He’s a starving, neurotic vagrant, manically drifting the city streets between writing projects.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun is the novel that kicked off the literary tone of the 20th century. It was first published in 1888. Hamsun, tired with the familiar story narratives of his time, believed that stories needed to be psychological, he believed that the irrationality of man needed portrayal. After his travels through America, which left him with a pathological hatred of America and Americans, and previous failed dabbles at writing, he wrote Hunger. Its literary success catapulted him into fame and into esteemed literary circles. It’s a wild and manic read. It’s a stream of consciousness from the main character, who is a starving, neurotic, manic, vagrant wandering the streets of the city Kristiania (now Oslo) between writing projects.
Background
The story is loosely inspired by Knut Hamsun’s time in America. He came to America two separate times, spending a total of two and a half years. He was impoverished the entire time, and that experience of impoverishment, the edges it pushed him to psychologically, combined with his dislike of familiar literary styles (his dislike for Realism and Naturalism styles in particular), the literary currents undergoing a growing curiosity with The Book of Job and Oedipus Rex, and the influence of Dostoyevski’s psychological themes, all inspired Hamsun to write what he felt stories needed to be, deeply psychological.
Story Background
Hamsun broke new ground with his stream of consciousness style (a style later tried and imitated by Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, among others). That stream of consciousness spills out from the main character, manically. Hamsun wished to show a general truth of the human psyche — that we’re all irrational. He conveys this irrationality via a character on the verge of starvation, and that starvation pulling the character deeper into the darker parts of his psyche. It’s tough to psychoanalyze a character, just as it’s tough to accurately psychoanalyze a person, but Hamsun offers the reader a character impossible not to psychoanalyze. The character in one moment has delusions of grandeur, in another he tries to psychologically intimidate men or women, in another he’s neurotically spinning on a topic, and in another he’s insanely sanctimonious with his belief of his moral perfection. He also owns a modicum of writing talent. Here and there he gets articles and essays published, but his manic state and delusions of grandeur make for a humorous writing process. It all allures the reader to analyze the character’s psychology.
A consistent underlying theme of the character is the belief that God specifically chose him like how God chose Job. The character is insistent that God is giving him hardships so he can attain a higher purpose that will lift mankind and himself to otherworldly heights. And the character, despite doing acts like robbing a store, lying, attempting psychological warfare on someone, and harshly judging others, full on believes he is an exemplar of Christian morality. And the tribulations he faces — all at the hand of his agency — he believes are specific challenges given to him by God. When the main character talks to God about his tribulations or self-aggrandizes his morals, this is where Hamsun plays on the Book of Job from the Old Testament.1
That inspiration from the Book of Job also wields the destiny theme. According to the introduction (Penguin Classics) Hamsun was also inspired by the destiny theme in Oedipus Rex. And one, arguably, could toss in Achilles from The Iliad. Oedipus and Achilles both have their fates sealed, whereas Job’s fate depends upon either accepting or rejecting God. The main character in Hunger believes his destiny is set, that he’s a chosen one. Since he lacks any sort of self-reflection, perspective, or conscientiousness, we the reader, can diagnose him, perhaps accurately, a narcissist, bipolar, and maybe even a schizophrenic. Yet it’s these absurd extremes, the humor of it, that portrays our irrationality. It’s not that we’re all on the edges of irrationality as Hamsun’s character, but folly, foibles, irrationality are all innate to us. And how Hamsun portrays it, makes our irrationality accessible and not something to be damned, it’s just a part of being human. Hamsun shows the benefits of our irrationality when he has other characters offer empathy, kindness, and even romantic attraction to the main character. They offered him these sentiments knowing he was off his rocker, or for the woman who offered him romantic attraction upon finding out he was undateable because he was nuts, offered him pity. And another moment where a woman had a gut instinct — a factor many claim as irrational, biased, or a foolish notion — that the main character was off, so she kept him at a distance. Those small moments from the other characters reveal why irrationality isn’t all that bad.
Who Would Enjoy Reading It
It’s manic, wild, and funny. That makes for fast reading.
If you like more psychological reads, are into the psychology of people, this is a phenomenal read.
Nothing in the story is resolved. No satisfying endings, no satisfying character arcs. Hamsun breaks the modern rule of character development popular and familiar today: each character must have an arc and each character develops in some fashion. None of Hamsun’s characters develop in the story.
Some people have a notion that irrationality leads to unpredictable chaos. True, it can harbor erratic behavior, like the main character. But the main character repeats his patterns of behavior, he’s stuck in various cycles. This is a feature of irrationality and human psychology. We all have our patterns of behaviors, and some can glue us to certain cycles. Like telling yourself your going to be better with money, but then months later, find yourself saying it again. That’s reality. That’s what Hamsun conveys.
Character development in the real world is not always guaranteed. Granted, some people are conscientious, and develop through the seasons of life, and yes, a smaller handful work to dull their adverse patterns of behavior, but how a person develops is on a spectrum. Self-development depends on the individual, it can take years, and it’s nuanced to each person. Some people are inquisitive, and understand they’re the pilot picking their flight plans. Others, while inquisitive, due to our current cultures obsession with casting blame on some bogeyman — trauma, patriarchy, Feminism, parents, the past, racism — dull their inquisitiveness of their accountability of their situation. That in itself, could be a choice from fear or who knows what else. And many people simply refuse to change, they may say they’re a different person, and are doing things differently, yet when we observe the actions, it’s all the same flight paths despite the new paint color of the plane. That’s natural. That’s life. We’re all prone to this and we’ve seen it in others. Hunger captures this irrationality, makes it accessible, humorous, and offers us perspective. Sometimes, oftentimes in fact, our irrationality is what moves society, it’s what takes risks, it’s what creates art, it’s what starts a loyal, fruitful, and amazing marriage. A perfectly rational being, like the Terminator, would be dull, frightening, and colorless.
Approaching It
Translation matters.
Translation matters.
Translation matters.
Hamsun deployed an old Norwegian style that even his famous work, Growth of the Soil required Norwegian translators to translate it into modern Norwegian. That old style is difficult to translate to English. Penguin Classics is generally a trustworthy source. Do not skimp on getting a good translation.
The translator in the introduction of the Penguin Classics version says other translations water down and even strip out parts of Hunger. Again, don’t skimp, invest in a good translation.
Hunger is readable. It’s an accessible book. You don’t need a background in The Book of Job or Oedipus Rex. It may help to look up either to get a grasp of the destiny theme, which I suggest, but it’s not necessary.
It’s a fast-paced book, it reads manic, but it packs a lot of if you’re willing to chew on it.
A Note on Hamsun’s Legacy
Knut Hamsun won the Nobel Prize in Literature for The Growth of the Soil. Hunger catapulted him to literary fame. Some claim he was the greatest literary figure of the 20th century.
So why isn’t he as known as say, Ernest Hemingway?
Arguably, three reasons.
One, the work he wrote on America is appallingly bigoted and racist.
Two, Hamsun believed his daughter was too whimsical. Being a man of his time and believing in the bizarre human experiments of the Third Reich, he made his daughter undergo various lobotomy treatments to remove the whimsy. She ended up a vegetable for the rest of her life.
Three, the biggest, Hamsun’s undying love and admiration for Adolf Hitler. It’s a natural reflex to judge people in the past by today’s standard’s. And Hamsun was also, rightly, judged in his time by those who detested the evil incarnation that was Adolf Hitler.
I’ll state right now, I’m not attempting to rehabilitate Hitler, I find him evil incarnate. Yet Hitler is now waved around by the Left, and anything Right wing is Hitler. And often this sentiment comes with the belief that Hitler was some backwards, uneducated hillbilly who surrounded himself with a band of backwater idiots, and took Germany against the will of the people. In other words, no different than how Leftists view Donald Trump and the MAGA base.
The reality is, however, Hitler was revered by an overwhelming majority of Germans. He was also revered by intellectuals in America, many academics, even the New York Times hailed him.2 Across the globe, Hitler was revered.
And Knut Hamsun was one of those figures who gushed over Hitler. Hamsun met Hitler, and despite Hamsun making Hitler furious and Hitler making Hamsun cry, Hamsun, after Hitler’s death, wrote a groveling eulogy. Norway and Hamsun’s family tried to say Hamsun was insane, yet Hamsun doubled down, wrote works to prove he was sane, and praised Hitler for the rest of his life. He doubled down on this praise at the cost of his fortune and legacy.
And due to this doubling down, his works, his importance, was largely swept under the rug. Norway has a Hamsun center, but Hamsun is still a very complicated legacy for Norway and Norwegians.
Here’s the thing.
In his fiction works, he doesn’t hammer Nazi ideology or push for National Socialism. You can read it and not turn into Joseph Goebbels.
It’s natural to judge Hamsun, it’s right to judge Hamsun, and it’s a philosophical argument to how we treat Hamsun. He’s complicated. A lot of great thinkers, writers, philosophers, all praised Hitler. How we approach them takes perspective and honesty. To discount Hamsun’s work due to his affiliations is reflexive and fearful. His fiction is not like Mein Kampf, which Winston Churchill felt important to read to understand what drove that evil (I’ve read bits of Mein Kampf, it’s a lot of self-pitying crap, and convoluted theories). But zero Nazi propaganda is presented in Hamsun’s fiction (at least the two I’ve read, and from what I’ve researched).
I recommend reading Hamsun. My favorite story is The Growth of the Soil — I believe it’s the greatest fiction ever written. You can hate the man’s politics, but his fiction is worth reading. And Hunger is certainly worth it.
The Book of Job is one of the most distinct texts of the Old Testament. A good man becomes the subject of debate between God and Satan, and God pushes ills onto Job to prove Job will not reject Him. It’s often an unsettling text, it raises a ton of questions regarding God, and it’s the last time God speaks directly to man until Jesus.
https://www.nytimes.com/1939/08/20/archives/herr-hitler-at-home-in-the-clouds-high-up-on-his-favorite-mountain.html
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