Hunger

Isaac Bashevis Singer famously called Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun the father of modern literature. I'd take this further and say that he's the father of postmodern literature as well. With 1890's Hunger , Hamsun unleashed the first in a series of novels that anticipated everything from the terrifying absurdities of Kafka to the desiccated ennui of the existentialists and even Charles Bukowski's autobiographical explorations. Despite this, Hamsun is a writer who today is shunned by much of the literary establishment, not because his writing has lost any of its lustre, I'd argue, but because of his far-right political views, which came to a head during the second world war with his open support of Hitler and Norway's post-invasion Nazi puppet government. I will not defend Hamsun's politics. He betrayed both his country and more importantly humanity in general and deserves every bit of the scorn that's been heaped upon him. Hamsun's writing, however, is another matter. Whether we like the man or not, it seems to me both foolish and pointless to continue ignoring the significance of Hamsun's work - if for no other reason than it's an important part of our literary evolution and denying this can do nothing but cloud our understanding of our ourselves as readers and writers. In regard to Hamsun's evolution as a writer, it's far harder to describe than what came in his wake. Unlike virtually every other writer who has ever lived, Hamsun seems to have emerged fully formed, free from any definable literary tradition, or even overt influences. Born poor in rural Norway, Hamsun was largely self-educated and lacked both the social and intellectual background usually associated with the European literati of his time. After a long period of writing juvenilia and knocking about the world (he lived in the United States on two occasions), Hamsun hit upon in his voice in his early thirties - and it was unlike any that had come before. According to Hamsun, novel writing at that time was dominated by laboriously plotted tomes filled with parlour talk and stilted prose that contained little psychological or emotional insight. Hamsun raged against such conventions. Employing a style that was both hard-edged and surprisingly lyrical, he wrote lean stories, often in the first person, based less on actions than the convoluted, contradictory, and often brutal machinations of the human mind and heart. The result was a series of breathtaking "psychological" novels that astounded both critics and readers alike. It's been widely argued that Hamsun produced his best work in the early part of his career, from which emerged the classic novels Mysteries, Pan, Victoria, and the aforementioned Hunger. There is some truth to this. As Hamsun grew older he turned away from many of his innovations and began writing epics more in the tradition of writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. During this latter period, however, Hamsun did produce some fine work, including the novels Growth of the Soil, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1920 , and The Ring is Closed, a criminally under-read meditation on the meaning of work and life that is one of the true jewels of western literature. The novel is what it is today in large part because of what Knut Hamsun wrought, which is a fact that no amount of revisionist history can wipe away. It's time we accept this and try to figure some way to bring the man's books back into the canon, while leaving his horrid politics out in the cold where they belong.