Hunger

Just finished this and boy has it made an impact! We all feel down and depressed some times but on reading this I realised just how awful life can really be to some. It has made me even more depressed. I can identify with this guy in that pride can be our biggest enemy sometimes. But, the rebuke we can feel when we do let down our guard is even more hurtful to us sensitive souls. This guy was sensitive and yet his anger built up gradually and was expressed in strange ways sometimes. I felt so sad for him - especially the experience he had with the woman. However, he was also incredibly stupid and arrogant in some respects. The way he expected the woman to just give herself to him was rather strange. He obviously was mentally disturbed because of his experiences but he wasnt insane. I cant get him out of my mind. I wish I had been there and met him and could talk to him. He so needed a friend! Yes, I can identify and sympathise with him and know that life can be lonely when the chips are down and you dont want to expose your vulnerability. He felt shame and yet being impoverished was not entirely his fault. The real fly in the ointment about reading this book is that when I looked up some information about Hamsun it turns out he is a convicted Nazi! How can that be? How can someone with so much soul be connected with such evil? Now I have the dilemma of whether I read more of him or abandon him on account of his unrepented beliefs.

I am so tired of ordering 'books' from Amazon that come as cheaply printed low quality pamphlets - this review is about this edition and not the actual book or author. It wasn't a cheap purchase though I thought the book a bargain for when it arrived it isn't a book that will look good on a shelf, nor does it feel good in the hand - it is printed by amazon, as they now seem to do, in the cheapest manner possible - AVOID !

Bought for a book group review. It's practically new and arrived in good time but I'm afraid I'm not enjoying it particularly. Not sure I'll finish it!

Nice fresh new copy

This review is about the Amazon print on demand version. Avoid at all costs and buy the edition printed by Canongate.Why? The translation is appalling, genuinely terrible and fundamentally destroys an amazing novel.I might be wrong but believe the translation is computerised whereas it is a genuine art to translate novels. It’s clunky, misses the beauty of the writing. I’m not expert so for me to spot, it must be terrible!Please don’t buy this version.

First of all, I must say I appreciated Peter Scott-Presland's review, which offers a preferred translation (the latest one, not the one relating to this cover), and also explains the lack of Hamsun publications by mainstream publishing houses (he was a Nazi sympathiser until his death).I came quite ignorant to Hamsun's 'Hunger' and agree that this translation does occasionally sound a little dated - though more the odd phrase or word choice than the actual rhythm and flow, in my opinion. I may well attempt the latest translation Scott-Presland suggests. Because, despite that minor criticism, I found 'Hunger' highly engaging, fluent and intimate. There was also a faintly unreal dream-like quality to events that almost transported it into fairytale. This refreshingly modern style prefigures numerous stars of 20th Century literature. It particularly reminded me of Kafka's K, and Beckett's Molloy.It's a novel that might equally well have been called ‘Pride’. The struggling, unnamed protagonist, whilst clearly a pitiable case, does rather disdain help of any description out of sheer wilful egotism. That pride, of course, goes a long way to fuelling his confident hopes of literary success which, whilst not entirely unfounded, have little obvious grounds for optimism.But, somehow, this resolute, uncompromising attitude, the self-destructive descent into vagrancy, starvation and sickness do seem to confer nobility and redemption on our anonymous artist. It’s an interesting conflict and one ultimately decided subjectively by the reader: victim of fortune or misguided egotist?

A short novel - written in 1890 - about a young, starving writer by future Nobel laureate, Knut Hamsun. This incredible novel is less about a young, starving writer and more what it is to be a young, starving writer. Because that is what this novel is - a genuine reading experience.It is not easy to describe how Hamsun does it, but he manages with simple words to transport the reader into the shoes of the young writer - feeling his pain, his hope.His shame.Reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich', 'Hunger' is a truly incredible piece of writing.

The writing is captivating and rich, with a rhythm that makes it difficult to let go although the story is heartbreaking and thoroughly depressive (and depressing). It gives the opportunity to plunge in the dark corners of one's mind with the benefit of being able to close the cover of the book over them if the weight of the insight becomes unbearable.Nothing is taken for granted in the story, and although the reflections are at times the rantings of an unstable mind, reading it can spur valuable reflection on values, relationships with others, and with one-self.Highly recommended but make sure to have a light, funny reading to grab once this book comes to its end.