Knut Hamsun: LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS
These are the first few sentences of the book:
I have gone to the forest. Not because I am offended about anything, or very unhappy about men's evil ways; but since the forest will not come to me, I must go to it. That is all... Really, I could make quite a song and dance about it. For I mean to roam and think and make great irons red-hot.
For a novel, such sentences are well-composed to arouse the reader’s
attention and interest like it did to me. My interest was sustained up to the
next 10 to 20 pages but I thought it was downhill from there. I had lost
interest (almost!) until I realized what the book was really about. It was like
the unnamed narrator, who owned the sentences in the preceding paragraph, ‘reporting’
on his observations about the characters he met while staying for a while in that
hut in the forest. There are also ‘reports’ on characters he had observed while
he was in some sort of resort.
I have gone to the forest. Not because I am offended about anything, or very unhappy about men's evil ways; but since the forest will not come to me, I must go to it. That is all... Really, I could make quite a song and dance about it. For I mean to roam and think and make great irons red-hot.
For a novel, such sentences are well-composed to arouse the reader’s
attention and interest like it did to me. My interest was sustained up to the
next 10 to 20 pages but I thought it was downhill from there. I had lost
interest (almost!) until I realized what the book was really about. It was like
the unnamed narrator, who owned the sentences in the preceding paragraph, ‘reporting’
on his observations about the characters he met while staying for a while in that
hut in the forest. There are also ‘reports’ on characters he had observed while
he was in some sort of resort.
For me this book is quite unusual. I enjoyed it although I’m not completely
sure of the connection of the title to the narrative. But one thing for sure:
the sentences in this book flow like an unobstructed fluid.
This is the second book I read on my Reader application of my HTC
Sensation. This is also the second book by Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel Prize in
Literature) that I’ve read so far.
Rating: 4.0/50
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