Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun (31 years old) in 1890

Knut Hamsun (August 4 1859 – February 19 1952) was a leading Norwegian author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1920.

Biography

Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Lom, Gudbrandsdal, Norway. He was the fourth son of Peder Pedersen and Tora Olsdatter (Garmostrædet). He grew up in poverty in Hamarøy in Nordland. At 17, he became an apprentice to a ropemaker, and at about the same time he started to write. He spent several years in America, travelling and working at various jobs, and published his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (1889).

In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Goepfert (née Bech), but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (b. 1881) in 1909 and she would be his companion until the end of his life. She wrote about their life together in her two memoirs. Marie was a young and promising actress when she met Hamsun, but she ended her career and travelled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, the idea being "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".

However, after a few years, they decided to move south, to Larvik. In 1918, the couple bought Nørholm, an old and somewhat dilapidated manor house between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places (preferably in spartan housing).

Knut Hamsun died in his home at Nørholm, aged 92 in 1952.

Work

Hamsun first received wide acclaim with his 1890 novel Hunger (Sult). The semi-autobiographical work described a young and egocentric writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania. To many, the novel presaged the writings of Franz Kafka and other twentieth-century novelists with its internal monologue and bizarre logic.

A theme to which Hamsun often returned is that of the perpetual wanderer, an itinerant stranger (often the narrator) who shows up and insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This wanderer theme is central to the novels Mysteries, Pan, Under the Autumn Star, The Last Joy, Vagabonds, and others.

Hamsun’s prose often contains rapturous depictions of the natural world, with intimate reflections on the Norwegian woodlands and coastline. For this reason, he has been linked with the spiritual movement known as pantheism. Hamsun sees humankind and nature united in a strong, sometimes mystical bond. This connection between the characters and their natural environment is exemplified in the novels Pan, A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, and the epic Growth of the Soil, for which Hamsun received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1920.

A fifteen-volume edition of his complete works was published in 1954.

Political sympathies

Hamsun was a prominent advocate of Germany and German culture, as well as a rhetorical opponent of British imperialism and the Soviet Union, and he supported Germany both during First and the Second World War. Despite his immense popularity in Norway and around the world, Hamsun's reputation for a time waned considerably because of his support of Vidkun Quisling's National Socialist government. Following a meeting with Joseph Goebbels in 1943, he sent Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. Hamsun also met with Adolf Hitler and tried to have him remove Josef Terboven from the position of Reichskommissar of Norway.

After Hitler's death, Hamsun wrote an obituary in the leading Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, describing him as a "warrior for mankind". It has been argued that his "sympathies" were those of a country that had been occupied. He sometimes used his status as a man of fame to improve the conditions of his area during the occupation and criticized the number of executions. Still, following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books in public in major Norwegian cities. After the war Hamsun was confined for several months in a psychiatric hospital. A psychiatrist concluded he had "permanently impaired mental abilities", and on that basis the charges of treason were dropped. Instead, a civil liability case was raised against him and in 1948 he was fined 325,000 kroner for his alleged membership in Nasjonal Samling, but cleared of any direct Nazi-affiliation. Whether he was a member of Nasjonal Samling or not and whether his mental abilities were impaired is a much debated issue even today. Hamsun stated he was never a member of any political party. Hamsun himself wrote about this experience in the 1949 book, On Overgrown Paths, a book many take as evidence of his functioning mental capabilities.

The Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote the book The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Among other things Hansen stated: "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway", since he felt that treating an old man like that was outrageous.

In 1996 the Swedish director Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, the Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun, while his wife Marie is played by the Danish actress Ghita Nørby.

Bibliography

Year	Title	Translated title	ISBN
1877	Den Gaadefulde. En kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (Published under Knud Pedersen)
1878	Et Gjensyn (Published under Knud Pedersen Hamsund)
1878	Bjørger (Published under Knud Pedersen Hamsund)
1889	Lars Oftedal. Udkast (11 articles, previously printed in Dagbladet)
1889	Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv	The Spiritual Life of Modern America
1890	Sult	Hunger	ISBN 0-374-52528-5
1892	Mysterier	Mysteries	ISBN 0-14-118618-6
1893	Redaktør Lynge
1893	Ny Jord	Shallow Soil	ISBN 1-4191-4690-4
1894	Pan	Pan	ISBN 0-14-118067-6
1895	Ved Rigets Port	At the Gate of the Kingdom
1896	Livets Spil	The Game of Life
1897	Siesta
1898	Aftenrøde. Slutningspil
1898	Victoria. En kjærlighedshistorie	Victoria	ISBN 1-55713-177-5
1902	Munken Vendt. Brigantines saga I
1903	I Æventyrland. Oplevet og drømt i Kaukasien	In Wonderland	ISBN 0-9703125-5-5
1903	Dronning Tamara (Play in three acts)
1903	Kratskog
1904	Det vilde Kor (Poems)
1904	Sværmere	Dreamers	ISBN 0-8112-1321-8
1905	Stridende Liv. Skildringer fra Vesten og Østen
1906	Under Høststjærnen. En Vandrers Fortælling	Under the Autumn Star	ISBN 1-55713-343-3
1908	Benoni
1908	Rosa. Af student Pærelius' Papirer	Rosa	ISBN 1-55713-359-X
1909	En Vandrer spiller med Sordin	A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings	ISBN 1-892295-73-3
1909	En Vandrer spiller med Sordin	Also translated combined with Under Høststjærnen as Wanderers	ISBN 1-4191-9307-4
1910	Livet i Vold (Play in four acts)	In the Grip of Life
1912	Den sidste Glæde	The Last Joy	ISBN 1-931243-19-0
1913	Børn av Tiden	Children of the Age
1915	Segelfoss By 1	Segelfoss Town (Volume 1)
1915	Segelfoss By 2	Segelfoss Town (Volume 2)
1917	Markens Grøde 1	Growth of the Soil	ISBN 0-394-71781-3
1917	Markens Grøde 2
1918	Sproget i Fare
1920	Konerne ved Vandposten I	The Women at the Pump	ISBN 1-55713-244-5
1920	Konerne ved Vandposten II
1923	Siste Kapitel I	The Last Chapter (Volume 1)
1923	Siste Kapitel II	The Last Chapter (Volume 2)
1927	Landstrykere I	Wayfarers	ISBN 1-55713-211-9
1927	Landstrykere II
1930	August I	August (Volume 1)
1930	August II	August (Volume 2)
1933	Men Livet lever I	The Road Leads On (Volume 1)	ISBN 1-4191-8075-4
1933	Men Livet lever II	The Road Leads On (Volume 2)
1936	Ringen sluttet	The Ring is Closed
1949	Paa gjengrodde Stier	On Overgrown Paths	ISBN 1-892295-10-5

Books about Hamsun

• Ferguson, Robert. Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1987. ISBN 0-374-52093-3
• Humpal, Martin. The Roots of Modernist Narrative: Knut Hamsun's Novels Hunger, Mysteries and Pan International Specialized Book Services. 1999 ISBN 82-560-1178-5
• Kolloen, Ingar Sletten. Svermeren 2003 Biography
• Kolloen, Ingar Sletten. Erobreren 2004 Biography

English reviews

The December 5, 2005–January 2, 2006 issue of The New Yorker has a major article by Jeffrey Frank (link here). It seems to rely on the Ingar Kolloen biography (two volumes, reportedly aggregating about 1000 pages). In English, Hamsun was never popular and remains largely unknown. His infamous audience with Adolf Hitler is recorded to have been mostly him complaining about the Nazi depredations against Norwegians. At this time he was a largely-deaf old man in his 80s. The 21st century consensus puts him in the forefront of modernists, in the William Faulkner and Franz Kafka mode. Ernest Hemingway once said "Hamsun taught me how to write". Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer was also greatly influenced by Hamsun and translated some of his works.

References and further reading

• Knut Hamsun Online
• Biography from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Knut Hamsun as nobel prize laureate
• Biography and bibliography
• Works by Knut Hamsun at Project Gutenberg
• Wood, James, Addicted to Unpredictability, an essay. Retrieved 8 October 2006.