Book Tips - Knut Hamsun

Depth of feeling, perspicacity and thought provoking descriptions of everyday events and feelings.
/Tara, United States

A wonderful evocation of alienation in society.
/D. Dickens, United Kingdom

The hunger in the book is our everyday hunger for affection and warmth, for love.
/Elisabeth Knap, Norway

This book opened up a whole new way of seeing as if for the first time by a struggling writer who literally starves to gain inspiration for writing. The book was 10 years in gestation. His body and mind go through strange transformations. His unconscious plays tricks on him, he hallucinates, he is connected to the changing moods of nature in a revelatory way. The 3 major figures in his life are the Editor, the Landlord and the Baker. After reading this Lawrence and Camus seemed lesser than I had perceived them to be. He writes out of unselfish inwardness and shows how subjectivity is the only approach to truth. If you get different translations you get whole new worlds. An amazing experience.
/Mark Thompson, United Kingdom

This is the first novel, long in gestation, of a great writer. In it he explores with psychological penetration how this young man literally starves for his inspiration. He taps the depths of the unconscious, describes the physiological ramifications in great detail. There is an abundance of humour, zest and unpredictability. The early Oslo environment is vividly realised and the author's great empathy with nature. This primer on how to write is full of strange, hunger born, hallucinations. Unlike Orwell he does not get dragged down into the sociology of hunger (Down&Out..) but uses it as a spur to majestic flights of thought. All for a crust of bread!
/John Sharman, United Kingdom

'Hunger' is the tale of an impoverished writer whose delusions leads him to starvation as he wanders around late 19th century Oslo. Similar to Dostoevsky's 'Notes From Underground' in both form and psychological insight, this novel probes the dark nether regions of the human mind in glorious overture to the 20th century.
/Eric S., United States

Beautiful prose, lush descriptions of nature, pinpoint swipes at the follies of human nature, and an overarching slightly creepy tone.
/Jessica, Canada

The writing is so plain, almost childlike in its simplicity; but it evokes great emotions. The story is about doomed love, and you know it is not meant to last from the beginning - but you cannot help but wish for it to happen. This book brought me to tears, and it opened up a whole bottle of emotions. When a book does this, I instantly consider it great.
/Alexandra Brown, United States