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On
Pelle the Conqueror: The Dawning
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Triumphant in every sense is this fourth and concluding volume of Martin Andersen Nexø´s great work: triumphant in the victory of Pelle with all that it implies, and triumphant as a work of art in that the author has sacrificed neither art nor interest to his thesis, the labor movement, but made it a living part of a most human and wellproportioned story.
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Llewellyn Jones in The Chigaco Evening Post, 26 January 1917
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On
Pelle the Conqueror: The Dawning
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But good as the particulars may be and however interesting the framework they aren’t what makes the work concerning Pelle Erobreren (Pelle the Conqueror). It is a work which has taken many years of quiet gleaning until now when it has sprouted and burgeons up into the light. A powerful belief in human nature’s goodness and immaculateness is its sustaining idea. In spite of all the immiseration it describes it is plangent with an unfailing optimism. A flaming “Excelsior” gleams straight through from the plain words on its final page. In that regard it forms a curious contrast to the other chief work in Danish literature, Henrik Pontoppidan’s Lykke-Per (Lucky Per), a work whose polished writing and artistic mastery Pelle Erobreren doesn’t quite match, while Nexø’s opus on the contrary has its strength in the power of the idea and its implementation. Both of them are rich in their intense immersion in people’s lives, and are books Danish literature can be proud of.
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Julius Clausen, Berlingske Tidende Aftenavis, 7 December 1910
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On
A Poor Little Thing
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... – as a poet Martin Andersen Nexø preserved his worth. He loved people, and to this day his exuberant warmheartedness surges with undiminished force from the pages of books like Pelle Erobreren (Pelle the Conqueror) and Ditte Menneskebarn (Ditte, Child of Man) – and especially his book of memoires, which one day will be a classic of Danish literature.
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Mogens Geismar, Fyens Tidendes Kronik, 21 June 1969
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On
A Poor Little Thing
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His memoires are among the pinnacles of Danish memoire writing, on a par with Johannes Ewald’s Levned og Meninger, Hans Christian Andersen’s Levnedsbog and Henrik Pontoppidan’s Erindringer. They disavow the established image Nexø created of himself as the cantankerous man, the pigheaded and aggressive political agitator.
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Ole Storm, Politiken, 17 May 1969
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