The key themes in Pontoppidan's Lucky Per

At the midpoint in Nobel laureate Henrik Pontoppidan's 1904 novel, Lucky Per, the eponymous Per, summoned to a business meeting with leading Copenhagen financiers who are considering backing Per's monumental project to create a system of waterways throughout Denmark, gets his back up and refuses to mend a years'-long rift with a Danish journalist, leading the financiers to abruptly close the meeting and end hopes of backing Per's plan. Of course we know, as Per does not, that they're backing his plan mainly so as to block a rival development plan and have little intention of actually going through w/ Per's project. But no matter; Per can walk away from the meeting feeling proud and independent, as he boasts to his fiancee, Jakobe (whose brother put Per together with the business leaders and now feels crushed and betrayed by Per's stubbornness). Part of Per's outrage, though not all of it, comes from his ever-present anti-Semitism: the financiers are a Jewish group, which HP makes feel like almost a cabal (never mind that finance was pretty much the only way for Jewish business leaders to make money, as traditional banking and investments were closed to Jews - this goes back to Shylock and beyond). What we're seeing here is almost a prelude to Ayn Rand's right-wing tome The Fountainhead - man of genius risks all to go up against upholders of the status quo. The question is, throughout the second half of this long (600-page) novel, is this a novel of Per's heroism or of his prideful undoing? Will Per triumph in the fulfillment of his vision or will he be crushed by his own obstinate behavior, by his social climbing, and his tormented relationship with his mother and siblings who, now living in Copenhagen, are like a weight tied to his neck.