Hunger [Paperback]

Intense! Moving! Unforgettable! - a few resonant 'power words' which could help me to describe Mr. Knut Hamsun's Hunger to some extent, but they do little to fully encapsulate my innermost feelings about this novel. Quite simply Hunger, is one of the most powerful books I've ever read, in any genre; whether fictional or factual, and given that I've read countless biographical accounts relating to some of history's most harrowing events, this is quite a statement to make, but it is one that I wholly stand by.

Stunning in its delivery, Hunger is one of the few books that has the ability to truly touch your soul. What makes the novel so intense is not the storyline; for the most part the story is devoid of plot. Rather the sense of sympathy and desperation one feels for the main character (a struggling writer on a psychological roller-coaster ride, stricken by poverty, who always seems as though he is about to draw his final breath), is, for me, the novel's crowning glory. This mechanism of `survival doubt' is superlatively engineered into the story by Mr. Hansum. There are times, usually at the start of a new `chapter' when the writer's survival seems assured (he himself proclaims many times that his latest work will be the one that end his dificulties). Inevitably however, the character's situation diminishes, and the reader's confidence can do nothing but diminish along with it, until, through some fortune turn of events, the main player draws himself back, if usually only temporarily, from the `abyss'.

As intense as Hunger is (and it really is intense at times, with the writer's moods elevating and lowering as often as the paragraphs change), I also found the novel to be quite humourous in parts. The writer's `unnecessary' and continual bickerings with people he meets, is only surpassed in humour by the intense arguments the writer often has with himself, which more often than not, involves some form of self harm. In essence this personal self loathing is of course a sign of utter madness and desperation, the mark of a madman, but one cannot help but raise a smile when the main character is found in the middle of the street bawling at himself, with onlookers staring aghast.

The writer's obstinate stupidity also makes for a number of humourous scenes, such as when he declares his homelessness at a police station, falsifies his name and circumstances, and consequently misses out on a desperately needed meal. Humour can also be found in the unrealistic value that the main character quite often places on his own personal artifacts. Of course in desperate times especially, one would be inclined to place an inflated value on their personal effects, and Hamsun is primarily illustrating this fact. However it still brings a note of humour to the proceedings, especially when the character attempts to pawn various belongings.

I'm well aware there is controversy surrounding the author of this work, (Mr. Hamsun evolved with quite repungent notions of Nazi idealism), but that is irrelevant to this novel and should not, in my opinion, be brought into consideration. Hunger stands on its own as one of the finest psychological works ever written. It is a book that I will invariably think about often. It is a book that has well and truly touched my soul

This is an amazing book which drags you into the murky world of the narrator and forces you to feel his anguish, despair and humiliation as he struggles to find enough to eat to keep himself alive. The emotions provoked by the book are so strong that at times I found myself confused about where I was so thoroughly did I feel transported to the Christiania inhabited by the author.

The writing is so vivid that it is impossible not to be completely drawn in. On a number of occasions the narrator takes what he perceives to be 'moral decisions' which left me furious with him - he would rather starve than betray his conscience - and I actually found myself trying to reason with him. At times I had to put the book down so infuriated was I with his actions - I think I was going through the anguish of hunger with him and when he had a chance to get food and passed it up, it was more than I could bear!

At other times I was captivated by the humour and eccentricity of the book ... the narrator's mood swings, delusions and interactions with others make for very entertaining passages.

I highly recommend this book - it is both disturbing and memorable and I know it will stay with me for a long time.

I first read "Hunger" when I was in my twenties and I was stunned. It seemed such a tour de force of...something. I didn't know what it was, but to me it was authentic in a way that all literature should be. Hamsun's nameless hero was certifiably mad--crazy by almost any standard, yet he was sane I thought in his deliberate alienation from bourgeois society, from the relatively unfeeling and "dead" conventional ways of life that most people pursue. Rereading the novel some decades later I see his alienation not so much a deliberate choice but as one forced on him by his nature. He alienates himself from society because he believes he is superior and because he cannot help himself. Despite his abject poverty his greatest drive is to avoid losing face or what he thinks of as his honor.

Thus he would rather starve that steal; he would rather go without food than ask for money from people he knows since in doing so he would lose face. When he gets change from a five kroner note that isn't his he feels so guilty that he tosses the money at a street cake seller to show that he doesn't need to stoop to stealing to survive. He is above that. Yet later he demands that the cake seller give him cakes for his money, saying that he had paid in advance! Near the end after getting an anonymous ten kroner note from a messenger, he cries out that "This humiliation was the worst of all! Accepting ten kroner in beggar's alms without being able to throw them back to the giver...." (p. 223) He is the man who cannot beg regardless of how hungry he gets.

In this way we see the radical swings in his moods and mentality. These swings of apprehension, understand and feeling are at the very heart of the novel. What Hamsun has done is examine very minutely his own heart and soul during such times (he himself experienced years of hunger when in his twenties just before "Hunger" was published in 1890). And what he discovered was the most amazing heights of emotion followed quickly by the most extreme lows and then back again. He saw these swings as natural to the human condition, these fantasies of mind as real or even more real that the cobblestones of the city or the sun overhead. States of mind come from within but are triggered by some outside event; yet one might find joy in the absurdity of life, a quick sense of power and exhilaration from some small, even imagined, triumph over someone met in the street. One might feel oneself a great hero by refusing a meal ticket since no matter how hungry one is above charity.

Even though Hamsun's hero rants and raves like a lunatic and even though he goes around in dirty rags and sleeps in the street, the people of Christiania (now Oslo) treat him rather kindly. No one whiplashes him. The cops don't throw him in jail. No teenage boys beat him up for kicks as happens to some of today's homeless. Instead they laugh at him--not to his face, but off to the side, after he has wandered off. They pity him as does the whore with the veil, who in her pity finds some excitement in wanting to love this pathetic creature who tears his hair out, who will not take a job but insists on proving to himself and the world that he can make a living from his writing.

What makes this work as literature is that, although Hamsun's hero is maintaining his pride through petty acts and rationalizations and lies to himself, the reader can see (thanks to Hamsun's artistry) that the people around him are amused at his foolish and insane pride, the kind of pride that can...well, as Hamsun's hero himself says on page 227, "...a man can die, you know, from too much pride."

Why pride? From an evolutionary standpoint if a man loses honor or has no pride in himself then he is treated accordingly by his tribe. In dominance rank he is among the lowest and gets just the scraps of society; he gets few or no reproductive chances. Certainly no woman would want to marry him and have his children. We see this poignantly when he is asked by an acquaintance about the woman he was walking with who is a prostitute. To puff himself up he declares that he is her fiancé.

Although Hamsun's hero won't steal, he will lie. He allows himself to lie because he feels deep down that he is not lying. Once he gets his act together as a writer, the recognition and honor due him will come and, yes, such a woman and many others will want him to be their intended. It is all a matter of "gleaning his teeming brain" (to recall Keats).

But the hunger of this novel has a symbolic value as well. The artist must suffer; he must feel and experience extremes in order to have the emotional and experiential authority to be a great artist. Kafka, no doubt thinking of this novel, wrote a short story entitled, "A Hunger Artist," the title implying what Hamsun consciously or unconsciously believed: that the artist must hunger greatly before he can succeed.

And indeed that is exactly what Hamsun himself did. With the publication of this novel began a great career that propelled him to recognition as one of the great literary figures of the modern era, whose work became widely imitated. In 1920 not long after the publication of his novel, "Growth of the Soil," he was awarded the Noble Prize in literature.