Re-reads 

Hunger – Knut Hamsun (Norwegian)

The unnamed narrator dominates the reader’s sensibilities with a completeness that few novels can match. We’re totally immersed in his actions, thoughts and emotions. He’s a writer living in Christiana (Oslo) who can’t sell his work, and he doesn’t turn to other means of making a living. So he starves, he lives in hovels (or out in the open). The hunger of the title is very real. But most important are his thoughts and emotions (which drive his actions). We’re in a mind that is, to put it mildly, unusual. Most of the time I was bewildered by the man, and, since I couldn’t relate to him, I couldn’t feel empathy. Often I thought he was crazy (a thought he has too). Why did he do this, why did he say that? No halfway normal person would follow wayward impulses as he does. In one instance – involving his encounter with a woman he names Ylajali (nobody in the book has a given name) – I doubted that it had actually happened. Why would a sane woman get interested in such a weird character? Can we attribute his eccentricities to hunger? I don’t think so, for starving people have a sense of practicality, which our character lacks. My edition contains introductions by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Robert Bly (who did the translation). I read both, searching for some reference to the issue of insanity. I searched in vain. What I did learn was that Hamsun experienced a prolonged period of hunger. This was his first novel, written in 1890; in the work that followed he turned more and more to a realistic approach (which I prefer). Anyway. . . This novel kept me interested, it’s vivid, it even has a jaunty quality (which is odd, considering its subject matter). On the last page our character impulsively gets a job on a ship about to leave port. This is good: on the ship he must do practical work, and do it well. He must interact with others in a rational way. He must be a normally functioning man. If not, they’ll toss him off the boat in the middle of the ocean. I never wanted to toss this book into the ocean. But I don’t get, on this reading, the virtues attributed to it by Singer and Bly and others, who see it as a landmark in psychological fiction. 3

A Cab at the Door – V. S. Pritchett

A memoir about the author’s youth (ending when he’s in his late teens). One thing that struck me as peculiar was the detail he included. I’ll make up an example: an aunt Viv he knew when he was six has a mole on her chin and wheezes when she laughs. And there’s more – what she says, etc. Why does it matter to the reader (the aunt will play no role in his life; she just appears on page 14 and never again). And how could he remember all that about her? My surprise was greatly heightened when I learned that the author was 68 when he wrote this book. What we get is a clutter of characters and events, all described with care. These people come and go, and chronology is shaky. His immediate family are not given precedence; some (such as his three younger siblings) are ignored. His mother is composed of a few standard reactions. His father plays a more significant role, and is presented as a pompous fool. Victor seems not to love any of them. We do get to know him, but he doesn’t come across as someone I could sympathize with. His growth as a writer is chronicled, but who cares? Despite all these negative factors, things improved when I changed my attitude toward what I was reading: I gave up trying to make sense of the potpourri, I just let it all wash over me. I took in the moment, and didn’t worry about its significance. The main character is actually London of the early 1900s. Not upper-class London, not slum London, but the lower end of middle-class London. It rises from the pages, a monster of a city, teeming and vigorous. We’re immersed in its streets, shops, parks, offices, weather, etc. And, foremost, its people – their appearance, gestures, speech, attitudes. On that basis, the book works, because these brief snippets are lively. Actually, Pritchett wasn’t a novelist, and it shows. He had a vast array of books published, but only five were novels, and he once stated that he didn’t like writing them. But to write a memoir one needs to have some novelistic skills, and the lack of them shows in Cab. Still, for the passing enjoyment I got out of this odd book, it deserves a weak 3

The Fall – Albert Camus (French)

Two men meet in a bar in Amsterdam (“May I, monsieur, offer my services without running the risk of intruding?”). What follows is a monologue: one man (Jean-Baptiste) talks to another (who never says a single word). This occurs over a number of days, at various meeting places. What we get is a prolonged confession, a dark one, but presented in a witty, offhand way. The speaker examines his life and the motives driving him. What he confesses to is his falsity and pridefulness and emptiness. The book is highly cynical (“Of course, true love is exceptional – two or three times a century, more or less”). Our narrator’s good acts are actually, under his scrutinizing eye, seen to be motivated by vanity, a need to be considered virtuous in his eyes and in the eyes of others. It amounts to a greed that needs to be constantly fed. And, it’s implied, many of the human species act under similar drives. I have few high-minded illusions about human nature, but I found Jean-Baptiste to be an extreme specimen – not a believable one. He merely serves the purpose of allowing Camus to make philosophical points. But to do so in a novel is a tricky proposition. Halfway through this confession I took the place of the man listening and decided that, if I were him, I would avoid meeting up with J-B at all costs. So why take his place and read on? Camus’s acclaim as a writer (the Nobel Prize at the youthful age of forty-four), and his death three years later (car accident), impart a certain glamor to his work. I may once have been impressed. Delete