Ove Rolandsen, the telegraph operator in an isolated fishing village in northern Norway, is a man of sudden passions, a cheerful rogue fond of girls and alcohol. He constantly hatches ambitious schemes to the despair of his fiancee, Marie, housekeeper at the vicarage. When a plan to manufacture glue from fish waste lands him in trouble, is his feckless career over or could fortune, for once, be on his side? Knut Hamsun is recognised as one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 for Growth of the Soil.