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
