Knut Hamsun

Thomas Mann described him as a "descendant of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche." Arthur Koestler was a fan of his love stories. H. G. Wells praised Markens Grøde (1917) for which Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a fan of his modern subjectivism, use of flashbacks, his use of fragmentation, and his lyricism.[13] A character in Charles Bukowski's book Women referred to him as the greatest writer who has ever lived.[22]

A fifteen-volume edition of Hamsun's complete works was published in 1954. In 2009, to mark the 150-year anniversary of his birth, a new 27-volume edition of his complete works was published, including short stories, poetry, plays, and articles not included in the 1954 edition. For this new edition, all of Hamsun's works underwent slight linguistic modifications in order to make them more accessible to contemporary Norwegian readers.[23] Fresh English translations of two of his major works, Growth of the Soil and Pan, were published in 1998.

Hamsun's works remain popular. In 2009, a Norwegian biographer stated, "We can’t help loving him, though we have hated him all these years ... That’s our Hamsun trauma. He’s a ghost that won’t stay in the grave."[24]

Along with August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Sigrid Undset, Hamsun formed a quartet of Scandinavian authors who became internationally known for their works. Hamsun pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, as found in material by, for example, Joyce, Proust, Mansfield and Woolf.

Family portrait on the stairs of "Villa Havgløtt"; left to right: Tore Hamsun, Marie Hamsun, Arild Hamsun, Knut Hamsun and Ellinor Hamsun.

In 1898, Hamsun married Bergljot Göpfert (née Bech), who bore daughter Victoria, but the marriage ended in 1906. Hamsun then married Marie Andersen (1881-1969) in 1909 and she was his companion until the end of his life. They had four children: sons Tore and Arild and daughters Ellinor and Cecilia.

Marie wrote about her life with Hamsun in two memoirs. She was a promising actress when she met Hamsun but ended her career and traveled with him to Hamarøy. They bought a farm, the idea being "to earn their living as farmers, with his writing providing some additional income".

After a few years they decided to move south, to Larvik. In 1918 they bought Nørholm, an old, somewhat dilapidated manor house between Lillesand and Grimstad. The main residence was restored and redecorated. Here Hamsun could occupy himself with writing undisturbed, although he often travelled to write in other cities and places (preferably in spartan housing).

In his younger years, Hamsun had leanings of an anti-egalitarian and racist bend. In The Cultural Life of Modern America (1889), he expressed his firm opposition to miscegenation: "The Negros are and will remain Negros, a nascent human form from the tropics, rudimentary organs on the body of white society. Instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto studfarm."[25]

Following the Second Boer War, he adopted increasingly conservative views. He also came to be known as a prominent advocate of Germany and German culture, as well as a steadfast opponent of the British Empire and the Soviet Union. During both World War I and World War II, he publicly expressed his sympathy for the German Empire and Nazi Germany.

His sympathies were heavily influenced by the Second Boer War, which was perceived by Hamsun as British aggression against a weak nation, as well as by his Anglophobia and Anti-Americanism. During the 1930s, most of the Norwegian right-wing newspapers and political parties were sympathetic in various degrees to fascist regimes in Europe, and Hamsun came to be a prominent advocate of such views. During World War II, he continued to express his support for Germany, and his public statements led to controversy; in particular, in the immediate aftermath of the war. When World War II began, he was 80 years old, almost deaf, and his main source of information was the conservative newspaper Aftenposten, which had been sympathetic to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from the beginning. He suffered two intracranial hemorrhages during the war.

Hamsun wrote several newspaper articles in the course of the war, including his notorious 1940 assertion that "the Germans are fighting for us, and now are crushing England's tyranny over us and all neutrals".[16] In 1943, he sent Germany's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift. His biographer Thorkild Hansen interpreted this as part of the strategy to get an audience with Hitler.[26] Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting, he complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway, Josef Terboven, and asked that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released, enraging Hitler.[27] Otto Dietrich describes the meeting in his memoirs as the only time that another person was able to get a word in edgeways with Hitler. He attributes the cause to Hamsun's deafness. Regardless, Dietrich notes that it took Hitler three days to get over his anger.[28] Hamsun also on other occasions helped Norwegians who had been imprisoned for resistance activities and tried to influence German policies in Norway.[29]

Nevertheless, a week after Hitler's death, Hamsun wrote a eulogy for him, saying “He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations.”[24] Following the end of the war, angry crowds burned his books in public in major Norwegian cities and Hamsun was confined for several months in a psychiatric hospital.

Hamsun was forced to undergo a psychiatric examination, which concluded that he had "permanently impaired mental faculties," and on that basis the charges of treason were dropped. Instead, a civil liability case was raised against him, and in 1948 he had to pay a ruinous sum to the Norwegian government of 325,000 kroner ($65,000 or £16,250 at that time) for his alleged membership in Nasjonal Samling and for the moral support he gave to the Germans, but was cleared of any direct Nazi affiliation. Whether he was a member of Nasjonal Samling or not and whether his mental abilities were impaired is a much debated issue even today. Hamsun stated he was never a member of any political party. He wrote his last book Paa giengrodde Stier (On Overgrown Paths) in 1949, a book many take as evidence of his functioning mental capabilities. In it, he harshly criticizes the psychiatrists and the judges and, in his own words, proves that he is not mentally ill.

The Danish author Thorkild Hansen investigated the trial and wrote the book The Hamsun Trial (1978), which created a storm in Norway. Among other things Hansen stated: "If you want to meet idiots, go to Norway," as he felt that such treatment of the old Nobel Prize-winning author was outrageous. In 1996, Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell based the movie Hamsun on Hansen's book. In Hamsun, Swedish actor Max von Sydow plays Knut Hamsun; his wife Marie is played by Danish actress Ghita Nørby.

Hamsun's writings have been the subject of numerous books and journal articles. Some of these writings explore the dialectic between Hamsun's literary works and his political and cultural leanings expressed in his non-fiction.

Prime among all of Hamsun's works adapted to film is Hunger, a 1966 film starring Per Oscarsson. It is still considered one of the top film adaptations of any Hamsun works. Hamsun's works have been the basis of 25 films and television mini-series adaptations, starting in 1916.[30]

The book Mysteries was the basis of a 1978 film of the same name (by the Dutch film company Sigma Pictures),[31] directed by Paul de Lussanet, starring Sylvia Kristel, Rutger Hauer, Andrea Ferreol and Rita Tushingham.

Landstrykere (Wayfarers) is a Norwegian film from 1990 directed by Ola Solum.

The Telegraphist is a Norwegian movie from 1993 directed by Erik Gustavson. It is based on the novel Dreamers (Sværmere, also published in English as Mothwise).

Pan has been the basis of four films between 1922 and 1995. The latest adaptation, the Danish film of the same name, was directed by Henning Carlsen, who also directed the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish coproduction of the 1966 film Sult from Hamsun's novel of the same name.

Remodernist filmmaker Jesse Richards has announced he is in preparations to direct an adaptation of Hamsun's short story The Call of Life.[32]

A biopic entitled Hamsun was released in 1996, directed by Jan Troell, starring Max von Sydow as Hamsun.

• Ferguson, Robert. 1987. Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Hamsun, Knut. 1990. Selected Letters, Volume 1, 1879-98. Edited by Harald Næss and James McFarlane. Norwich, England: Norvik Press.
• Hamsun, Knut. 1998. Selected Letters, Volume 2, 1898-1952. Edited by Harald Næss and James McFarlane. Norwich, England: Norvik Press.
• Haugan, Jørgen. 2004. The Fall of the Sun God. Knut Hamsun - a Literary Biography Oslo: Aschehoug.
• Humpal, Martin. 1999. The Roots of Modernist Narrative: Knut Hamsun's Novels Hunger, Mysteries and Pan. International Specialized Book Services.
• Kolloen, Ingar Sletten. 2009. Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissident. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12356-2
• Larsen, Hanna Astrup. 1922. Knut Hamsun. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Næss, Harald (2007), Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Part 2, Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, ISBN 978-0-7876-8148-7
• Shaer, Matthew. 2009. Tackling Knut Hamsun. Review of Kollen Sletten, Dreamer and dissenter and Žagar, The dark side of literary brilliance. In Los Angeles Times, 25 October 2009.
• D'Urance, Michel. 2007. Hamsun. Editions Pardès, Paris, 128 p.
• Žagar, Monika. 2009. The dark side of literary brilliance. University of Washington Press.