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Pan
by
Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsun was a major Norwegian author who received the Noble Prize for Literature in 1920. Hamsun writing makes excellent use of symbolism. Glahn and Edvarda fall in love in the spring, they are lovers in the summer and their relationship deteriorates in the fall. Hamsun also shows the contradiction of culture and nature. Glahn lives as a part of nature while Edvarda...more
Paperback, 124 pages
Published
October 12th 2007
by Book Jungle
(first published 1894)
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I didn't enjoy this book as much Hunger or Growth of the Soil, but it was still very interesting. The narrator was just as neurotic and moody as the protagonist of Hunger. My favorite aspect of this novel is the accuracy with which Hamsun depicts the capriciousness of psychological states. Glahn's moods, thoughts, and decisions are so disjointed and mysterious, they defy our conventional view of characters as conscious agents who somehow control their own behavior and thoughts.
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To give a brief synopsis a Norwegian man goes to a rural area of Norway to spend several months hunting and living in a cabin in the forest. Most of this book deals with his interactions with the locals of this rural community, in particular two women. One is married but makes herself available in all ways to the main character, the other who fancies herself an aristocrat of some sort seems to be mainly interested in mind games and seeing how many hoops she can make him jump through to please he...more
I wish I had read it a little quicker. I put this down about half way in, some other reading got in the way, and so it took a while to read and the momentum was kinda lost. Nevertheless... a great book, he has a way of creating the strangest voices that are not simple parodies, but are very funny and effective at the same time. There is a lot going on in here beyond the voice, much more going on here than in Hunger actually (though it might take more patience than that book, as there are many...more
Of all the stuff I read in college, nothing lasted longer with me than Knut Hamsun's Hunger, and with stops and starts over the years I've tried his other books without ever finishing them. Then I read somewhere that John Fante got the title or the idea for Ask the Dust, one of my favorite books ever, from Hamsun's Pan, and that was enough for me.
This is a spectacular little book, a hair over 100 pages in the lovely edition I got form the library complete with woodcut illustrations, ...more
This is a spectacular little book, a hair over 100 pages in the lovely edition I got form the library complete with woodcut illustrations, ...more
El noruego Knut Hamsun, ganador del Premio Nobel en 1920, narra en 'Pan' los recuerdos del joven teniente Thomas Glahn, aquel verano que pasó en Nordland. La historia es un canto a la naturaleza, a los bellos paisajes del norte de Noruega.
Glahn vive en una cabaña tras la cuál se encuentran tupidos bosques, en los que caza y pesca. En la voz de Glahn se nota el amor por esos tiempos pasados en soledad junto a su perro Esopo. Pero la historia cuenta algo más que la vida de un excéntrico ...more
Glahn vive en una cabaña tras la cuál se encuentran tupidos bosques, en los que caza y pesca. En la voz de Glahn se nota el amor por esos tiempos pasados en soledad junto a su perro Esopo. Pero la historia cuenta algo más que la vida de un excéntrico ...more
Pan (1894) is a lyrical expression of man's inner nature. The forest teems with the beauty of the natural world and Knut Hamsun is too wise not to use it for his own ends. The novel fairly anticipates the sensuous and erotic works of D. H. Lawrence and the spiritual confessions of Rilke. Ostensibly the journal entries of a soldier hunter who inhabited a hut in the woods of a rural community, the short novel otherwise relies on various storytelling registers—folktales, legends, testimonies, monol...more
Pan is a love story on a different take---dark, tragic, strange and twisted. It shows a peculiar knack of Knut Hamsun to discern the capricious, often unstable human personalities in its most intrinsic fashion as it collides with one another, giving form to the abstract aspects of the human experiences, thus creating uniquely drawn characters and a story that bursts with originality, which give further definition to his already profound talent as a writer. Hamsun's vivid depiction of huma...more
I would call Glahn, our narrator, a capricious wanker-- but then he really is very human and pitiable, like the rest of us. His mind always seems to be nested in what he lost rather then what he has before him. The story leaps as his mind does, between the female characters who, either physical or in dream form (Iselind), are the bane of his tortured existence.
The setting is interesting - during summer in Norway, the further north you go, the more light there is during night-time, I imagi...more
The setting is interesting - during summer in Norway, the further north you go, the more light there is during night-time, I imagi...more
Første del er facinerende, lett tilgjengelig, et klassisk forviklings-kjærlighets-drama. Men så kommer det på slutten 20 sider med en andre jeg-person, som på meg synes helt overflødig, skulle ønske den hadde sluttet når Glahn reiste fra Nordland. Leste den i 50-talls utgave med mig og dig og slikt, men det var overraskende lett språk. Den er av andre beskrevet som en nydelig skildring av natur som møter kultur, men jeg synes allikevel Hamsun nesten underdriver sine beskrivelser fra tid til anne...more
Because Hemingway said he learned to write from Hamsun, I mistakenly assumed this was prose poetry. I read poetry slowly, but the language here held no echoing magic. (Perhaps this was due to the translation, because I was reading a gorgeous, hardcover American first edition from 1921.)
When I read faster the raw power of the narrative kicked in. Obsessive love is ridiculous to anyone not suffering from it. As in Hunger, Hamsun captures the psyche's incessant circlings, its flagellat...more
When I read faster the raw power of the narrative kicked in. Obsessive love is ridiculous to anyone not suffering from it. As in Hunger, Hamsun captures the psyche's incessant circlings, its flagellat...more
Corta, intensa y lírica, en esta novela romántica el protagonista es esclavo de sus pasiones e impulsos. Ha encontrado la libertad -incluso la felicidad- en un entorno natural grandioso pero el deseo le lleva a caer en una partida de seducción en la que se siente constantemente superado por la joven Edvarda. Cualquier adolescente que haya sufrido mal de amores se puede reconocer en la confusión, en las reacciones torpes y extemporáneas del teniente Glahn intentando jugar a un juego del que no co...more
Strange.but when Hamsun is strange it can only be beautiful.
"A secret stillness fell upon people; they pondered and were silent; their eyes awaited the winter."
"She loved a lord. Why? Ask the winds and the stars, ask the God of life, for there is none that knows such things."
"The other he loved as a slave, as a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust of the road and the leaves that fall, ask the mysterious God of life, for there is no other ...more
"A secret stillness fell upon people; they pondered and were silent; their eyes awaited the winter."
"She loved a lord. Why? Ask the winds and the stars, ask the God of life, for there is none that knows such things."
"The other he loved as a slave, as a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust of the road and the leaves that fall, ask the mysterious God of life, for there is no other ...more
This book starts as a sort of Norwegian "Walden" with a hunter living in his hut in the forest and feeling at one with the natural world. However, this Pantheistic utopia is steadily eroded by the growing awareness that Glahn is suffering some kind of psychosis. The reverence towards nature remains, but the book becomes increasingly concerned with his tortured relations with the local inhabitants, particularly the young females who by turns attract and repel him.
It is both ...more
It is both ...more
Hamsun's Hunger was a book of transcendent weirdness, and I read it at the exact right time-- I was winding down a summer of abject poverty, living in a rundown Minneapolis apartment building routinely tagged by the local Crips, failing to sell anything I'd written, and not eating. Knut would have been proud.
And Pan is in the same vein-- it's also a story of a loner wandering through a surreal landscape-- although rather than the dockyards of Oslo, our "hero" is in the for...more
And Pan is in the same vein-- it's also a story of a loner wandering through a surreal landscape-- although rather than the dockyards of Oslo, our "hero" is in the for...more
Boy, talk about awkward romances (and I thought The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea took the prize for that). Sure, there's lyrical beauty of the wilderness and so forth. Also tragic, doomed love affairs and vengeance, but all in a very restrained, 19th-century Scandinavian sort-of way. My favourite parts were the "Nights of Iron" and the spectral (?) appearances of Iselin and Diderik. What was going on there? What I learned from this book: first romances have always been fract...more
This book reminded me a little of Shakespeare's characters that just fall in love on the spot and immediately declare it blindly. However, this book goes a bit further, quite a bit further, and documents the back and forth of a crazy love scenario between two crazy characters. It was also interesting to read a book set in 19th century Norway. I guess I can cross that one off my list, if I had a list.
Bottom line, I'm glad I read this little book but I don't think I'll read another by th...more
Bottom line, I'm glad I read this little book but I don't think I'll read another by th...more
"And when she comes, my heart knows all, and no longer beats like a heart, but rings like a bell." (22)
"Here you are burning out your life for the sake of a worthless schoolgirl, and your nights are full of desolate dreams." (57)
"By my immortal soul, I am full of thanks that it is I who am sitting here! ... 'I love three things,' I go on. 'I love a dream of love I once had; I love you; and I love this spot of ground.' 'And which do you love the m...more
"Here you are burning out your life for the sake of a worthless schoolgirl, and your nights are full of desolate dreams." (57)
"By my immortal soul, I am full of thanks that it is I who am sitting here! ... 'I love three things,' I go on. 'I love a dream of love I once had; I love you; and I love this spot of ground.' 'And which do you love the m...more
An interesting Norwegian story of a man who I'm pretty sure is going crazy. There is a lot of Norwegian folk talke influence on the story... I'm pretty sure those were the parts where I was thinking: what......?
The man has a connection to nature. His love for nature hints of romanticism, with a little dash of naturalism.
I really enjoyed reading this story, though it was pretty strange at times. But I guess that is what you get when an isolated Norwegian hunter starts to go crazy.
The man has a connection to nature. His love for nature hints of romanticism, with a little dash of naturalism.
I really enjoyed reading this story, though it was pretty strange at times. But I guess that is what you get when an isolated Norwegian hunter starts to go crazy.
I've never seen a writer use the comma splice more artfully or jarringly. That said, this book does not compare with Hamsun's HUNGER or Dostoevsky's NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND. It left me feeling agitated--in a good way--but I don't know if I'll rush back to read it. Hands down, its greatest scene is when Glahn, the unreliable narrator, steals his love-interest Edvarda's shoe and tosses it into a lake. Brilliance!
the 3 hamsun novels i've read so far [this, hunger and mysteries] are all concerned with byronic hero parodies creping out girls. that's cool imo. only this one isn't as good as the other two. also sverre lyngstand's introduction is significantly less embittered and crotchety than his other hamsun translations, but this one doesn't have the awful publication history in english as mysteries and esp. hunger either. oh well.
This book is similar to Hunger and The Last Joy, and thus, not a five star rating. I imagine this is the last string of his Hunger phase and hamsun just had to get it out. It is nonetheless, worth the read. The beginning is beautiful with its flowing and terse descriptions of nature. For anyone who is introverted: this book might appeal to you along with Hunger, and maybe Mysteries (yes, only maybe).
Great read. I liked the fact that the chapters are rather short so it makes the book easy to read even if you only have 5 minutes of free time. It's a psychological story, but easy to go through. The last 10 chapters or so are a bit of an oddity as they seem to create a different story altogether, while being in the continuity of what the reader has gone through up until that point.
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Meh. I'm always worried about reading books in translation, and the free translation I got from amazon probably didn't help aesthetic matters much. I appreciate the subtle work going on with Lt. Glahn, but I can't say I enjoyed reading this. In fact, it tried my patience most with these subtle changes were suddenly counterpoised with senseless violence. If you're looking for strange, neurotic characters, there are better places to go.
On the surface, "Pan" is thin volume about a man who falls in love with a woman, is betrayed by her, goes crazy, and is eventually shot in the face. Initially, I took the book as simply that.
After talking to a big Hamsun fan and reading a little bit of criticism on the book, however, I've developed a larger appreciation for the novel. The narrator's gradual changes and developments are very interesting to the astute reader and the narrator's unreliability (and in some ins...more
After talking to a big Hamsun fan and reading a little bit of criticism on the book, however, I've developed a larger appreciation for the novel. The narrator's gradual changes and developments are very interesting to the astute reader and the narrator's unreliability (and in some ins...more
This reminds me of "Hunger" in that the joke gets lost through first-person perspective. This book is hilarious. The only sad thing I found was that the clumsy, oblivious lead character reminds me of a friend with Asperger's syndrome.
My favorite scenario: Edvarda has told Glahn that she has a friend who thinks Glahn has "animal eyes," so Glahn goes to a party and hits on every girl he thinks might be that girl. Later, the Doctor tells him, "[Edvarda] say
I loved this book because it took me away into the depths of the forest. Hamsun beautifully describes the relationship between human being and nature, one so interconnected and deeply in tune. Through Glahn's struggles with love and enemies, this book stresses the importance of always remaining appreciative and embracing of the natural world in order to live a balanced and complete existence.
I read this book because Henry Miller recommended it, not personally, but in one of his books. So I read it and I really liked it and I gave it to somebody to read in they never returned it but that is okay because I don't think I would ever have read it again even though it was really good.
Well, it won the 1920 Nobel Prize for literature...that probably means its good. Or should mean that anyhow, and in this case it does. I read this for a class I took on Hamsun and though his writings lean towards the bizarre, they are good.
Nell'immenso nord, dove giorno e notte perdono senso nel trascolorare delle stagioni, il tenente vive della natura. Ne conosce le sfumature infinite e la mutevole divinità che la abita. Quest'ultima prenderà il sopravvento.
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Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil." He insisted that the intricacies of the human mind ought to be the main object of modern literature, to describe the "whisper of the blood, and the pleading of the bone marrow". Hamsun pursued his literary program, debuting in 1890 with the psychological novel Hunger.
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“I love three things," I then say. "I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth."
"And which do you love best?"
"The dream.”
—
32 people liked it
"And which do you love best?"
"The dream.”
“There was a rock in front of my hut, a tall, gray rock. By its looks it seemed to be well-disposed toward me...”
—
5 people liked it
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