I love Knut Hamsun. I began his canon with Mysteries (wonderful) then Hunger (hilarious and wonderful) and now I’ve just finished Growth of the Soil, the novel for which he won the Nobel Prize.

It is rare to find an epic, especially an epic set on taming the wilderness with one’s own hands that doesn’t pander in tragedy. I am so accustomed to reading sprawling epics, or any literature at all, that tests the human condition by sending it’s protagonist disease, famine, death, heartache, the clap, ghosts, war, poverty. But, man Growth of the Soil doesn’t have any of that (well, maybe a couple of dead babies but really can a book qualify as literature without dead babies?). Every time Isak set outto build something, a new house, a new barn, a sawmill, another new barn, I held my breath and nearly squeezed my eyes shut anticipating the maiming or heart attack or horse kick to the throat, but I was delivered frommy misery because Growth of the Soil wasn’t about hardship and toil, ok maybe it was but it was not about heartache; not every single farming family is mired in tragedy;my grandmother and her ten siblings all grew up on a farm with all ten fingers, all ten toes and all their brain cells — it is possible.

But, I digress… What is so amazing about Knut Hamsun is that he helped invent the psychological novel using stream of conscience and interior monologue. He believed that novels should be less about plot and more about the human condition as illustrated through their thoughts, not actions. He described his ideal novels as being “whisper of blood and the pleading of bone marrow”. Both Hunger and Mysteries take those tropes and smash you in the face with them leaving you stunned, bloody and begging for more but Growth of the Soil is much more subtle, the characters are much simpler than those in the former, much more single minded yet it’s in that single mindedness that Hamsun’s genius shines through; like every great novelist he manages to make his readers understand and more importantly, relate to his characters.

Unfortunately, much like so many of our artistic greats, Hamsun had a few, ahem, demons. He was a bit of a (mumbles quietly) Nazi sympathizer. He may or may not have (he did) sent his Nobel Prize to Goebbles and he wrote a terrifying eulogy for Hitler. Yikes. The only ray of light in that whole disgusting mess is that after the fall of Germany he was found to be in a deteriorated mental state (maybe it was a tumour?) and so could not be charged with treason. There are some parts of Growth of the Soil that drew attention to his prejudices; like any good Aryan, he really hated the Sami (Northern people of Norway, Finland and Sweden akin to Inuit) he uses the derogative term Lapps the entire novel and there are several points in Growth of the Soil that he takes the opportunity to slam them. 

Really, don’t let the whole “I love Hitler” thing dissuade you from reading his novels; we would all be hard pressed for entertainment if we were unable to separate the humans from the artists (please don’t think I am excusing racism, abuse or any other awful acts) and if you love literature, then you owe it to yourself to read Knut Hamsun.