Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun (; 4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 23 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays.

Hamsun is considered "one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years" (ca. 1890–1990). He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, John Fante, James Kelman, Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway. Isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun "the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun". Since 1916, several of Hamsun's works have been adapted into motion pictures. On 4 August 2009, the Knut Hamsun Centre was opened in Hamarøy Municipality.

The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. He argued that the main object of modernist literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the "whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow". Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the 20th century", with works such as Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898). His later works—in particular his "Nordland novels"—were influenced by the Norwegian new realism, portraying everyday life in rural Norway and often employing local dialect, irony, and humour. Hamsun published only one poetry collection, The Wild Choir, which has been set to music by several composers.

Hamsun held strong Anglophobic views, and openly supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany: he donated his Nobel Prize medal to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda Minister for the Third Reich and met Hitler during the German occupation of Norway. Due to his professed support for the occupation of Norway and the Quisling regime, he was charged with treason after the war. Due to alleged psychological problems and issues relating to old age, he was not convicted, but in 1948 he was heavily fined. Hamsun's last book, On Overgrown Paths, authored in semi-imprisonment in Landvik, concerned his postwar treatment and his rebuttal to accusations of mental ineptness.

Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Lom Municipality in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, Norway. He was the fourth son among the seven children of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the family moved to Hamsund in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland county. They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him.

At nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to how his uncle treated him.

In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom. For the next five years he did any job for money: shop assistant, peddler, shoemaker's apprentice, sheriff's assistant, and an elementary-school teacher.

At 17 he became a ropemaker's apprentice. At about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him monetary support, and he agreed. Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), Benoni (1908) and Rosa (1908).

He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, and published in 1889 his impressions under the title Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv ("From the Spiritual Life of Modern America").

In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Bech (later Göpfert), who bore daughter Victoria, but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (1881–1969) in 1909 and she was his companion until the end of his life. They had four children: sons Tore and Arild and daughters Ellinor and Cecilia.

Marie wrote about her life with Hamsun in two memoirs. She was a promising actress when she met Hamsun but ended her career and traveled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, planning "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".

After a few years they moved south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house in Landvik Municipality, between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself with writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places, preferring spartan housing.

In 1877, he published his first book: Den Gaadefulde: En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland (The Enigmatic Man: A Love Story from Northern Norway). It was inspired by his odd job experiences and struggles.

In his second novel Bjørger (1878), he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's writing style. The melodramatic story follows a poet, Bjørger, and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund. This book served as the basis for Hamsun's later novel Victoria: En Kærligheds Historie (1898; translated as Victoria: A Love Story, 1923).

As of 1898 Hamsun was among the contributors of Ringeren, a political and cultural magazine established by Sigurd Ibsen.

Hamsun first received wide acclaim with his 1890 novel Hunger (Sult). The semiautobiographical work described a young writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (modern name Oslo). To many, the novel presages 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 insinuates himself into the life of small rural communities. This theme is central to the novels Mysteries, Pan, Under the Autumn Star, The Last Joy, Vagabonds, Rosa, 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 ("No one knows God," he once wrote, "man knows only gods."). 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 Growth of the Soil, "his monumental work" credited with securing him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.

Knut Hamsun died on 19 February 1952, aged 92, in Grimstad. His ashes are buried in the garden of his home at Nørholm in Landvik Municipality (now part of Grimstad Municipality).

Scholar and translator Sverre Lyngstad explains that Hamsun had asserted in an 1890 article that for literature to accurately represent mental life, writers must explore "the mimosa-like sensitivities of the psyche and the secret stirrings in the remote parts of the mind, the incalculable welter of emotions, the random wanderings of thought and feeling, the uncharted, trackless journeys of heart and brain, the mysterious activities of the nerves, the whisper of the blood, the entreaty of the bones, all the unconscious life of the mind."

At the time of composing Mysteries (1892), Hamsun in essays and lectures was criticizing the state of Norwegian literature and promoting a new form of unpredictable psychological writing. Some of Hamsun's critical views received hostile reactions at the time, and he continued his political and cultural stance in dialog of the fictional character Nagel (who for example calls Ibsen's plays “dramatized wood pulp”), and used the book itself as an embodiment of his theory of literature. Hamsun had specifically criticized stereotypes of elder authors and called for characters of "changeable and divided mind" in whom "inconsistency is their fundamental trait."

Along with August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Sigrid Undset, Hamsun formed a quartet of Scandinavian authors who became internationally known for their works. Hamsun pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, as found in material by, for example, Joyce, Proust, Mansfield and Woolf. His writing also had a major influence on Franz Kafka. Hamsun's works were translated into German by Cläre Mjøen.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1929, "it is well known that the Germanic languages are particularly rich in heroes who are windbags, wastrels, and thieves, and who in general have gone to the dogs. Knut Hamsun, a master of such

characters, has recently been discovered and celebrated."

Thomas Mann described Hamsun as a "descendant of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche." Arthur Koestler was a fan of his love stories. H.G. Wells praised Growth of the Soil, for which Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a fan of Hamsun's modern subjectivism, flashbacks, fragmentation, and lyricism. A character in Charles Bukowski's book Women referred to Hamsun as the greatest writer who ever lived.

Hamsun's works remain popular. In 2009, a Norwegian biographer stated, "We can't help loving him, though we have hated him all these years.... That's our Hamsun trauma. He's a ghost that won't stay in the grave."

Scholar Reinhard Friederich stated that Hamsun's late-life political attitudes caused discussion of his earlier literary reputation and influence to become reduced to shallow half-hearted mention.

A fifteen-volume edition of Hamsun's complete works was published in 1954. In 2009, to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, a new 27-volume edition of his complete works was published, including short stories, poetry, plays, and articles not included in the 1954 edition. For this new edition, all of Hamsun's works underwent slight linguistic modifications to make them more accessible to contemporary Norwegian readers. New English translations of two of his major works, Growth of the Soil and Pan, were published in 1998.

Three of Hamsun's homes (Hamsund gård in Hamarøy Municipality, Hamsunstugu in Garmo in Lom Municipality, and Nørholm in Grimstad Municipality) are open to the public as museums, as is the Knut Hamsun Centre in Hamarøy.

Hamsun's writings have been the subject of numerous books and journal articles. Some of these writings compare and contrast Hamsun's literary works with the political and cultural ideas expressed in his non-fiction.

Hamsun produced a voluminous correspondence during his lifetime. Norwegian scholar and Hamsun expert Harald Næss spent four decades tracking these letters down in both the United States and Europe, producing a collection of thousands of letters. He published a selection in various volumes between 1994 and 2000.

From his youth onward, Hamsun espoused racist and anti-egalitarian beliefs. In The Cultural Life of Modern America (Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv, 1889), he denounced miscegenation: "The Negros are and will remain Negros, a nascent human form the tropics, rudimentary organs on the body of white society. Instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto studfarm."

Hamsun wrote several newspaper articles in the course of the Second World War, including his notorious 1940 assertion that "the Germans are fighting for us, and now are crushing England's tyranny over us and all neutrals". In 1943, he sent Germany's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. Its whereabouts since then are unknown. Hamsun's biographer Thorkild Hansen interpreted this as part of the strategy to get an audience with Hitler. Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting, Hamsun complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway, Josef Terboven and asked that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released, enraging Hitler. Otto Dietrich describes the meeting in his memoirs as the only time that another person was able to get a word in edgeways with Hitler. He attributes this to Hamsun's deafness. Regardless, Dietrich notes that it took Hitler three days to get over his anger. Hamsun also on other occasions helped Norwegians who had been imprisoned for resistance activities and tried to influence German policies in Norway.

Nevertheless, a week after Hitler's death, Hamsun wrote a eulogy for him, saying "He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations." Following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books in public in major Norwegian cities and Hamsun was confined for several months in a psychiatric hospital.

Hamsun was forced to undergo a psychiatric examination, which concluded that he had "permanently impaired mental faculties," and on that basis the charges of treason were dropped. Instead, a civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948 he had to pay the ruinous sum of 325,000 kroner ($65,000 or £16,250 at that time) to the Norwegian government for his alleged membership in Nasjonal Samling and for the moral support he gave to the Germans, but was cleared of any direct Nazi affiliation. Whether he was a member of Nasjonal Samling or not and whether his mental abilities were impaired is debated even today. Hamsun stated he was never a member of any political party. He wrote his last book Paa giengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) in 1949, a book many take as evidence of his functioning mental capabilities. In it, he harshly criticizes the psychiatrists and the judges and, in his view, proves that he is not mentally ill.

Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Hansen viewed Hamsun's treatment as outrageous, writing, "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway." In 1996, Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun; his wife Marie is played by Danish actress Ghita Nørby.

A biopic, Hamsun, was released in 1996, directed by Jan Troell. It stars Max von Sydow as Hamsun.

Hamsun's works have been the basis of 25 films and television mini-series adaptations, starting in 1916.

1922 - Pan was the basis of a 1922 film, and three more adaptations later.

1966 film Hunger,starring Per Oscarsson, directed by Henning Carlsen. A Danish, Norwegian and Swedish coproduction. It is considered one of the best film adaptations of a Hamsun work.

1978 - Mysteries by the Dutch film company Sigma Pictures), directed by Paul de Lussanet, starring Sylvia Kristel, Rutger Hauer, Andrea Ferreol and Rita Tushingham. Based on Mysteries

1898 Victoria. En kjærlighedshistorie (Victoria)

1904 Sværmere (Mothwise, 1921), (Dreamers)

1905 Stridende Liv. Skildringer fra Vesten og Østen (Fighting Life. Depictions from the West and the East)

1917 Markens Grøde 2 Volumes (Growth of the Soil)

1920 Konerne ved Vandposten 2 Volumes (The Women at the Pump)

1906 Under Høststjærnen. En Vandrers Fortælling (Under the Autumn Star)

1909 En Vandrer spiller med Sordin (A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings)

1912 Den sidste Glæde (Look Back on Happiness, AKA The Last Joy)

1908 Rosa: Af Student Parelius' Papirer (By Student Parelius' Papers) (Rosa)

1915 Segelfoss By 1 (2 Volumes) (Segelfoss Town)

1895 Ved Rigets Port (At the Gate of the Kingdom)

1898 Aftenrøde. Slutningspil (Evening Red: Inference Games)

1877 "Den Gaadefulde. En kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland".(The Gracious. A love story from Nordland) (Published as Knud Pedersen)

1878 "Bjørger" (Published as Knud Pedersen Hamsund)

1878 Et Gjensyn (A Reunion) - epic poem (Published as Knud Pedersen Hamsund)

1889 Lars Oftedal. Udkast (Draft) (11 articles, previously printed in Dagbladet)

1889 Fra det moderne Amerikas Aandsliv (The Cultural Life of Modern America) - lectures and criticism

1903 I Æventyrland. Oplevet og drømt i Kaukasien (In Wonderland) - travelogue

1918 Sproget i Fare (The Language in Danger) - essays

1949 Paa gjengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths)

Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer translated some of his works into Yiddish.