SO recently read Hunger and Growth of the Soil from Hamsun. Have enjoyed them both, Soil much more than Hunger. Although Hunger WAS good, it went, I felt, too long on. Got some vibes that Hamsun built his starving artist similar to the Underground man. The book was a decent 8/10
Growth of the Soil was a solid 9/10. I liked how (not so subtle) he alludes to what city life makes out of a man. For example, there are two infanticides in the book. Inger commits the first out of a fear (a pure fear) that the child is going to be deformed as she and will have a difficult life. The other woman Barbro kills her child because, hey, that's what the city folk in Trondheim do? Even the burial is different -- a make-do cross vs throwing in the river. Even how the Brothers, Eleseus and Sivert, meander two different ways. One is like his father and is a handyman, the other (after going to the city) is a dandy. Even Oline, who really isn't a positive character, isn't as evil as Barbro, she is just misguided (I felt so at least).
Geissler was a fun character but I didn't really think much about him, he was a man who brings news to Isak about the world and helps him out. Maybe Hamsun is trying to say: there are bad villagers -- Oline -- and good townsfolk -- Geissler -- but the City invariably corrupts men.
Don't read Hamsun, he was a full on nazi, even had an interview with Hitler (and ironically enough, Hitler hated him).
Read Sigrit Undset instead who was a catholic or Ibsen.
Carter Morales
>Not reading authors because of their political views You're a Human pile of shit.
Jason Morgan
Having different political views is fine, supporting the holocaust, the killing of many innocent people because of some sick ideology that's scientifically proven to be false is another thing entirely different.
Adam Hall
>Don't read Hamsun, he was a full on nazi
Christopher Howard
>having different political views is fine >condemning nazism as a "sick ideology" >different political views >"sick ideology" you should start practicing what you preach, fucking moron
Landon Rodriguez
user, everyone ignores hamsun's protests he's really a nazi: hitler, germany, the noweigians.
hamsun is the only people who declared himself a nazi and everyone else ignored him, he's that good. i'm not sure we didn't troll him about not being a nazi to get him to write the last book.
you might like steinbeck. same thing but communism
Kevin Brooks
I'm anti-gays though, I just don't think killing them or killing jews and black under the guise of a 'diferent political view' is going to solve anything.
Wyatt Perry
hey guys woah woah, don't read the posts of this guy! he is anti-gay!
Jason Rodriguez
>Having different political views is fine, as long as it is one of the pre-approved political views that I don't subjectively offensive. No ideology is objectively evil. No ideology is objectively genocidal. No matter what the political ideology, if an ideology has political hegemony, they will kill their opposition.
Colton Ross
Geissler is Hamsun's self insert
Carter Morales
>but the City invariably corrupts men. OH NO, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I'M WRITING A FUCKING BOOK RIGHT NOW THAT'S EXACTLY ABOUT THAT SUBJECT, SHIT FUCK OFF.
Now everyone will think I was copying Hamsun, or maybe he developed that idea even better in that book of his, fuck that's really frustrating.
Tyler Cox
>and ironically enough, Hitler hated him Hitler didn't "hate" him, Hitler was just butthurt that Hamsun dared to criticize him to his face.
Ethan Baker
Read Hamsun and make an Homage to him. It'll look artsy, like Houellebecq & Huysmans.
Jaxon Ortiz
The central conflict is tradition vs modernity. My favorite passage is when Isak (tradition) and Inger (modernity) finally come to butt heads. When Inger’s Theft is discovered and confronted Isak’s resolutness shatters Inger when she collided with him. She reforms herself into a more humble and loving person for the rest of the book. One of my favorite novels.
Josiah Thomas
Classic Adolf.
Anthony James
I read somewhere that the conversation was just exasperating because Hamsun could barely hear and yelled everything
Ryder Edwards
He was 83 at the time.
Caleb Brown
Give Pan a try next, OP.
Nicholas Adams
>don't read Plato, he supported an aristocracy >don't read Dostoevsky, he was a reactionary please off yourself Also, I've heard he was more pro-german and anti-british than a full blown nazi. His political views in the 30s hardly differed much from the Norwegian right wing in general. I also think you should 100+ year old fiction on the basis of the political views of their authour. If you absolutely cannot tolerate reading the work of a Nazi, read hunger, cause he was in no way a nazi in 1890.
Isaac Richardson
fuck you faggots, I just wanted a comfy thread about norwegian lit
Elijah Mitchell
There are like 3 decent writers in norwegian lit, mate and they were all posted here already: Undset, Ibsen and Hamsun.
Camden Cruz
no shit that there are few good norwegian writers, I wanted a thread to talk about them what's the fucking point of coming here and making a thread only to have two guys say hurr durr read ibsen and undset and the third one to come and say hurr /thread pack it up boys we gotta shitpost about nazis and did you FUCKING hear tha JBP has had put a new video out???
GUYS LOOK AT THIS JOHN MEME GREEN and TELL me just fucking TELL I am better fuck YOU for trying to criticize my work in /crit/ I AM ABOVE IT ALL and also probably INOTI published I AM SILLY screams the one writing this and then he goes out of his way to shit on thread becaus lit is full of soyboy cucklets (not even cucks but cucklets) that can't fucking resist the urge to give the BIG BLACK BULL a (you)
EAT SHIT LIT
Luis Jones
Geissler is a veiled version of Hamsun himself. Though he is a worldly man, cultured, and savvy, Geissler looks kindly upon the simple folk who live a more noble life than the burghers. He is cosmopolitan, a part of the cultured milieu, but he knows that the meaning of life is much more primal. Remember, Hamsun wrote this novel in the amidst the total mechanization of mankind.
Thomas Morris
GARBORG A R B O R G
Kayden Rogers
>3 decent writers in norwegian lit Read: That have been translated to english within the last 50 years
Christopher Thompson
Knausgård is good Are you ok? Nobody mentioned Memerson, John Green, or the /crit/ thread and Hamsun's interactions with the Nazis do pertain to Norwegian lit (even if it is just to mention the fact that he was kindof black-listed after WWII because of it). Calm down, faggot.
Oliver Gomez
>he was kindof black-listed after WWII because of it). he wasn't even really black listed. everyone just assumed he was a cranky old man who didn't know better and might be going a bit mad, and defended him on that basis. that's why his response is all "no, i'm not mad i really just like nazis". norway's response was more of a >oh grandma you say such old timey things than a >stop this man from corrupting the youth approach. saying black listing to americans they think something more authoritarian and russian.
Liam Howard
i should say norway and sweden. he's not considered like quisling, and he wanted so badly to be in that league.
Ayden Myers
Great intellectuals can get away with almost anything.
Easton King
I'm an American and I think a good example of Black Listing is an exclusively Russian phenomenon. In fact, I think that is a pretty weird sentiment to have.
John Gonzalez
*I Don't think of Black Listing as an exclusively Russian phenomenon.
Samuel Howard
>I'm an American and I think a good example of Black Listing is an exclusively Russian phenomenon. why do i feel this syntax put in google russian translate would form natural russian? privet.
Jacob Wright
i'm referring to the blacklisting of communists, especially those with ties to russia in the mccarthyism period. as in "hollywood blacklist" and that time they closed down the national theatre because russia also had a national theatre.
Dylan Fisher
>remove gays, blacks and jews from existence >not solving anything
What are you, down syndrome?
Luis Fisher
No, i assure you, I am American. Apple Pie, Baseballs & Betty Boop, ты знaeш? P.S. it is very rude to use the informal Пpивeт with strangers, Toвapищ.
But, jokes aside, I do not know why I typed that so strangely.
Asher Phillips
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbP1DVeJCT0 sorry for being informal tovarisch but in america we are more friends than comrades
Leo Peterson
>2017 >believing the holocaust actually happened wtf is wrong with you?
Elijah Stewart
>arguing with trips everything's wrong with you.
Joseph Hall
should i read kjersti skomsvold
James Fisher
>woman "no"
Elijah Hill
Fucking milquetoast liberals
Michael Russell
Haugtussa is great
Samuel Flores
Odyssevskvædet i ny utgåve snart!
Aiden Russell
Gutta, hvilket universitet er best for filosofi?
Nolan Cooper
hvem universitet*
Luis Lopez
Is there any worthwile norwegian philosophers besides Peter Zapffe?
John Kelly
Arne Næss. He was a milquetoast liberal pussy, but he still basically invented deep ecology.
Aaron Johnson
...
Juan Cook
I'm learning norsk now, and I ordered Undset's Madame Dorthea in norsk to motivate me, so about to start with Duolingo and will see how fart that takes me.
Jaxon Torres
*avskaffer kapitalismen din*
Lucas Miller
>ideology >scientifically proven false What the fuck are you going on about?
Noah Bailey
Halldor Laxness >he's icelandic but close enough right
Nathaniel Martinez
Island hoyrar faktisk til Noreg, så det har du heilt rett i min amerikanske frende :)
Jack Fisher
All of Hamsun's work was written decades before he was a Nazi sympathizer. He may have been a shitty person but he wrote some excellent novels -- Mysteries was like a Dostoevsky novel, only better. You're doing yourself a great disservice by ignoring his work. I suspect your post was bait, though.
Adrian Rogers
He started heading down that path in 1889, so not really true.
Joseph Edwards
It is true. Nazism didn't exist in 1889, especially not as conceived by Hitler. Hamsun's views in the late 1800s are nowhere near those of the Nazi Party in the 1930s. But I suppose I should have clarified. His works were written decades before he was a Hitler sympathizer. And let's not forget that much of the Western world didn't see Hitler as a threat until it was too late.
Lincoln Rodriguez
Hamsun's rejection of anglo-american liberal-capitalism begins already in 1889, wherein he voices his profound disgust of the American civilization. This along with his disdain and mistrust of bolshevism and tendency towards natural hierarchical thinking directly led to his naziism. Of course naziism did not exist at the time, I never claimed otherwise, but there is a clear and logical progression in his politics and philosophy towards it starting already then. "Markens Grode", to use a most famous example clearly shows an affinity towards "völkisch"-type thinking.
Levi Martinez
Hamsun is a fascist anarchist sympathiser True centrist
Justin Jones
I'm not disputing any of that, but to me those aren't strong enough reasons to ignore his novels. In fact I don't think it was unreasonable at all to reject 'anglo-american-liberal-capitalism' or American civilization during that period.
Connor Taylor
UiT er veldig nice, men NTNU er kanskje det obligatoriske valget da
Matthew Morris
Blood and soil doctrine + localism and regard for ecology, essentially the policy of the Norwegian agrarian party in the inter-war era. Interestingly, Quisling was also given the position of minister of defence of an agrarian party led government (despite not being a member of the party).
And to add to the centrist meme, the party is fully enough now called the Centre Party.
Ryder Wilson
Sure, but my point is that there is a logical progression towards naziism and it is apparent in his work in all but the earliest bohemian-existential novels.
Ian Flores
Okay, I get your point and don't deny it. Still, that 'Nazism-lite' only looks bad retrospectively, when connected to his later views. Those early ideas taken by themselves, before his thoughts progressed and crystallized into full-blown Nazism, don't strike me as immoral. Even the political overtones in Growth of the Soil don't represent the harmful aspects of his later views. I think his works should be read.
Nathaniel Smith
Is that edition/translation available for download anywhere? The only one I found is an old version translated by a different fella.
Jason Perry
I absolutely am not even critiquing Hamsun or implying that one should be discouraged from reading him. I am only skeptical of your assertion that Hamsun's creative output was not influenced by his politics and that they had no connection to naziist-type thought.
And also, deeming naziism "immoral" is full on boomer brainlet tier thinking.
Jackson James
no mentions for Camilla Collett and Amalie Skram?
Christian Thompson
>And also, deeming naziism "immoral" is full on boomer brainlet tier thinking. Yeah, it's completely moral, intelligent and scientifically proven.
Jason White
The ones against nazis are the immorals and wrong ones, riiiiight...
Daniel Wright
None of these things logically proceed from my statement.
Asher Campbell
Deeming anyone who disagrees with you as 'brainlets' is also not a logical thing to do, mate.
Dominic Murphy
No, but your dismissive, simplistic and binary understanding of naziism as a phenomenon does make you a brainlet.
Caleb Johnson
Oh, I thought you were the guy who said not to read Hamsun because he was a Nazi. Though I do deem Nazism immoral (I'm not a moral relativist).
Ryder Adams
Oh nice, a rational and reasonable person in this thread, don't eat the bait of that pedantic guy you quoted.
Parker Sanders
Vurderer NTNU men er ikke det mer STEM / teknologi orientert ?
This whole thread and there were only two worthwhile posts.
Hudson Collins
Don't forget Geissler being the main focus of manly friendship. An exceptional example offering assistance and service to those you care for and being reliable.
Gavin Cruz
Really sorry this thread didn't turn out better. Wish I had've got here sooner. Appreciated your OP as I've only read Hunger and I was just today considering whether which Hamsun to pick up next: Growth of the Soil or Pan next. I think I'll go for the former thanks to your post!
Knausgaard is great!
Can we hijack this thread to discuss A Time For Everything?? I just finished it this week and loved the main body of the text. The novelistic imaginings of biblical events were just top notch- like Kazantzakis but even better, more incisive. I was so thoroughly loving A Time For Everything I was ready to buy a copy for my mother- right up to the coda. What the fuck happened there?! Its supposed to be some sort of a sequel with a fictionalized narrator as well as the fictionalized central character of a 16th century writer named Antinous Bellori, but that really felt to me so extraneous, like a snippet from Min Kamp tacked on to the end of this otherwise wonderfully encapsulated and imaginative novel that could really flush the spooks out of some honest Christians- and then there is this depressing and fairly unrelated, kinda silly pseudoautobiographical bit at the end, with a self cutting episode (like throughout Min Kamp) and this weird conclusion about seagulls evolving from angles. I reeally wish that coda was simply absent.
Anyone else read A Time For Everything and pick up any similar feels? Or am I missing something crucial?
Lincoln Mitchell
this is what happens when you consume too much soy