Norwegian writer Alexander Kielland’s 1880 novel Garman and Worse begins in the rather idyllic setting of Bratvold, a small village on the rocky western coast of Norway, home to crab fishermen as well as a lighthouse where the rich trader and the politically connected shipowner Consul C.F. Garman has procured an easy, do-nothing posting for his dandyish brother Richard Garman, who has just returned from his years of study and misadventures in France with a little daughter, Madeleine. In this idyllic setting of Bratvold, Madeleine experiences an equally idyllic (and beautifully told) budding love with a common crab-fisherman’s son named Per. With the tacit approval of Madeleine’s father, Madeleine commits herself to a steady relationship with Per, though Richard Garman, aware of the situation and how serious the relationship is getting, and also aware of who he and Madeleine’s relatives are, decides “it’s bad enough as it is. I shall have to send her off to the town.”

Despite Madeleine’s protestations, she is sent to live in the town of Sandsgaard, in the large house of her uncle, Consul Christian Frederick Garman, the paterfamilias of the Garman family and the head of a shipping empire inherited from his father Morton W. Garman and Garman’s less fortunate business partner, the Skipper Jacob Worse. (About whom Kielland later wrote a prequel to Garman and Worse, Skipper Worse.) When the action moves to Sandsgaard, the cast of characters gets broadened considerably. We are introduced to C.F. Garman’s younger son Gabriel Garman, a ne’er do well teenager who sees his Latin class as boring and pointless, and longs to ride the waves with the sailors working for his father such as the old drunk Anders Begman and the more worldly drunkard Tom Robson, who also happens to be the shipwright in charge of building C.F. Garman’s newest and largest ship, the intended pride of his fleet. We learn that the consul is at odds with his older son, Morton, who considers his father’s sailing ships outmoded and argues they should invest in steamers, and who his father in turn regards as a risk-taker who has gotten the company involved in bad speculations.

Yet the bulk of Kielland’s novel will not concern either of the three Garman males, but instead will focus on the love-plots of three Garman females, Madeleine, who seems the most highly-sought after of the three, her cousin Rachel, Consul Garman’s daughter and (as it will turn out) a rather pushy freethinker who goes for young men with a rebellious streak, and Fanny, the glamorous wfe of Morton Garman, and the daughter of the town magistrate. Fanny is secretly attracted to George Delphin, a fast-talking, perverse young man who works for her father the magistrate, while Delphin’s true purpose for being in Sandsgaard and working for the magistrate is so he can inveigle his way in with the Garmans and alternately either get his beak wet or find a wife, or both ideally, should the opportunity for such good fortune present itself. (Kind of a slime bag, Delphin.) Then there is the established and conservative-minded preacher of the town, Pastor Martens, and the new-in-town school inspector Mr. Johnsen, who harbors radical views which will attract the notice and favor of Rachel Worse (who is turned on by that sort of thing) and the enmity of Pastor Martens (who most certainly is not.) There’s also (to add yet another love interest into the mix) Jacob Worse, son of the unfortunate-in-business Skipper Worse, who has lived in a small house with his mother following his father dying and leaving him with a mountain of debt, which debt Consul Garman is kindly helping him service, and the Consul presumably keeps Jacob around out of a sense of obligation to his former business partner, and despite Jacob being a semi-secret atheist who rarely gets into arguments about it but when he does totally owns (as a smart atheist will do) whichever theist he’s arguing with, though he is generally resigned to the fact that this is the theists’ world and he’s just living in it and therefore keeps his trap shut.

Got all that? Because as all of these characters were introduced pell-mell in chapter five at a dinner scene at the Consul and Mrs. Garman’s (and despite reading and listening to the chapter multiple times) I sure didn’t. And as the novel continues, Kielland spreads the reader’s attention across the story arcs of no less than half a dozen point of view characters—and impressive feat for what is not actually that long a novel—which means that each character gets a short but reasonable amount of time to develop in the course of the novel, even if no one portrait immediately stands out as a masterpiece. Each has minute character differences that seem insignificant on the first reading, only to become important in the development of the story.

There is for example the new school inspector, Johnsen, who secretly bears convictions about the need for radical reform in the Norwegian clergy. (He is covertly what in Victorian England might be called a “dissenting” minister. It is not mentioned if he is a Haugean—a Pietist religious movement I first learned about in Bjornsterne Bjornson’s first book, Synnove Solbakken, and which Kielland is supposed to take up in Skipper Worse.) We already see in the street conversation among the characters in Chapter 7 that Pastor Martens disapproves of Johnsen’s frequent invitations to Sandsgaard, while Delphin and Fanny consider Johnson somewhat preachy and ridiculous.

Then in Chapter 8 we find Johnsen being lead on in a conversation with Rachel Garman, who is pointing out to him the contradictions (which he himself has tacitly acknowledged) of being “a clergyman, who is at the same time the servant of both God and the State.” An example she raises is how George Delphin was badmouthing priests, to which Pastor Martens objected that a priest is “a man of peace,” to which Delphin retorted that said man always “prays for the arms of the country by land and by sea.” Later in the conversation Rachel references Johnsen’s dissenting opinions on “for instance, about the Marriage Service, about Absolution, Confirmation, and several other matters,” though what the substance of these opinions may be is never clarified, and Kielland doesn’t seem particularly interested in going into it: doctrine is besides the point, for Johnsen is an emblem of, as Rachel expresses is, a man who is “evading responsibility” by not acting on his convictions.

“Do you think that you would be doing yourself justice by thus evading the responsibility that your convictions give rise to? If I were a man”–Rachel drew herself up–“I would go and seek the conflict, and not shirk it.”

Later in the same chapter, Rachel is even more importunate with Jacob Worse, telling the closet atheist, “What else is it but want of courage which makes a man sit down quietly and hide his thoughts, conceal his convictions, live a false life, and play a part from morning to night?”

Yet if Kielland has Rachel prod these two male characters in the direction of a sincere and open expression of their convictions (and Kielland, at least in this first novel, is a bit cryptic about what those convictions are—though evidently these convictions were sufficiently controversial in late 19th century Norway as to turn the author into a pariah, a treatment not even Ibsen was subjected to), he also shows how society circumscribes and controls its potential rebels. On a small level, in the very same scene, he shows the schoolmaster Mr. Aalbom and the magistrate Mr. Hiorth—two official voices of Norwegian country culture—gossiping about the whole Garman family, calling Richard Garman “an Ultra-radical,” expressing doubts about the consul’s respect for the clergy. In this small conversation we see how traditional society surveils and polices its own.

But at dinner, these men come into inflection with a genuine radical in Jacob Worse. They are having an innocent argument with Delphin comparing the beauties of France with the honor and modesty (and religiosity) of Norwegian women—both Delphin and Uncle Richard are merely toying with the two men—when suddenly Worse breaks in with the utmost sincerity:

From the moment Jacob Worse began to take part in the conversation, the attaché felt that the reins were slipping out of his hands. Worse went at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing, and went on boldly to consider the position of woman generally with regard to man. The magistrate asked him superciliously if he meant them to understand that he was in favour of emancipation; and when Worse answered that he was, the magistrate asked him with a smile how he thought he would be treated by an “emancipated wife.” Worse, however, maintained that it was not a question how a man was treated, but what the relation really was which existed between the two. The time must be drawing to a close when the sole consideration was, what a man found most agreeable, and it was to be hoped that the young men of the future would be ashamed to argue from that basis. This was plainly a hit, not only at the magistrate, but at all married men of his generation. Aalbom protested warmly against Worse’s theory, and his wife could be heard ejaculating in the distance. Pastor Martens now came and joined the disputants.

Jacob Worse was becoming excited; he spoke hurriedly, and his tone showed that he only restrained himself by an effort. On what absurd principles, he maintained, was the education of women generally conducted! How many thousands ended their career, worn out by the drudgery of household duties! Their intellect was wasted, and their strength exhausted for nothing. It was quite easy to talk so glibly of purity in a state of society where man was to know everything and have a right to everything, while woman was to be debarred from all intellectual knowledge.

Meanwhile, Kielland shows the absurdity of the men carrying on this conversation as Rachel listens on:

Rachel followed the arguments with the greatest interest, but she could not help feeling annoyed. She was annoyed when the others said anything stupid, and even still more so when she was obliged to confess that Worse was in the right. Everything seemed to irritate her. She could not bear to hear these men discussing her and her position as if she were some strange animal, and without ever having the grace to ask her opinion.

Yet even if Aalbom and Martins have the worst of the argument in private, in public they are the establishment in Norway, and it would be unwise to differ with their views in plain sight. This is amply demonstrated when Johnsen decides to give Rachel what she wants and express his dissenting views in public. He seeks an interview with Dean Sparre, the chief clergyman of the town, a man (we learned from idle conversation in chapter 7) tipped to become a bishop in a large town, and one with that calm and yet overwhelming persuasiveness and beatific grace old men of the cloth often have, which Kielland gives the reader a substantial show of when Johnsen comes before him to ask to speak to the congregation himself:

Dean Sparre sat leaning back in his armchair, and in his hand he held a large ivory paper-knife, which he used to emphasize his words; not, indeed, for the purpose of gesticulating or striking on the table, but every now and then, when he came to some particular point, he drew the knife up and down on the sheets of paper which lay before him.

To speak the thoughts plainly before the congregation was certainly desirable in itself, and entirely in accordance with Scripture. But it was quite easy to imagine that a man might want to make other confessions which should not be for every ear. The Church had, therefore, another and more restricted form of confession, which was not only just as much in accordance with Scripture, but might often be still better adapted to ease the troubled heart.

Yet despite Dean Sparre’s infallible argumentation, Johnsen will not be dissuaded in his mission; and Sparre, with unperturbable grace Kielland imbues him with, allows Johnsen to proceed with his reckless plan. The next day, before a packed house at the church, Johnsen conducts the service. No one suspects anything is amiss until he gets to the meat of his sermon:

It was indeed an extraordinary sermon, with its earnest entreaties to be thoroughly upright and sincere, and with its reckless condemnation of all forms and ceremonies, all of which were but of secondary consideration. It seemed too bold, too exaggerated.

He seemed anxious to confess his sceptical opinions, in holding which he did not stand alone. He was only alone in confessing them. He knew only too well that fine web of soothing compromise, with which people were in the habit of deadening their consciences. He knew it still better, too, from his own point of view as a clergyman, who even more than others was bound to live in the full glare of truth, even though he might be despised, hated, and persecuted by an unreasoning world. If he followed the beaten track, whither would it lead? To a position of comfort and respectability, in which the first duty was to throw a veil over one’s own heart and those of others: to suppress all doubt and inquiry, and to deaden all real life in the individual, so that the whole machine might continue its regular movements without noise or friction. But truth was a two-edged sword, sharp and shining as crystal. When the light of truth broke into the heart of man, it caused an agony as piercing as when a woman brings her child into the world. But, instead of this, was a man to lead a life of slumber, shut in by falsehood and form, without force or courage; giving no sign of firmness or power, but stuffed and padded like the hammers of a piano?

He was so carried away by his thoughts that he forgot his notes and said many things he would never have dared to write; and after the last thundering outburst, he concluded with a short and burning prayer for himself and for all, to have power to defy the falsehood by which man was bound, and to live a life of sincerity.

The whole congregation is scandalized. Surely the hammer of vengeful authority must come down on someone who raised his voice in favor of … sincerity? (Seems like a light offense, but okay.) Pastor Martens, in particular, that arch enemy of radicals and innovators, bursts into the cloakroom with Dean Sparre and Johnsen there and effectually calls for Johnsen’s head. Yet Kielland portrays Sparre as a model of Christian humility (to employ a canned phrase), and he is untroubled because (as he doesn’t quite come out and say) this is his world and Johnsen, at the end of the day, is one of his sheep; the radical threat is not threatening because such energy can always be redirected.

“But don’t you think, sir, that he was far too bold?” asked the chaplain [ed. note: Martens].

“Yes, clearly, clearly so,” assented the dean, in a friendly tone. “He was unguarded, like all beginners; perhaps the most unguarded I have heard. But then we know quite well that the same thing often occurred in our own time. It would be quite unreasonable to expect the Spirit’s full maturity in the young.”

This remark caused Martens involuntarily to think of his own first attempt. He answered, however, “But he maintained that we ministers, above all others, are living a life of falsehood, shut in by meaningless forms.”

“Exaggeration! a wild and dangerous exaggeration! In that I quite agree with you, my dear Martens. But, on the other hand, which of us can deny that aceremonial, be it ever so beautiful and full of meaning, still in the course of time, when it is frequently repeated, loses something of its influence over us? But who will dare cast the first stone? Is it not youth, as we see, who has not yet experienced the wear of that continuous labour which strives to be true to the end? And then naturally we get exaggeration–dangerous exaggeration. But,” continued the dean, “before everything, let us agree to look upon his sermon in the right light, for the opinion of many will be formed upon ours, and if we now allow this young man to slip out of our hands he will, likely enough, be entirely lost for the good work; and I must say I have great hopes of him. I feel sure that in his right place, which would be in a large town–for instance, in Christiania–he will make a name for himself in the Church, and I venture to think that his labours will bear abundant fruit.”

Thus is Johnsen’s spiritual disruption, his radicalism, transmuted into further service to the church. When Johnsen comes into the room, Sparre with unconfutable logic and irresistible persuasion shapes this thundering radical back into the general scheme, the plan that society and the church (and God, we are to believe) has for young Johnsen. The next time Johnsen visits the Garmans at Sandsgaard, he is a changed man, back on the righteous path and ministering to old ladies like a nice young priest, which development naturally makes Rachel hate him and despair at all her own designs for Johnsen being foibled.

There are a handful of other plot threads in Garman and Worse (including a whole underplot drawing attention to class relations between Consul Garman and the sailors who work for him), which it would take a review of twice this length to rehearse, but with a couple exceptions, the Kielland’s characters end up blocked from what they might have been, disappointed in their ambitions, settled into more prosaic fates—which is true of the novel these characters participate in, and as was perhaps as true of the still insular late nineteenth century Norwegian society.

The novel is in its way as cold and placid as the sea Kielland opens the book by extolling: “It is not true that the sea is faithless, for it has never promised anything; without claim, without obligation, free, pure, and genuine beats the mighty heart, the last sound one in an ailing world.” Garman and Worse, as a realistic novel of the late 19th century, shows readers the beating heart and the social problems that ail the world, but it does not necessarily provide satisfactory solutions to them. The story of Madeleine’s return to Bratvold (after being coerced into marriage with Pastor Martens) is emblematic of how Kielland represents the problems as lingering, seemingly insoluble by any single person. Like Per, readers can only emotionally embrace Madeleine as she cries, “It wasn’t my fault!”—feeling for, and yet not saying anything.