Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Norwegian Steinbeck - Knut Hamsun. (And Where We Take Another Look At Whistling)

Alice In Wonderland(1865) will always be my favorite book. Flaws and all *. The Annotated Alice(1960) - my most valued.


Konrad Lorenz, despite personal socio-political missteps, has grabbed my very insides with his work - particularly King Solomon's Ring.(1949)


"The competition between human beings destroys with cold and diabolic brutality..." (Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins, page 45)

You can read many, many books in your lifetime. Most are good for the purpose of passing time. And that is a generous and kind "good", to be sure. But there are a very few, even from beloved and unmatchable writers, that stick to your gut and elevate the very truth of your own, claimed life.

Books written that live as you have lived them.

There's a visceral incarnation which indeed transcends time and space. You, yourself, know this world. You know it. It's era is incidental, as is it's peculiar context.

There is something in everything Steinbeck writes, without fail, that brings me to a core place.

East of Eden(1952), expressly, is more familiar to me than any of my own waking days... checked off, and fully lived.

I had read Knut Hamsun before - Hunger(1890)- and it did touch me... to a point. I hadn't made the connection to Steinbeck, however, before Growth Of The Soil (1920).

(Hamsun had eerily similar socio-poltical missteps congruent with Lorenz. Both men were loosely, unfortunately, momentarily, and wrongly marked as Nazi sympathizers.)



Knut- The Norwegian Steinbeck. Who'd have thought?

(Knut's first published novel preceded Steinbeck's by nine years...so perhaps, Steinbeck is the American Hamsun.)

Growth Of The Soil, I dare say, is the most perfect novel I have ever read. It is simple. It is hilarious. It is timeless in it's insight. Perfect.

So - it tips into first place. It beats East of Eden. It completely beats Alice.
(I easily distinguish perfect from favorite.)

A beautiful passage from Book Two:

Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "Brede Olsen comes by on his way up trouble on the line no doubt after yesterday"
Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "thought and tries to work his way out from under the tree Brede must be coming by on his way down before long he thinks to himself and gives himself a breathing space He does not let it trouble him much at first it was only annoying to lose time at his work there is no thought in his mind of being in danger let alone in peril of his life True he can feel the hand that supports him growing numbed and dead his foot in the cleft growing cold and helpless too but no matter Brede must be here soon Brede did not come The storm increased Axel felt the snow driving full in his face Ho tis coming down in earnest now says he to himself still never troubling much about it all ay tis as if he blinks at himself through the snow to look out for now things are beginning in earnest I After a long while he gives a single shout The sound would hardly carry far in the gale"
Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "thick Axel is getting snowed up himself The snow packs all innocently all unknowing about his face melting at first till the flesh grows cold and then it melts no longer Ay now tis beginning in earnest He gives two great shouts and listens His ax is getting snowed up now he can see but a bit of the haft Over there is his basket of food hung on a tree if he could but have reached it and had a feed oh huge big mouthfuls And then he goes one step farther in his demands and asks yet more if he only had his coat on it is getting cold He gives another swinging shout And there is Brede Stopped in his tracks standing still looking toward the man as he calls he stands there but for a moment glancing that way as if to see what is amiss Reach me the ax here will you calls Axel a trifle weakly Brede looks away hurriedly fully aware now of what is the matter he glanc"
Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "which Brede must see to without delay He moves off and is lost to sight in the driving snow Ho well and good But after that well it would just serve things generally right if Axel were to manage by himself after all and get at the ax without help from any one He strains all the muscles of his chest to lift the huge weight that bears him down the tree moves he can feel it shake but all he gains by that is a shower of snow And after a few more tries he gives up Growing dark now Brede is gone but how far can he have got Axel shouts again and lets off a few straight forward words into the bargain Leave me here to die would you like a murderer he cries Have ye no soul nor thought of what"
Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "reckon with too his beard is freezing soon his eyes will freeze too as well ay if he had but his jacket from the tree there and now his leg surely it can t be that but all the same one leg feels dead now up to the hip All in God"
Growth of the Soil By Knut Hamsun: "He must have slept he is all stiff and lifeless now but his eyes are open set in ice but open he cannot wing nor blink has he been sleeping with open eyes Dropped off for a second maybe or for an hour God knows but here"

* The flaws of Alice are matters of taste, and to my mind they are precisely those which make delightful - "The terrible mixture of suffering and cruelty and rudeness and false logic and traps for the innocent." (Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, 521-529) The unresolved cruelty and nonsense, and Alice's struggles to adapt and learn from them, are also what I (we) love.

posted by Ashley Randall Sronce at 1:48 AM