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The Big Book Project
The Big Book Project is a multi-venue reading experience for bibliophiles fascinated by long or dense works of fiction and interested in discussing them with others, one novel at a time.
The works selected will be capacious novels from the mid-nineteenth century through today that possess an abundant writing style or complexity in structure and themes.
The notion that reading need not be a solitary activity has special resonance with these novels given that there is much to discuss, elaborate upon and question in the authors’ expression of ideas. I like to think of these novels as abundant because I appreciate their richness and volume, characteristics bestow a sort of grace to luxuriate with the text.
The critic and scholar Alexander Nehamas writes that when a work of art beckons, it is because we do not fully understand it but feel the strong desire to do so. And it is this deliberative process, the journey, of trying to understand why a novel is extraordinary that I want to explore with fellow readers at The Big Book Project.
We discuss books like Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
The Big Book Project
A Fortunate Man: Henrik Pontoppidan’s Masterwork with Nick During (NYRB)
This week on The Big Book Project I’m joined by Nick During, publicist at New York Review Books, for a deep dive into Henrik Pontoppidan’s monumental novel A Fortunate Man translated by Paul Larkin.
Pontoppidan, who won the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature, gives us one of the great portraits of ambition, love, and disillusionment at the turn of the 20th century. His protagonist, Per, dreams of modernizing Denmark through a grand engineering project, but struggles with depression, family estrangement, and a doomed romance with Jakobe, a brilliant woman from a wealthy Jewish family.
Nick and I explore:
- Why Per is both “lucky” and cursed by self-sabotage
- Jakobe’s role as lover, mentor, and tragic figure
- The tension between rural tradition and modern progress in Denmark
- How the novel anticipates modern psychology while rooted in 19th-century realism
- Pontoppidan’s trilogy and why A Fortunate Man deserves a place alongside Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Chekhov
Nick also shares exciting news on upcoming big books from NYRB, including rediscoveries by Gabriele Tergit and Manuel Mujica Laínez.
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Episode Highlights
- Per’s brilliance vs. his depressive self-sabotage
- Love and mentorship in his relationship with Jakobe
- Anti-Semitism and social class in turn-of-the-century Denmark
- The clash of engineering ambition with political compromise
- Pontoppidan’s overlooked place in world literature
A Fortunate Man (NYRB Classics) is available now — highly recommended for anyone ready to spend time inside one of the richest, most complex novels of modern Europe.