2010/14

Knut Hamsun: Pan (202p.)

By writing four great pre-modern novels (before going on to write his Nobel-winning classic Growth of the Soil), Knut Hamsun established himself as the bridge between Dostoyevsky and 20th century modern literature (and eventually French existentialism), although he had no inkling at the time of course. These four pivotal novels are Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898).

I’m not going to talk about Pan for long – a wretched love story – out of respect for my fifth-grade teacher Pizze who made it clear, after having read a Hamsun fragment aloud, that we were entitled to our own teenager opinions, but that Hamsun was really above our opinions anyhow, and preemptively sniffed in disdain at so much scornful ignorance in front of him.

A beautiful 1927 first edition, fifth print.