'Then comes the evening.' Those who have seen the film Hamsun, starring Max Von Sydow, will recall seeing several scenes with Marie Hamsun finishing a novel with this line at book readings. Growth of the Soil, Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun’s 1917 novel widely regarded as his masterpiece, is that novel. Powerful in its sublime simplicity, Growth is the life and times of Isak, following him as he cuts his legacy from the untamed wilds of Norway. I would recommend anyone with an interest in the author to view the film Hamsun, as Sydow delivers a stellar performance as usual, and it depicts an accurate enough portrayal of the Hamsun’s later years – particularly those involving his outspoken support of Adolf Hitler. This taboo cost the author his wealth and social status and still seems to avert modern readers, but, as the old saying goes, hind sight is 20/20 and Hamsun favored Hitler more due to his anti-English sentiments and openly admitted to finding his anti-Semitism ridiculous. He was also reported to be one of the few people to ever talk down to Hitler, causing Hitler to dismiss him and bury himself away in rage for several days when Hamsun insisted upon releasing Norwegian prisoners of war who were sentenced to death by firing squad. Hamsun was a massive literary inspiration to many of his contemporaries, being highly praised by authors such as Hemingway, Hesse and even Bukowski, and his luckily novels do not reflect this unflattering political alignment. This novel was however issued in field editions to German soldiers during WWII, which is understandable as the novel exudes a deep love for ones homeland. Putting aside all the ugly Nazi business, Hamsun has a brilliant mind and voice and it would be a shame for his novels to be passed over.Growth of the Soil, written 27 years after his other classic and debut novel, and one of my personal favorite books of all-time, Hunger displays Hamsun at a much more matured writing style. While Hunger was gritty, raw and frantic, Growth delivers a very controlled and serene prose. The typical quirks of Hamsun are still present, and avid readers will find his unmistakable voice booming from the pages. It is quite impressive how so little yet so much seems to transpire in this relatively short novel (324pgs in the Penguin Classics edition) and the vast length of time that goes by. The novel begins with a youthful Isak setting out on his own and by the end he is reflecting upon old age as he begins to embrace the deterioration of his strength and body and leave the future in the hands of his full grown children. He masterfully manipulates time, as it passes in spurts sometimes burning quickly through chunks of years or slowly moving through a season, yet the pace and flow never falters as Hamsun seems to evenly disperse his timeline.Characters have always been a strong point for Hamsun. Here readers will find a colorful cast of some of the most human characters since Tolstoy. Hamsun has a charm of seemingly bringing you into the ever growing Sellenara home of Isak and Inger and allowing you to cozy up by the fire with the family. You watch their struggles, successes, sadness and share in the local gossip over the course of generations, giving the novel a feel that will put fans of East of Eden or The Good Earth right at home. You feel as if characters such as the comical busybody Oline are real neighborhood kooks that you encounter and not just some name on a page, so when reading about their actions it causes you to laugh and say “oh she would say or do that!”. Geissler, the enigmatic manic-depressive who turns up from time to time, is the books most memorable character. His monologue near the end will echo within you for months to come and contains a message that is still timely today.The real heart of this novel, however, is the land itself. The focus primarily remains out in the wilderness and usually stays behind amongst the fields and mountains even when characters travel into town. Hamsun seems to poke fun at more ‘civilized’ trifles as he juxtaposes city and country characters often through the lens of the backlands where a need for an impressive set of clothes and status icons such as a cane seem foolish and juvenile. He shows the land as being the true home and heart of a family, as the characters rely upon the land and live off the fruits of their blood and sweat. There is magical little moments where the natural world and the human world comingle spiritually; where Inger witnesses tiny fish singing to her or when the ducks seem to speak to the son with their voice passing through his soul. The poet Wislawa Szymborska wrote “Even a simple “hi there,”/when traded with a fish,/makes both the fish and you/feel quite extraordinary” and these spiritual exchanges between man and the land greeting each other brings out a deep inner beauty of the novel.Knut Hamsun has a power to take such a mundane chain of events and portray it in verbal majesty to rival the overgrown backlands of Norway. It is no surprise the Nobel committee honored him with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 shortly after this novel achieved great success. If you want to take a trip to your roots and revert back to nature, which Hamsun would argue is the way it should be, this is a perfect novel for you. It rewards a patient reader, as it slowly reveals its heart if you sit back, relax and let it unfold around you like a morning sunrise. This is could be a great introduction to Hamsun, although I would recommed Hunger over this as it is more accessible.And then it was evening, and I need to go to sleep.5/5
To fully appreciate Knut Hamsun, one has to first get beyond his political stance during WWII, a veneration of sorts of the strength & the seeming force of will of Nazi Germany. Many gifted writers have been guilty of falling prey to the lure of power, fascist or otherwise & to anti-Semitism, including Ezra Pound and Jack Kerouac. While it is impossible to overlook Hamsun's post-Nobel award life and his precipitous fall from literary grace, ending his life poor & dispossessed, one has to attempt to view the author's novels and most of all, Growth of the Soil, on their own merits.Isak, the novel's main character perhaps reflects Hamsun's view of the curative power of the soil and begins working on land that belongs to the state, later building a sod hut and eventually gaining title to the land, becoming in the process a sort of archetype of the "natural man" who takes his cues from the soil while remaining adaptable to the vagaries of weather & climate. Gradually, he fashions the acres into an estate, "Sellanra". A woman named Inger, wanders onto Isak's compound to become his common law wife, though in time they marry & have children but not without some misfortune that causes a rift in their relationship, including a period when Inger is sent away to prison near Trondheim, using that time away to learn to read & to appreciate a world beyond her life in a small Norwegian village.In Isak's view of himself: "the ground was there, the forest was there; he had tilled & cleared, built up a homestead in the midst of natural wilderness, winning bread for himself & his family, asking nothing of any man but always working, working alone." He taught his sons "about stones, how the white stone was harder than the gray; but when he found a flint, he must make tinder & then could strike fire with it". Always, the natural man prevails if he works hard enough and "a man of the wild was not put out by things he could not get; art, newspapers, luxuries, politics & such-like were worth just what folk were willing to pay for them, no more". Meanwhile, the growth of the soil was something different, "a thing to be procured at any cost; the only origin of all." Isak's children are a mixed lot, with Eleseus gifted & worldly but not at home on the family estate, while his brother Sivert is a "jester", rough-hewn & suited to the farm. In time, Eleseus takes over a store but has no business sense, loses money & eventually takes a steamer to America, never to return.There is also Geisler, a kind of mystery figure, keen on the value of the mine he owns, holding out against a conglomerate. He declares, "I'm something, I'm the fog, as it were, floating around, sometimes coming like rain on dry ground, while my son is like lightening, the modern type & honestly believes all the age, all the Jew & Yankee have taught". The author infers that "modern types" somehow avoid the lessons of the soil. Growth of the Soil is a kind of extended parable in which those who work with their hands & tend the soil will prevail, all else being speculation & idleness. One might say that in Knut Hamsun's view of the world, simplicity & hard manual labor are the keys to success and the growth of the soil leads to the growth of the soul.
What do You think about Growth Of The Soil (1972)?
One of my favorite novels from my teen years was Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag. I first read it as outside reading for my eighth grade English class and enjoyed it as much as My Antonia which I read at about the same time. More recently I read Pat Conroy’s memoir My Reading Life, in which he writes about his agent who gives him a copy of Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun, telling him: “It’s an essential book. A necessary one. It’s the most important book I’ve ever read. I named my farm Sellanraa in honor of Isak the man who builds his home and raises a family out of nothing.” To which Conroy says: “I’ll read it.” His agent’s response: “You don’t just read this book. You must enter in. Live it. It contains the great truth.” Which his agent explains: “Everything of virtue springs from the soil. Civilization always comes along to ruin it. But you can always find the truth if it comes from the earth.”Well after that recommendation and my own memories of Rolvaag I picked up Hamsun's book (I should have done this long before when I was amazed by Hunger which I have read and reread) and found it to be the life story of a man in the wilds, the genesis and gradual development of a homestead, the unit of humanity, in the unfilled, uncleared tracts that still remain in the Norwegian Highlands.It is an epic of earth; the history of a microcosm. Its dominant note is one of patient strength and simplicity; the mainstay of its working is the tacit, stern, yet loving alliance between Nature and the Man who faces her himself, trusting to himself and her for the physical means of life, and the spiritual contentment with life which she must grant if he be worthy. Modern man faces Nature only by proxy, or as proxy, through others or for others, and the intimacy is lost. In the wilds the contact is direct and immediate; it is the foothold upon earth, the touch of the soil itself, that gives strength.The story is epic in its magnitude, in its calm, steady progress and unhurrying rhythm, in its vast and intimate humanity. The author looks upon his characters with a great, all-tolerant sympathy, aloof yet kindly, as a god. A more objective work of fiction it would be hard to find—certainly in what used to be called "the neurasthenic North."
—James
I'm descended from farmers, as far back as our genealogy can tell. Potatoes and grain on one side, and rice on the other. I grew up in this kind of place, too, and seen the tough self-reliance that these people value.Which is why, despite my thin veneer of urbane culture, I feel something like nostalgia for some aspects of this rural existence. Modern life encroaches on them.The author later became a fascist reactionary - highly critical of this modern lifestyle. As a general rule, people don't sympathize with fascists - but one can try to understand why to feel what they do. Somehow, they feel threatened instead of comforted by this other culture. They feel swept aside by it.Anyways - this is a good book, probably one of Hamsun's best. Recommended for those who want a good look at the farmer's life.
—Hadrian
*Unpretentiousy simple in style but rich in humanistic insight* Having read the first chapters of this book the modern reader may wonder how this work contributed to Knut Hamsun being awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. To that point the story is leisurely bland. The characters are distant and indistinctive, even Isak, the pioneering homesteader in the back of the woods, in his unwavering stoically optimistic determination to carve out and develop his own prosperous domain. Dialogue is stilted and scant. Isak's companion and wife to be, Inger, is hard working but sullen, argumentative and self deprecating.But the tale gains in stature as characterizations mature, more participants are introduced and unexpected events unfold. Through a crisis Inger's life changes drastically and leads to the blossoming of her creative ambitions and self-image. There is the never-do-well, scheming Brede; the kindly but evasive wheeler dealer Geissler; the naïve and trusting plodder, Aksel; the opportunistic, shifty and deceptive--to the very end--Barbro; the spoiled first born son, Eleseus, impractical and pretentious; the industrious, loyal and amiable second son, Sivert; the village's suffragette and socialite, Mrs Heyerdahl; the elder gossip but wise and prudently dependable Oline; the entrepreneurial but lazy Aaronsen; the seducing, happy and irresponsible vagabond Gustaf; and others.There is success and failure, contentment and depression, drama and contention which motivate the reader to go on to find the inhabitants of this parochial setting, in northern Norway about 1850-80, worthy of comparison with urban 21st century conflicts and compromises. Geissler is provided a significant stream of thought monologue at the end which undresses his customary unflappability. Infanticide is an underlying theme in much of this book and provides insight about how human life was then at times discarded out of expediency, just as many abortions today may take place for that same reason.Although I doubt this book would lead to a Nobel Prize today I think it is well worth the read for social, cultural, literary and historical reasons. It is especially apt for those interested in the surprising relative complexity of primitive and "simple" rural life in the nineteenth century. As far as this Penguin 2007 edition is concerned, the new translation startled at times, using English modernisms which are out of place for the time period being described. But they are minor distractions. The book is very contemporarily readable although purists may prefer the more traditional translations.
—Sverre
