest.
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Book preview
The Immigrant and the University - Karin Sveen
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