How Lucky Per was ahead if its time

It looks as if the eponymous Lucky Per (in Henrik Pontoppidan's 2904 novel) is destined to marry the alluring though not beautiful older daughter in the Salomon household, Jakobe, and that their marriage seems unlikely to be anything but a disaster for them both. Toward the end of Section 3 (of 8), when Per proposes to her, she at first shuns him and cuts him off; then, later the same day, when they along w/ a group on carriage ride along the Denmark coast, Per rises to a challenge and proves that he can outrun the carriage across a 5-mile span, though he nearly dies in the process. J then changes her mind about Per's proposal and the two become engaged - but it's a strange engagement, they are of such different types and background. Per sees the marriage as in some sense a social elevation for him - it will lead to a great increase in his wealth - but he also feels like a bumpkin and an outsider alongside this Jewish-intellectual family and coterie. But he is also extremely ambitious, in his plan to build a canal system that would change the entire economic life of Denmark, and the Salomon money and connections can help him with this project - at what personal cost, we will see. One intriguing sidelight here: Per's proposal, met entirely w/ skepticism and scorn, seems to be about a century ahead of its time, as the canals would also include facilities to generate power through wind turbines and through underseas generators powered by the flow of the tides. Altogether, Lucky Per - by the long-forgotten and seldom translated writer who may be the most obscure Nobel laureate - remains  really good narrative and an insight into the consciousness of an ambitious young man, much like in a Stendahl novel, who is driven by feelings of inadequacy and persecution, much like in a Dostoyevsky novel - good company!