Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun
Pen name	Knud Pedersen Knut Hamsun
Occupation	Author, poet, dramatist, social critic
Nationality	Norwegian
Period	1877-1949
Literary movement	Neo-romanticism
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature 1920
Signature
File:Hamsunsign.jpg
Website
http://www.hamsun.dk

Knut Hamsun, born Knud Pedersen (August 4, 1859 - February 19, 1952) was a Norwegian author. He was considered by Isaac Bashevis Singer to be the "father of modern literature". In 1920, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil".. He insisted that the intricacies of the human mind ought to be the main object of modern literature, to describe the "whisper of the blood, and the pleading of the bone marrow". Hamsun pursued his literary program, debuting in 1890 with the psychological novel Hunger.

Hamsun was a prominent advocate of Germany and German culture, and an opponent of British Imperialism as well as the Soviet Union. During World War II, Hamsun supported Vidkun Quisling and his party Nasjonal Samling, and was later charged for treason. However, the charges were dropped, but a civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948, he was fined 325.000 kroner for his alleged Nasjonal Samling membership, a membership which is disputed.

He was also in the years after the war, examined by the psychologist Gabriel Langfeldt, who incorrectly concluded with the diagnosis "permanently impaired mental abilities". Hamsun’s last novel On Overgrown Paths, which was in part memoir, in part self-defense–was published in 1949.

Biography

14 year old Hamsun in Tranøy.

Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Vågå, 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, traveling 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 traveled 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 saw mankind 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.

While in his 80s, and largely deaf, Hamsun met with Adolf Hitler. His audience with him is recorded to have been mostly him complaining about the Nazi depredations against Norwegians. Hamsun tried to have him remove Josef Terboven from the position of Reichskommissar of Norway.

According to Bennett Cerf's book Try and Stop Me, after Hamsun's alliance with the Quislingites became widely known, angry Norwegians sent copies of his books back to his hometown in such numbers that the small post office in the town had to hire temporary workers to assist in handling the volumes of books arriving.

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. Another author who criticized the treatment of Hamsun was Jens Bjørneboe, who among other things said "Other Norwegian writers are only world-famous in Norway, but Hamsun is so the world over".

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 as Knud Pedersen)
1878	Et Gjensyn (Published as Knud Pedersen Hamsund)
1878	Bjørger (Published as 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)	The Wild Choir
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
• Larsen, Hanna Astrup. Knut Hamsun Alfred A. Knopf. 1922 A contemporary biographical treatment culminating in Hamsun's receipt of the Nobel Prize

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).

Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer was also greatly influenced by Hamsun and translated some of his works.

Films

The book Mysteries was the basis of a 1978 film (by the Dutch film company Sigma Pictures), directed by Paul de Lussanet, starring Sylvia Kristel, Rutger Hauer, Andrea Ferreol and Rita Tushingham.

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.
• Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater, Davi Napoleon. Includes discussion of Ice Age, a controversial production in which Hamson is the protagnist. Iowa State University Press. ISBN-0-8138-1713-7, 1991.