Mark pointed me to this James Wood essay on Knut Hamsun. Despite an obvious effort to play down Hamsun’s allegiance to the Nazis, Wood suggests that Hamsun’s novels “belong to the classical comic tradition of Don Quixote and Confessions of Zeno. In this tradition, what is both funny and awful is the hero’s obvious delusion that he is in control of his own unpredictability — that he is, in short, free. The reader can see otherwise, that the hero is the victim of bottomless compulsions and drives. ”
During Knut Hamsun’s Nobel speech in 1920, what’s fascinating is that he describes a personal confusion that’s very close to the uncertainties experienced by his protagonists. He equates winning the prize to something close to science and apologizes for his “homespun” emotionalism.
Lars Frode Larsen notes that Hamsun constantly kvetched about being a writer. His wife, Marie, however, saw through this, noting in her memoirs that it was only way Knut could find his joy.
The nature of Hamsun’s truth hinges upon these fascinating dualities. The narrator’s struggle to find work as a writer while starving in Hunger. Hamsun’s perceived inability to express himself as a writer at the Nobel ceremony. And the idea of “free” pointed out by James Wood. Hamsun’s work has always appealed to me because it tries to filter several meanings out of one condition, and doesn’t always leave you with a concrete answer.
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Oh… for a minute there I thought you meant JAMES WOODS, of “Ghosts of Mississippi”, “Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story” and of course, “Videodrome.”