It’s hard to know what to make of this book. A writer lives in abject poverty and, you guessed it, extreme hunger in late 19th century Kristiana (now Oslo). Very little happens in the way of narrative development except for the main character’s experience of poverty. All other characters in the story play minor roles and the focus is overwhelmingly on the personal psychology of the author. The protagonist is kicked out of his accommodation, attempts to pawn his meagre possessions, spends a night in jail, sleeps rough, writes some articles for local papers to earn money and involves himself in sundry deranged antics and interactions with strangers and newspaper editors. There is also a bizarre love story, of sorts, whereby he stalks a girl and then is later invited into her apartment where our ‘hero’ makes an abortive attempt to sleep with her. After an excruciating account of these hardships he joins the crew of a ship sailing from the port and leaves the city where the book ends.
One infuriating aspect of the book is the fact that the starving author is quite often offered food, money or assistance but almost always refuses them. In one sense, I can understand that pride is a powerful motivator but, at the same time, there must be a limit to the demands placed on someone by pride; I feel sure that the demand of hunger is greater! Equally frustrating is his behaviour when he gets money. In short, he squanders it and even goes so far as to make gifts of it to people who haven’t even asked for it. One possible explanation of this reckless impropriety is that he is a lunatic and much of the interest of the book comes from assessing the psychological state of someone who would behave in such an extraordinary manner.
The book reminded me of ‘Crime and Punishment’ (1866) in its descriptions of impoverished, freezing lodgings and hardship. More generally, it reminded me of ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (1933) with which it shares themes of sacrificing everything to become a writer and existing without money. ‘Hunger’ itself was published in 1890 and provides an interesting mid-point between the two both chronologically and stylistically. While Dostoevsky’s 19th century novel has a very clear plot and takes explicit philosophical and moral stances by the time Orwell is writing in the 20th century the focus is almost exclusively on the psychology and actions of the protagonist, describing the reality and experience of having no money. I would guess that Orwell may have read ‘Hunger’ and possibly drew on it for inspiration in the same way he, supposedly, used ‘We’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin as a source for 1984. One major difference between the two books, I found, was the style. Orwell writes in a more matter of fact way and I didn’t question his sanity. ‘Hunger’, on the other hand, is like a lot of Nabokov novels (‘The Real History Of Sebastian Knight’, ‘Pale Fire’) whereby I began to question the veracity of what I was reading and sanity of the narrator. In this sense, ‘Hunger’ could be seen as a description of a more extreme psychological deterioration than Orwell’s. It’s interesting to note that these books are the first ones each author had published but that Orwell classed his as non-fiction whereas Hamsun’s is considered a novel. I suspect neither is entirely one nor the other but it could account for some of the differences in style. Perhaps Orwell is attempting something in a more documentary vein whilst Hamsun’s focus is squarely on the protagonist’s increasingly deranged mentality.
Overall, Hamsun creates a dark and intimidating atmosphere not only because of the horrific physical privations the hero undergoes. The wild behaviour and psychology described also creates a close, confusing sensation as I read it; a bit like a fog, that reduces the ability to discern what is real and disorientates. I enjoyed the book and found it readable but wouldn’t rate it as first class.
