Knut Hamsun Remembers America: Essays and Stories, 1885-1949 - download pdf or read online

By Richard Nelson Current

ISBN-10: 0826214568

ISBN-13: 9780826214560

 When americans be mindful him in any respect, they without doubt think about Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) because the writer of starvation or because the Norwegian who, in addition to Vidkun Quisling, betrayed his state via assisting the Nazis in the course of global conflict II. but Hamsun, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1920 for his novel the expansion of the Soil, used to be and continues to be the most vital and influential novelists of his time. Knut Hamsun recalls the USA is a suite of 13 essays and tales dependent mostly on Hamsun’s studies throughout the 4 years he spent within the usa while he was once a tender guy. almost all these items have by no means been released earlier than in an English translation, and none are effortlessly available.Hamsun’s emotions approximately the United States and American methods have been advanced. For the main half, they have been extra detrimental than optimistic, they usually chanced on expression in lots of of his writings—directly in his recollections and in a roundabout way in his fiction. In at the Cultural lifetime of sleek the United States, his first significant publication, he portrayed the U.S. as a land of gross and grasping materialism, populated by way of illiterates who have been completely missing in creative originality or refinement. even though the items during this assortment aren't all anti-American, such a lot of them emphasize the strangeness and unpleasantness, because the writer observed it, of existence in what he referred to as Yankeeland.Arranged chronologically, the items fall into 3 different types: serious Reporting, reminiscence and fable, and Mellow memory. The severe Reporting part contains articles that seemed in Norwegian or Danish newspapers quickly after every one of Hamsun’s visits to the United States and that supply his perspectives on numerous American matters, and contains an essay dedicated to Mark Twain. reminiscence and fable includes narratives of existence in the US, such a lot of that are offered as own reports yet which really are blends of truth and fiction. Mellow memory contains later and fonder memories and impressions of the United States.            The items during this assortment supply adaptations on a topic that runs via a lot of yankee history—European feedback of yankee methods. they provide shiny, now and then distorted, photos of lifestyles because it used to be within the usa. They let us know anything in regards to the improvement of the worldview of a guy who turned a good author, simply to jeopardize his acceptance by means of protecting the Nazi oppressors of his personal humans. Knut Hamsun recalls the USA will entice someone drawn to the historical past of yankee civilization or, extra in particular, within the heritage of anti-Americanism.