Arne; Early Tales and Sketchespatriots Edition
In the stark beauty of rural Norway, a young poet named Arne must choose between his restless soul and the mother who loves him too tightly to let go. Born the illegitimate son of a brilliant fiddler whose back was broken in a drunken quarrel, Arne inherits his father's poetic gifts and his mother's fierce devotion. When his father dies suddenly, Arne nearly committed filicide in a rage against the man's brutality - a secret that haunts him as he grows into a shy, restless young man. His mother Margit, having sacrificed everything for him, intercepts letters from the friend who escaped to the wide world, desperate to keep her son near. But Arne has also fallen for Eli, daughter of the very man whose dispute paralyzed his father. This is a novel about the impossible binds of love: how devotion can become confinement, how secrets calcify into tragedy, and how the most prison-like chains are forged from the purest affection. Bjørnson writes with raw empathy about the collision between a mother's need and a son's longing.
