This short Norwegian novel was recommended to me because I have enjoyed the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Albert Camus. I was able to devour it in the three days that I was in New York City and loved it... though I think that I would have much to gain from a second run-through.

Hunger gives the first-person account of a starving journalist living in Kristiania in the late 1800s. The delirium and desperation evoked a visceral response as I read. As far as I'm concerned, "hunger" is going half a day without food. In the protagonist's reality, however, days or weeks without money or bread was the norm. There was an occasional burst of lucidity when he wrote articles like his hand was on fire, but pitifully few of these were deemed publishable by the newspaper editor. As the novel progressed, the protagonist's outlook became bleaker, his poverty became more apparent, and other characters began to react to him like a tramp. As I read, I oscillated between liking him/loving him/liking him/hating him/loving him/feeling weary on behalf of the other characters.