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Since the death of Ibsen and Strindberg, Hamsun is undoubtedly the foremost creative writer of the Scandinavian countries.
His reputation is not confined to his own country or the two Scandinavian sister nations. It spread long ago over the rest of Europe, taking deepest roots in Russia, where several editions of his collected works have already appeared, and where he is spoken of as the equal of Tolstoy and Dostoyevski.
[Hamsun’s] reputation is not confined to his own country or the two Scandinavian sister nations. It spread long ago over the rest of Europe, taking deepest roots in Russia, where several editions of his collected works have already appeared, and where he is spoken of as the equal of Tolstoy and Dostoyevski. The enthusiasm of this approval is a characteristic symptom that throws interesting light on Russia as well as on Hamsun.
In all the literature known to me, there is no writer who appears more ruthlessly and fearlessly himself, and the self thus presented to us is as paradoxical and rebellious as it is poetic and picturesque.
The Northland, with its glaring lights and black shadows, its unearthly joys and abysmal despairs, is present and dominant in every line that Hamsun ever wrote.
The artist and the vagabond seem equally to have been in the blood of Hamsun from the very start.
It is almost as if, during those days of feverish literary struggle, he had risen to heights where he saw things so clearly that no subsequent experience could add anything but occasional details.
Twice he visited this country during the middle eighties, working chiefly on the plains of North Dakota and in the streets of Chicago.
While here, he failed utterly to establish any sympathetic contact between himself and the new world, and his first book after his return in 1888 was a volume of studies named "The Spiritual Life of Modern America," which a prominent Norwegian critic once described as "a masterpiece of distorted criticism."
While here, he failed utterly to establish any sympathetic contact between himself and the new world, and his first book after his return in 1888 was a volume of studies named "The Spiritual Life of Modern America," which a prominent Norwegian critic once described as "a masterpiece of distorted criticism." But I own a copy of this book, the fly-leaf of which bears the following inscription in the author's autograph:
"A youthful work. It has ceased to represent my opinion of America.
May 28, 1903. Knut Hamsun."
In its original form, "Hunger" was merely a sketch, and as such it appeared in 1888 in a Danish literary periodical, "New Earth."
In its original form, "Hunger" was merely a sketch, and as such it appeared in 1888 in a Danish literary periodical, "New Earth." It attracted immediate widespread attention to the author, both on account of its unusual theme and striking form. It was a new kind of realism that had nothing to do with photographic reproduction of details. It was a professedly psychological study that had about as much in common with the old-fashioned conceptions of man's mental activities as the delirious utterances of a fever patient. It was life, but presented in the Impressionistic temper of a Gauguin or Cezanne. On the appearance of the completed novel in 1890, Hamsun was greeted as one of the chief heralds of the neo-romantic movement then spreading rapidly through the Scandinavian north and finding typical expressions not only in the works of theretofore unknown writers, but in the changed moods of masters like Ibsen and Bjornson and Strindberg.
It was followed two years later by "Mysteries," which pretends to be a novel, but which may be better described as a delightfully irresponsible and defiantly subjective roaming through any highway or byway of life or letters that happened to take the author's fancy at the moment of writing.
[“Hunger”] was followed two years later by "Mysteries," which pretends to be a novel, but which may be better described as a delightfully irresponsible and defiantly subjective roaming through any highway or byway of life or letters that happened to take the author's fancy at the moment of writing. Some one has said of that book that in its abrupt swingings from laughter to tears, from irreverence to awe, from the ridiculous to the sublime, one finds the spirits of Dostoyevski and Mark Twain blended.
Hamsun's ironical humor and whimsical manner of expression do more than the plot itself to knit the plays into an organic unit, and several of the characters are delightfully drawn, particularly the two women who play the greatest part in Kareno's life: his wife Eline, and Teresita, who is one more of his many feminine embodiments of the passionate and changeable Northland nature.
Like most of the great writers over there, Hamsun has not confined himself to one poetic mood or form, but has tried all of them. From the line of novels culminating in "Pan," he turned suddenly to the drama, and in 1895 appeared his first play, "At the Gates of the Kingdom." It was the opening drama of a trilogy and was followed by "The Game of Life" in 1896 and "Sunset Glow" in 1898. The first play is laid in Christiania, the second in the Northland, and the third in Christiania again. The hero of all three is Ivar Kareno, a student and thinker who is first presented to us at the age of 29, then at 39, and finally at 50. His wife and several other characters accompany the central figure through the trilogy, of which the lesson seems to be that every one is a rebel at 30 and a renegade at 50. But when Kareno, the irreconcilable rebel of "At the Gates of the Kingdom," the heaven-storming truth-seeker of "The Game of Life," and the acclaimed radical leader in the first acts of "Sunset Glow," surrenders at last to the powers that be in order to gain a safe and sheltered harbor for his declining years, then another man of 29 stands ready to denounce him and to take up the rebel cry of youth to which he has become a traitor. Hamsun's ironical humor and whimsical manner of expression do more than the plot itself to knit the plays into an organic unit, and several of the characters are delightfully drawn, particularly the two women who play the greatest part in Kareno's life: his wife Eline, and Teresita, who is one more of his many feminine embodiments of the passionate and changeable Northland nature. Any attempt to give a political tendency to the trilogy must be held wasted. Characteristically, Kareno is a sort of Nietzschean rebel against the victorious majority, and Hamsun's seemingly cynical conclusions stress man's capacity for action rather than the purposes toward which that capacity may be directed.
From 1897 to 1912 Hamsun produced a series of volumes that simply marked a further development of the tendencies shown in his first novels: "Siesta," short stories, 1897; "Victoria" a novel with a charming love story that embodies the tenderest note in his production, 1898; "In Wonderland," travelling sketches from the Caucasus, 1903; "Brushwood," short stories, 1903; "The Wild Choir," a collection of poems, 1904; "Dreamers," a novel, 1904; "Struggling Life," short stories and travelling sketches, 1905; "Beneath the Autumn Star" a novel, 1906; "Benoni," and "Rosa," two novels forming to some
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It was during the time I wandered about and starved in Christiania: Christiania, this singular city, from which no man departs without carrying away the traces of his sojourn there.
Then something odd happened. The curtains above were stirred, and a second after a window opened, a head popped out, and two singular-looking eyes dwelt on me. "Ylajali!" I muttered, half-aloud, and I felt I grew red.
The rhythmical sound of Biblical language sang in my ears, and I talked quite softly to myself, and held my head sneeringly askew.
The sound of music was borne up on the wind to me from the Students' Allée.
Despondent at not being able to put my article together, I replaced the paper in my pocket, and leant back in the seat.
It might contain deeds, dangerous documents stolen from some archive or other; something floated before me about a secret treaty--a conspiracy.
Cranberries from China; feathers and down from Russia; hides, pulp, writing-ink--"
The little goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and stop his mouth from sheer amazement.
Had he heard of the electric psalm-book that Happolati had invented?
The blood flew to my head, and I roared with laughter.
The day began to decline, the sun sank, it commenced to rustle lightly in the trees around, and the nursemaids who sat in groups near the parallel bars made ready to wheel their perambulators home.
"You must not sit here and go to sleep!"
Suddenly a few good sentences fitted for a sketch or story strike me, delicate linguistic hits of which I have never before found the equal.
My head swims with a sense of satisfaction; delight inflates me; I grow grandiose.
An intense, peculiar exhalation of light and colour emanates from these fantasies of mine. I start with surprise as I note one good thing after another, and tell myself that this is the best thing I have ever read. My head swims with a sense of satisfaction; delight inflates me; I grow grandiose.
I wanted to prove to her what an upright sort of person her roof had sheltered.
I sat there in complete quietness, dozed in the damp air, mused, half- slept and shivered.
Where in the world shall I find a shelter for the night?
Visions; senseless dreams! I tell myself that were I to get food now my head would become dizzy once more, fever would fill my brain, and I would have to fight again against many mad fancies.
I stand dumb with terror before this armed man, and draw involuntarily back.
Cold and famished, more and more miserable in spirit, I flew up Carl Johann. I began to swear out aloud, troubling myself not a whit as to whether any one heard me or not.
It was three o'clock. Hunger began to assail me downright in earnest. I was faint, and now and again I had to retch furtively.
I failed to see either how I had made myself deserving of this special persecution; and it suddenly entered my head that I might just as well turn rogue at once and go to my "Uncle's" with the blanket.
Fury welled up in me, blazing with brutal strength. I fetched my parcel from the entry, set my teeth together, jostled against the peaceful folk on the footpath, and never once asked their pardon.
I was becoming mentally and physically more and more prostrate; I was letting myself down each day to less and less honest actions, so that I lied on each day without blushing, cheated poor people out of their rent, struggled with the meanest thoughts of making away with other men's blankets--all without remorse or prick of conscience.
And up in Heaven God Almighty sat and kept a watchful eye on me, and took heed that my destruction proceeded in accordance with all the rules of art, uniformly and gradually, without a break in the measure.
But in the abysses of hell the angriest devils bristled with range because it lasted such a long time until I committed a mortal sin, an unpardonable offence for which God in His justice must cast me--down....
The flickering ray of a gas lamp gleams up the street.
A stream of light, as it were, darts through my breast, and I hear that I give a little cry--a meaningless sound of joy.
A stream of light, as it were, darts through my breast, and I hear that I give a little cry--a meaningless sound of joy. The letter was from the editor. My story was accepted--had been set in type immediately, straight off! A few slight alterations.... A couple of errors in writing amended.... Worked out with talent ... be printed tomorrow ... half-a-sovereign.
A few weeks later I was out one evening. Once more I had sat out in a churchyard and worked at an article for one of the newspapers.
A few weeks later I was out one evening. Once more I had sat out in a churchyard and worked at an article for one of the newspapers. But whilst I was struggling with it eight o'clock struck, and darkness closed in, and time for shutting the gates.
I was hungry--very hungry.
A policeman patrols in the distance; otherwise there is not a soul visible, and the whole harbour is hushed in quiet.
In the corridors and galleries choirs of musicians march by, and rills of perfume are wafted towards me.
I see from my seat stars shooting before my eyes, and my thoughts are swept away in a hurricane of light....
"Hold on there!" the policeman shouted after me; "why, you're walking off without your hat, you Juggins! So--h there; now, go on." "I indeed thought there was something--something I had forgotten," I stammered, absently. "Thanks, good-night!" and I stumbled away.
I was bitterly hungry; wished myself dead and buried; I got maudlin, and wept.
"Oh, of course," I muttered to myself, "why shouldn't I lose my keys?
"Oh, of course," I muttered to myself, "why shouldn't I lose my keys? Here I am, living in a yard where there is a stable underneath and a tinker's workshop up above. The door is locked at night, and no one, no one can open it; therefore, why should I not lose my keys?
"I am as wet as a dog--a little hungry--ah, just ever such a little hungry, and slightly, ay, absurdly tired about my knees; therefore, why should I not lose them?
I could hear the horses stamp in the stables, and I could see my window above, but I could not open the door, and I could not get in.
"The gas will burn for ten minutes," remarked the policeman at the door.
"The gas will burn for ten minutes," remarked the policeman at the door.
"And then does it go out?"
"Then it goes out!"
