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View Full Version : Best work by Knut Hamsun?



Kyriakos
10-26-2011, 03:34 PM
I have read two books by him, the Blessing of the soil, and Hunger. I liked both, but i read them many years ago and do not recall much now other than fleeting impressions.

Which other work by him would you advise me to read? And if i end up re-reading one of the two i have already read, which is the better choice?

Desolation
10-26-2011, 03:51 PM
Hunger is one of the best things I've ever read.

Mysteries is also pretty astounding.

Paulclem
10-26-2011, 03:55 PM
Hunger is one of the best things I've ever read.

Mysteries is also pretty astounding.

Agreed. Unusual thinking in both books.

Hunger also takes us back to a time when you worked or starved - something we in the developed world don't have to contend with as our ancestors did only 60 years ago - though that's not the point of the novel.

I remember hearing that Hamsun cured himself of tuberculosis by riding a train across the USA and gulping down air to clear his lungs.

Kyriakos
10-27-2011, 03:56 AM
Has he written any shorter works?
I have Mysteries as well, but iirc it is a novel (?)

Desolation
10-27-2011, 04:17 PM
Pan and Victoria are both pretty short. I believe that they qualify as Novellas.

TheFifthElement
10-29-2011, 10:09 AM
Both Pan and Victoria are pretty good, but really Hunger is his stand out work.

mortalterror
10-29-2011, 12:28 PM
I liked Hunger but it felt like a watered down version of Catcher in the Rye even though I know Hunger predates the latter book by decades.