Hunger- Knut Hamsun
The blurb on my edition reads "Knut Hamsun believed that modern literature should express the complexity of the human mind, nowhere is that philosophy more evident than in this stunning modern masterpiece, Hunger. It tells the story of an unnamed vagrant who stumbles around the streets of Norway's capital looking for food. Hamsun creates a stunning portrait of poverty and a biting social commentary on modern urban life. We follow the vagrant in the story around the town and discover the true depths of his hunger. Hamsun is at his best in this classic of modern literature".
When I read this I was expecting, rightly or wrongly, something along the lines of Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London", which I enjoyed. Of course, having been written in 1890, it precedes that work by several decades. On reading it, it's evident that Hunger, disregarding plot (if there can be said to be one, particularly), has had, directly or indirectly, a major influence on modern literature stylistically. I was reminded while I was reading of "A portrait of the artist as a young man", "Herzog", and "L'Étranger" among others.
The loose plot, as outlined above, is that the protagonist, who we never discover the name of, is an aspiring journalist, who has more failures than successes with his articles, because he won't write popular stuff for the sake of a pay- You get the impression that as he sinks into desperation and delusion that his issues are making their way into his work in a self-perpetuating cycle. His occasional successes only seem to make the seemingly inevitable fall back to earth even more traumatic.
The stream of consciousness narration is particularly effective in communicating the elation and despair, and the moments of humour, though the humour is of a rather black variety, as it comes at the expense of further marring the reputation of the protagonist, when his main aim in the novel appears to be keeping up the appearance of respectability in the face of desperate circumstances, to the extent of infuriating the reader, when for appearances sake he won't accept assistance. There is also humour, of a sort, in the fact that while his main aim on the surface is retaining his respectability, the only pleasures he seems to take are in having arguments, on in behaving in a strange manner in order to attract attention, and then having to struggle to extricate himself. While one feels sympathy for him, and can understand that deprivation is causing him to act peculiarly, it's also extremely annoying to witness someone with more than enough problems creating more for himself. Hamsun also conveys that the people around him are laughing at him, and that on some level he knows this, but refuses to admit it to himself. Despite this, nobody is unkind to him, in fact many people are as kind as he will permit them to be, as he is very prudish about accepting charity. He will ask his acquaintances for money, but if it is offered freely, he resents it, in his irrational pride.
It touched a chord in me, because, while by his actions the protagonist is definitely mentally unhinged, there is a logic to everything he does, so even when he is irritating, you can't stay irritated, and in some ways he seems saner, by going mad while trying to stick to his ideals in life, than those who either live a very bourgeois lifestyle by catering to the masses, as his editor wants him to, or by being reduced to theft, something he strenuously avoids, preferring to starve than profit by the mistake of another.
Pride is one of the strongest themes of the novel, as it is pride that is at the root of many of the circumstances that befall him, and thus causes the titular theme of hunger. Hunger is in every aspect of the book, the obvious physical hunger that is constantly present, a large part of the book revolves around when he last ate, what he ate, when he will eat next, how he will try to acquire food. There is also the hunger for respectability, for success, as he remains ambitious in his desires to get published, and for companionship and love, as he denies to himself that he is being made fun of when a woman pays him attentions, to the point where he frightens her when he takes her more seriously that he thinks she believed he'd dare, and thus alienates her entirely.
Although on the face of it, it probably sounds rather depressing, being about failure, starvation and misery, it's still an enjoyable read, because of the sheer humanity of the protagonist. You can identify with him, and follow his mad rationalisations so that you wonder whether you'd make the same mistakes in his place, even though as an outsider looking in you can also see how bizarre and unrealistic his expectations and behaviours are. Because he is never named, he becomes an every-man. Additionally, although it was written 120 years ago, you can imagine him in the same scenarios in the modern world, which makes it quite a disturbing read, as one would prefer to imagine we've moved on somewhat in that length of time.
Although I enjoyed it a lot, I struggled sometimes when I set it aside to get back into it, though I think that might be due to having inadvertently picked up a sub-par translation, if I can go by the Amazon reviews. Apparently the optimum translation is by Sverre Lyngstad, if anyone still feels the urge to pick it up after I bored the pants off everyone.