Charles Bukowski called him the greatest writer who ever lived while Hemingway dug his Nordland drama’s more than enough to recommend them to Scott Fitzgerald. Hamsun’s work was apparently a crucial Influence on 20th century literature with admiration from the like’s of Mann to Hesse. In particular, the acute sense of isolation in Hunger is something that resonates deeply within Kafka’s work.
Hunger is the second Hamsun novel I’ve read. The first being Growth of the Soil, is a Norwegian rural drama about a man’s simple life with a very romantic theme of Nature. This work earned Hamsun a Nobel prize which he later mailed to Goebbels of all people but more on that later.
It was interesting going from Growth of the Soil to Hunger because of the use of different writing styles, opposite tone and theme’s. Hunger rest’s more in the existentialist novel camp with the like’s of Nausea, Note’s from Underground etc. Put simply Hunger is about hunger in a broad sense. Moral, spiritual, social, romantic hunger and the miserable disintegrated, gaunt, loss of hair and die kind of hunger.
Set in late 19th-century Kristiania now Oslo, this book depicts a struggling writer and his relentless physical and mental decline in a constantly heightened and at times hysterical state. The unnamed character moves through the city often in complete poverty attempting to write in order to make money while more often than not, being physically unable to write due to a lack of money and basic human necessities including shelter often going multiple day’s at a stretch without anything to sustain himself.
This vicious cycle is fueled by rage because he can't make the life he want’s to live a reality and yet he is afraid of losing this anger and to admit defeat by throwing away his dreams.
Something we can all relate to unless you're obscenely rich, is that horrifying moment you experience when you realise that in order to live you have to exchange your time and freedom for money and although more money could mean more freedom, the risk of losing your ideals or dreams is under constant threat. Even though often near death, the character never dismisses the suffering of the unfortunate and disadvantaged people around him and prides himself upon his morals and empathy. While the character’s writing and purpose is intended to help his community with moral and philosophical musing’s, if he could only earn his keep by working another socially beneficial job say in the medical industry for an example, he would be able to use his education to help others (which is something he want’s to do) while simultaneously funding his own artistic efforts (Much like Chekhov). Obviously Hamsun paralleled his own morality and experience as a struggling writer with the character in Hunger which is weird when in later life he transitioned through a national socialist into a full blown facist.
The Character from Hunger’s interactions with various citizens is where the writing becomes a very funny form of commentary and although tragic, the scene’s are something fundamentally human and relatable. Hamsun uses these scene’s to explore the social conditioning and guise we use to keep up appearances and conceal our real feeling’s. While the monologue take’s a very sinister and misanthropic tone, the character never blames anyone for his circumstances and refuses to play a victim. Even when he's wallowing in a sea of self pity, self hatred and despair, the character owns up to his own failing’s often disregarding allowances any sane reader would rely on for a saving excuse. He is far too stubborn, never seeking and usually rejecting charity.
Momentarily it seemed that romantic love might save him but even this redemption was destroyed by his sheer poverty, embarrassment and pride.
One of the reasons Hamsun’s work may be so obscured is the fact that he was a Nazi sympathizer even spending time with Hitler and Goebbels. If not for his personal political view’s and company I think he would be a national Norwegian treasure much like Tolstoy is for Russia. At least we can separate Hamsun's work from his political views and enjoy it for the wonderful art that it is.
I’m going to end it here,
M.
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