Transcript Knut Hamsun Hunger

Knut Hamsun
Hunger
Title: Hunger
Author: Knut Hamsun
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 134
Publisher: Dover Publications, 1069027200
ISBN: 0486431681
Format: PDF / Kindle / ePub
Size: 5.7 MB
Download: allowed
Description
One of the most important and controversial writers of the 20th century, Knut Hamsun made
literary history with the publication in 1890 of this powerful, autobiographical novel recounting
the abject poverty, hunger and despair of a young writer struggling to achieve self-discovery
and its ultimate artistic expression. The book brilliantly probes the psychodynamics of alienation
and obsession, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by forces beyond his control to
the edge of self-destruction. Hamsun influenced many of the major 20th-century writers who
followed him, including Kafka, Joyce and Henry Miller. Required reading in world literature
courses, the highly influential, landmark novel will also find a wide audience among lovers of
books that probe the "unexplored crannies in the human soul" (George Egerton).
Insightful reviews
Rowena: Very reminiscent of a couple of books I have already read, including Orwell's "Down
and Out in Paris and London." Very dire account of a starving writer trying to find work and food
at the same time.
Especially interesting to me was the fact that the protagonist still valued maintaining his dignity
over everything else.
His interior dialogue was definitely reminiscent of Job speaking to God in the Old Testament.
I liked the archaic style the book was written in. Case in point was the word "zounds" which I
wish could find its way back into common English usage :)
This is a book which is worthy of a re-read.
Lynne King: Last night the “fog” finally left me as effortlessly as it had arrived seven months
ago. My mourning period was now officially over, although the good memories would be firmly
entrenched forever in my mind, as well as the sad ones. I shed my widow’s weeds. Also the
tears surprisingly enough poured for the first time in ages. I certainly do not have a weak
character. I had been in the doldrums and was not progressing, nor “turning the page”. Knut
showed me via “Hunger” (Norwegian: “Sult”) that one has to continue with life regardless;
forget hunger, forget the dark shadows, the periods of feeling sorry for oneself, just survive,
continue on regardless whatever happens, for life has given you another chance and another
adventure to pursue. So grab it and forge with speed into the sunlight. I’m sure as I look down
the valley to the backdrop of my beloved Pyrenean mountain range and the Pic d’Ani that they
would agree wholeheartedly with me, as would my husband John.
I do believe in serendipity, as well as destiny and I do believe that I was meant to read this
book. I had read Steve’s and Rakhi’s reviews a while back but to me they were purely
excellent reviews as so many are on Goodreads. But then suddenly another review appeared
and it affected me for some singular reason. Perhaps I had to read it?
Upon reading the first paragraph, I was hooked and ready for this wonderful literary journey:
It was during the time I wondered about and starved in Christiania; Christiania, singular city,
from which no man departs without carrying away the traces of his sojourn there.
And did that indeed prove to be the case.
This book is such a mixed bag of philosophical and multi-faceted reveries, vagaries and ideas.
Our unnamed narrator (why would an author want to leave a narrator without a name? I’ve
never understood that) runs the gamut of every conceivable emotion:
Anger, aversion, courage, dejection, desire, despair, fear, hate, hope, love, sadness. (M.B.
Arnold 1996)
The average individual with a good job will never know about hunger. Imagine going without
food for two or three days because there’s no money to purchase even a loaf of bread and
finally drinking water, which causes the individual to retch.
Imagine, even when on your uppers as in the case of our author, you are so convinced of your
literary aspirations that you persevere regardless, even though you have nowhere to live, as
there’s no money to pay the rent; finally losing the one pencil you own and so thus being
unable to write an article for “Commodore”, the narrator’s lifeline for survival.
Imagine feeling desire and lust for a woman when your clothes are in rags but nevertheless
wanting to pursue it through to the utter end.
Imagine feeling so frustrated with yourself that you succumb to anger and hold inner conflicting
arguments and discussions and even wonder if you are becoming insane.
Imagine crawling back to a lodging house, even though the thought humiliates you, when the
pregnant landlady has already thrown you out for not paying your rent.
Imagine lying so that people will still think that you are working and finally, imagine being so
convinced of your own writing ability that you continue and continue but when finally… Well that
is for you the reader to find out.
There are so many excellent sections in here in which to quote but if I did that I would indeed be
quoting the entire book. However, I have to add the following:
There is an amazing section when “Commodore”, who has accepted articles/essays from the
narrator in the past, who upon seeing the latter staggering due to lack of food, gives him half-a
sovereign. He’s certainly clever and that’s for sure as he knows that a good article will
eventually be forthcoming from our narrator.
The humility of our narrator upon this act:
I was left standing on the pavement, gazing after him. I wept quietly and silently. “I never saw
the like!” I said to myself. “He gave me half-a-sovereign.” I walked back and placed myself
where he had stood, imitated all his movements, held the half-sovereign up to my moistened
eyes, inspected it on both side, and began to swear – to swear at the top of my voice, that there
was no manner of doubt that what I held in my hand was a half-sovereign.
When I came across “Ylajali”, I assumed in ignorance this was the name of the woman who the
narrator was facing and for whom he felt such desire:
I stand and gaze into her eyes, and hit, on the spur of the moment, on a name which I have
never heard before — a name with a gliding, nervous sound — Ylajali!
I was fascinated by this name. It appeared to be so exotic but with a Yiddish ring to it. I
researched into it and found:
The name is not only a symbolic substitute for the desired woman. It is also a symbol of desire
itself – considered in the Lacanian sense of a drive sustained by lack, sliding from element to
element in the chain of symbolic substitutes, and which can never be fulfilled without losing its
character of being desire: Y-la-ja-li
Although “Hunger” proved to be a sensation upon publication, many individuals objected to
him. Firstly Knut Hamsun was an unknown quantity and was:
a true scion of the best old peasant stock. Through the impressions of his childhood and early
youth he became affiliated with the volatile race of Nordland, a people as alien from the heavier
inland peasant as if they lived on different continents. The fishermen who play with death for the
wealth of the sea and depend for their livelihood on the caprices of nature do not easily harden
into traditional moulds. Childish and improvident, witty and sentimental, often fond of the
melodramatic, simple and yet shrewd, superstitious but brave beyond all praise, the native of
Nordland is a type unlike every other Norwegian. Wherever he may roam, he will yearn for the
wonderland of his youth…as from the nature of Nordland with its alternations of melting
loveliness and stark gloom that he drew his poetic inspiration.
During his second stay in America, between 1886 and 1888, he worked as a navvy and for nine
months as a tramconductor in Chicago. He was known for his habit of reading Aristotle and
Euripides between stops. He was very poor and weathered the deep winter of Chicago by
wearing newspaper under his clothes; his colleagues liked to touch him to make him crackle..
Our author was a true wanderer throughout his life and perhaps probably due to this, he learned
humility and all those other good aspects that make up our lives as human beings.
I really admire this author and am so delighted that I’ve read this remarkable book. For me
there’s something special about Norwegian authors that manages to touch my psyche. Is it the
weather that brings such incredible richness to these Norwegian works? I really don’t know.
Purely one of the wonders of our life on this remarkable planet, Earth, I guess.
And finally, my special thanks to Will for helping me out of the “fog”.
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Matthew: a smarter guy than me (read: Chris Rock) as soon as said, "If a homeless individual
has a humorous sign, he hasn't been homeless that long. a true homeless individual is simply
too hungry to be funny." yet what occurs whilst you've gotten simply develop into homeless,
should you inform your self you are going to spend only one or nights outside, sooner than your
outfits became tattered, and sooner than starvation has thoroughly set in? Knut Hamsun's first
novel, Hunger, released in 1890, reads like a play-by-play of 1 man's descent into poverty and
insanity. Hamsun had grown pissed off on the plot- and character-driven novels of his time, so it
truly is no shock that there's little pushing this narrative ahead (aside from the consistent
hunger) and that it is populated by way of forgettable characters that regularly blur together.
starvation is Hamsun's try at a stream-of-consciousness method that may later be made
recognized via Joyce, Faulkner, and Woolf; we're trapped in his narrator's head as he's kept
away from through every person he knows, as he wanders the abandoned urban at night, as he
hallucinates. It sounds depressing, and it is, yet Hamsun's narrator is a likeable - even
humorous - guy. he is liable to most unlikely daydreams, fantasies, and unexpected surges of
compassion, and the full time, he realizes he is going mad, even accepts it, embraces it, enjoys
it. much can (and has) been acknowledged in regards to the novel's Existentialism and
Modernism (with a capital "E" and "M"), yet let's no longer overlook that the tale works on a
human level, too. the picture that has caught with me is this: our hero, attempting to make
himself presentable, rubbing saliva onto his black pants in order that they are going to look
shinier. "It was once in these days while I wandered approximately hungry in Kristiania, that
unusual urban which not anyone leaves prior to it has set its mark upon him..."
Brian: A Kafka subject matter informed in a Dostoevsky voice.This novel jogs my memory back
how grateful i'm that i have by no means needed to visit mattress hungry as soon as in my life.
within the entire of human history, what small percent of individuals may be able to make that
claim?
Fewlas: Dato che los angeles situazione è una matassa più ingarbugliata del solito, comincio da
lontano; mi dispiace ma non posso fare altrimenti.Mio padre aveva venti anni e studiava a
Roma. Leggeva un sacco. Un libro a notte, da quanto mi racconta, anche se dubito che sia
vero. Comunque, racconta che un giorno aveva voglia di qualcosa di diverso, che non fosse un
Classico, che fosse qualcosa di potente e di eccitante; allora il commesso gli diede
Bukowski.Una decina di anni fa ero imbambolata davanti alla libreria di mio padre, annoiata e
disperata. Ero un’adolescente disperata, avevo fame, volevo saziarmi con qualcosa di
disperato come me. Non c’era niente che mi ispirasse. period tutto nero, come l. a. vita. Quindi
mio padre si avvicinò e mi disse che mi avrebbe dato qualcosa di disperato come me. E mi
diede Bukowski.Quando, dopo anni, ormai conoscevo bene Bukowski, un pomeriggio digitai il
suo nome in step with l’ennesima volta su Google e ne venne fuori qualcosa di grande: los
angeles sua firma sotto advert un’introduzione che lui aveva scritto in line with Ask the dust.
Insomma, mi fece conoscere Fante. Quel titolo, Chiedi alla polvere mi suonava tanto biblico. Mi
dicevo che sicuramente period qualcosa preso dalla Bibbia. Manco according to niente.. period
preso da Pan di Hamsun. Quel nome è rimasto a fermentare nel mio cervello in keeping with
qualche anno. E ora, finalmente, Fame !!!!Fame è considerato un libro psicologico e, in molte
recensioni, si legge di flow of consciousness. Definizione, secondo me, di cui un po’ si abusa.
Perché se di flusso si vuol parlare, allora dovremmo piuttosto dire che in questo caso abbiamo
un flusso di febbricitanti deliri causati dalla fame, una cascata di disperazione, un oceano di
desolazione. Il protagonista è uno scrittore che lotta in step with los angeles propria vita in step
with le strade di Christiania (ora Oslo). Non ha una corona in tasca e ha tanta fame, ha lo
stomaco che lotta consistent with non cominciare a divorar se stesso. Lui è uno scrittore senza
un tetto, che si arrangia dando in pegno qualsiasi cosa. Però alla fantastic non c’è più niente da
dar via. Gli restano solo quegli attimi in cui l’ispirazione gli fa visita e gli fa scrivere qualche
articolo in keeping with il giornale. E allora può comprarsi una bistecca, o un panino col burro.
Gli piace considerarsi un uomo onesto, quindi non ruba, non vuole accettare l’elemosina, è in
una situazione disperata. Ma quando tu sei lì che leggi l. a. sua fame, il suo dolore, e pensi che
poco gli manca da vivere, lui ti sorprende. Che pazzo che period stato a dimenticare il suo
orgoglio! Che stupido a pensare che fosse tutto perduto! los angeles soluzione è un truciolo di
legno che può masticare ingannando il suo mostro personale, l. a. fame. Così potrà avere
qualche ora in più in keeping with terminare il suo articolo. l. a. soluzione è los angeles spilla da
balia trovata in line with strada che lui può usare al posto dei bottoni. Così può dare i bottoni in
pegno! È una lenta discesa verso gli inferi. Ha los angeles febbre, ha fame, delira, parla da
solo. Vaneggia compiendo azioni da pazzi. cube cose senza senso. Segue ragionamenti che
solo lui può comprendere.Non si può spiegare Fame. Se dovessi scegliere una sola parola in
line with definirlo, probabilmente urlerei disperata: ”Magnificenza!!!”. È un libro che scivola
through velocemente, tanto è scritto bene. È così reale da farti torcere lo stomaco. Vai a leggere
l. a. facts di pubblicazione e dici:”Ma come? 1890??”. È un costante grido di disperazione, di
lotta in step with l. a. sopravvivenza, YLAJALI!. Se leggerete il libro capirete questo grido,
capirete che los angeles sua disperazione si concentra anche in queste lettere sconnesse, in
questa parola inventata, una porta che si apre su fantasie che sono un balsamo in line with los
angeles disperazione.. YLAJALI!Per concludere torno su Bukowski. Perché in
quell’introduzione advert Ask the nightfall racconta di come un giorno in libreria non riuscisse a
trovare niente che gli andasse (ce l’ho solo in Inglese, purtroppo):"I used to be a tender man,
ravenous and consuming and attempting to be a writer. I did such a lot of my interpreting on the
downtown L.A. Public Library, and not anything that I learn on the topic of me or to the streets or
the folks approximately me. It appeared as though every body used to be taking part in wordtricks, that those that acknowledged virtually not anything in any respect have been thought of
first-class writers […] What i wished appeared to be absent everywhere."Poi un giorno anche io
come Bukowski, girando in una giostra di continui rimandi da libro a libro, da scrittore a scrittore,
ho trovato ciò di cui avevo bisogno, ed è stato così:"Then at some point I pulled a ebook down
and opened it, and there it was. I stood for a moment, reading. Then like a guy who had
stumbled on gold within the urban dump, I carried the publication to a table. The traces rolled
simply around the page, there has been a flow. each one line had its personal power and used
to be by way of one other like it. The very substance of every line gave the web page a form, a
sense of anything carved into it. And there, at last, used to be a guy who was once no longer
fearful of emotion. The humour and the soreness have been intermixed with a good simplicity.
the start of that publication was once a wild and large miracle to me."Queste parole Bukowski le
ha scritte dopo aver letto Ask the dirt e, soprattutto le ultime che ho messo in grassetto,
according to me corrispondono a quello che ho provato leggendo dapprima Bukowski, poi
Fante, ed infine Hamsun. Hamsun according to ultimo, anche se è stato il primo a creare questo
tipo di letteratura che mi piace tanto. Uno rimanda all’altro, una casa degli specchi dove si
riflettono parole e frasi disperate, vite di scrittori che lottano according to l’ispirazione,
consistent with urlare sulla pagina los angeles propria vita. E mi sembra che con Hamsun non
sia finita. Mi sembra che anche io venga riflessa insieme a loro in questi giochi di rimandi tra
specchio e specchio, tra libro e libro. Loro con l. a. repute hanno scritto dei capolavori. Io non
farò lo stesso. Ma, grazie a loro, so che l. a. speranza è davvero l’ultima a morire.
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