Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for free e-Arc in return of my honest review.

Overall, I am quite enjoyed Lucky Per. Exceptionally written with lot of food for thought. Sometimes I found it drags a bit at the same time it is quite expected for classic literature. I think one should better be in the mood for this story as I cannot say it is an easy read.

Jane Austen's fans would enjoy Lucky Per.

Lucky Per is a captivating, fascinating book. I enjoyed each of the characters and it was very well written. This book has given me a lot to think about, and is one which will be on my mind for some time. I would like to thank Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of this book.
#LuckyPer #NetGalley

This is one classic I didn't fully love. The first 15% I really enjoyed and thought this was great but I had little or no motivation to continue with this. I managed 75% of this and generally liked it but it was not worth the weeks I spent on it.

Lucky Per is the kind of book that you have to be in the mood to read, and some background information would be a plus. That being said, it reads exactly as promised, and just because it wasn't my cup of tea, that doesn't mean it isn't a great novel. the humour is quite clever, and I think fans of Austen will flock to this book, as we get Per (who Henrick Pontoppidan loves poking fun at) attempting to bluster his way through high society and a (hopefully)
prosperous marriage.

It’s a complete mystery to me why this book isn’t better known and why it hasn’t taken its place amongst the canon of great European novels. It wasn’t translated into English until 2010, and with that translation and now with a new one in 2018 under the title of A Fortunate Man perhaps it will gain a wider readership. It certainly deserves to. Its author Henrik Pontoppidan (1857-1943) was an acclaimed Danish author but is little known outside his native land – although in 1917 he was awarded, along with Karl Gjellerup (equally forgotten) the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his authentic description of present-day life in Denmark”. Lykke Per, or Lucky Per (the word lykke means both lucky and happy in Danish) is a Bildungsroman chronicling the life of Per Sidenius, a gifted young man, the descendant of a long line of clergymen, who rebels against the piety of his home, flees his restricted life in the Danish countryside and sets out to seek fame and fortune in Copenhagen as an engineer. He’s ambitious and self-confident but life doesn’t quite play out as he hopes. Set against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Denmark in an age of social and industrial unrest and the struggles between conservatives and progressives, Christians and atheists, the old and the new, it’s a panoramic portrait of a country and a people moving into the new century. Per wants to be part of that future. Complex and multi-layered, I found the novel a fascinating portrayal of Danish society in that era as well as a nuanced character study of Per himself. The people he meets are equally interesting, not least the remarkable Jakobe, one of his love interests, a vibrant and independent young Jewish woman, who, for me, was as important as Per himself in the narrative and can take her place among the great heroines of literature. The novel can rightly claim to be the “great Danish novel” and I hope it will become better known. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Oh, classics. Those wonderful time machines that transport us back as guests to whatever era their writer lived through and allow us a perspective into that time and a contrast into our own world too. Lucky Per took me a long time to read, it was wordy but beautifully written. When I became a guest of the world and time of Lucky Per I was gifted with a protagonist that teaches me a valuable lesson, never burn your bridges. I loved this classic because it satisfied my craving for literary fiction and a character-driven narrative. I had also never read a Danish book before. I would say this is a must-read for any classic lovers, that love novels that go on a journey full of character development with an ending to satisfy the harrowing journey you've been through.

The writing style, sober narration with a beautiful albeit simple language, precise and clear, in conjunction with the existential issues that are explored, make for an exceptional book that not only draws on Dostoyevsky's prose but also consists of a large gallery of various complex personalities, as Per himself goes through many views during his life.

A treasure of a book a literary absorbing novel.Wonderfully written characters so happy this book has been translated.#netgalley #knopfdoubleday.

I'm so happy this book has finally been translated to english. This book is a masterpiece of literary fiction and the writing is beautiful. This is a wonderful adult fairytale.

An interesting novel this and one which reminded me of an adult fairy tale in the way there's a moral side to the story and an examination of a man who breaks away from his family and seeks his own fortune

Per breaks with his religious family in order to become an engineer so has to break the constraints of his family history and social background. However, what he rejects is what he is going to need later on. The moral being be careful what you shun on the way up as you might need it on the way down, or words to that effect.

A lot depends on how the reader interprets the title - The Danish word for Lucky means both lucky and happiness and this difference is what the book is all about. Can a man be happy without luck and vice versa? The author apparently wrote some of this book from his own experiences as he himself left a religious family and potential career to train as an engineer..

The sense of place incorporates a lot of the history of Copenhagen and the religious buildings of the city. There's a brief sejour in Berlin but the novel is firmly Danish and looks at the history and social mores of the time.

This was quite an academic text to read and it was slow and pondering in places but the overall message of the book and the story stands up on its own. A multilayered novel that seems to be as relevant to today's world as it was when it was written. This is the new translation in English and so will reach a new audience.

An interesting 100 yr old novel set in Copenhagen that is largely an exploration of the juxtaposition or relationship of happiness to luck; and success and failure. It is a fairly long, complex story written by a master, and it is a character study of the lead, as well as some interesting female secondary characters. It might be considered an adult fairytale, but that doesn't take away from its impact or the quality of writing!

Thank you very much for the opportunity to read the advanced copy.

I encountered the work of Henrik Pontoppidan about twenty years ago when I was on a Nobel-prize winning author binge (yes, I did go through one of those). I was pleased to encounter Pontoppidan again in Lucky Per. The book is insatiably readable and sure to please those who enjoy literary fiction.

Chief here is Pontoppidan's sense of character and place. Lucky Per is a lovely and lyrical example of literary prose. Highly recommended.