Pan: From Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's Papers (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
by Knut Hamsun
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 309)
Read in January, 2006
This book was not such as page-turner as Growth of the Soil. I
enjoyed it, especially the main character's love of the outdoors.
I don't believe the story is about Glahn's mind being broken by a love
gone bad. It seems to me that he was broken to begin with, and was
seeking some kind of therapeutic refuge on the edge of the forest.
The book hints that he was not the first, and would not be the last
person to stay in the hut and be appraised by Edvarda. I think that
something subtle may...more
enjoyed it, especially the main character's love of the outdoors.
I don't believe the story is about Glahn's mind being broken by a love
gone bad. It seems to me that he was broken to begin with, and was
seeking some kind of therapeutic refuge on the edge of the forest.
The book hints that he was not the first, and would not be the last
person to stay in the hut and be appraised by Edvarda. I think that
something subtle may...more
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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] says tha...more
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Read in October, 2007
i devoured 'pan' in less than a week. this was my introduction to knut hamsun, and now i can't wait to read 'hunger,' the book he's apparently known for. 'pan' is a striking, gorgeous character study - a man who lives alone, with his dog, who is driven insane by love, and the want for it. it's one of the most brilliant character arcs i've ever encountered, and the epilogue is - as eliot puts it - the 'last twist of the knife.' i literally was sucking in my breath at certain points, inwardly ...more
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Read in February, 2007
Hamsun takes what may seem to be a strange step--at least to readers familiar with his other work--in this short novel. He focuses on Lt. Thomas Glahn, a self-described "Son of the Forest" living near a small village. Glahn's persona attracts many women; Glahn's persona destroys them. What Pan does, as a novel, is establish a very solid unreliable narrator, one who inspires thought in the reader about how being "connected to nature" has become a trend, a fad, something tha...more
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Lt. Thomas Glahn is one of the most awkward men I've ever met. When he threw her shoe into the river I thought I had discovered a kindred spirit. I am convinced that Knut Hamsun would have been welcome in the strategic games club. Any man who rides on the top of a locomotive is welcome indeed. And did he wear a cape? If he is reincarnated I recommend keeping both Knut Hamsun and Thomas Glahn away from any semi-automatic weaponry. Counseling would do the trick, but these are not men who crave cou...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
Boys and Girls
I have many a merry hour even yet. But time -it stands still, and I cannot understand how it can stand so still. I am out of the service and free as a prince; all is well; I meet people, drive in carriages; now and again I shut one eye and write with one finger up in the sky; I tickle the moon under the chin, and fancy that it laughs - laughs broadly at being tickled under the chin. All things smile. I pop a cork and call gay people to me.
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
you, him & her
Imagine a borderline sociopath, a manic personality driven both by testosterone and by a lust for the outdoors, a combination of Hemingway deprived of Montparnasse and Hunter S. Thompson without his drugs. That is Hamsun's protagonist in Pan--he's a man perfectly at home in the woods, but put him within earshot of civilization and soon he'll come apart, most spectacularly, at the seams.
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Anyone thinking Hamsun is a one trick pony and read only Hunger should check out this book. Entirely different from Hunger, this bleak but achingly beautiful (it reads like a long prose poem) book discusses civilization versus wilderness with the character of the bizarre Lt. Glahn. A bitter epilogue adds a new angle to the narrative.
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Read in January, 1996
My personal favorite among Hamsun's books. A siren washes ashore along the rocky coast of Norway. A lone hunter and his dog are in for a ride (and just when he thought he had sworn off humanity). Features not only the wilderness of Norway but the wilderness of the human heart.
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Read in December, 2007
recommended to Will by:
A real-life Norwegianrecommends it for: Existentialists of the "Salt of the Earth" variety
Norwegians are strange. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them are vigorous and well-adjusted hail-fellow-well-met types. The other point-one percent are cynical and disillusioned neurotics. Hamsun joins Ibsen and Munch as part of the second group.
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Third favorite Hamsun book. A book about love, unrequited, requited, again and again, proving that nothing has changed in the long history of dating and playing hard to get is still the name of the game.
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Read in January, 2005
I recently reread this classic a few months back and it still amazes me. It's been called one of the first modernist novels and Hamsun is touted by respected writers like Paul Auster.
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Read in May, 2006
Hamsun sure knows how to tell a depressing story. But don't worry, his writing is beautiful and inspiring in a twisted sort of way.
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone getting over an ex so they see insanity.
It was a great book until it involved interactions with other humans. I found it painful. I had to make myself finish it.
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this is my favourite novel by knut hamsun. i like it so much i want to learn norwegian and read it in norwegian.
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This was a touch one -- great style that went nowhere at all. spare, beautiful, but i i just couldn't hold on.
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Read in October, 2004
recommends it for:
romantics
This is a heart-rending story of a man who retires to the woods, where he seeks, finds and destroys love.
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another author who can do no wrong. this one is my favorite, but most folks prefer the book Hunger.
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One of the most interesting, well-written books I've ever read...from before the twentieth century.
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