Customer Reviews

ENIGMA LIFE KNUT

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wanted the writing here to be as great as Knut Hamsun's own Hunger--and of course, it simply can't be. I'm not at all sure that it's Ferguson's fault. I wanted to know what Hamsun's mindset was at the time of struggling through his masterpieces like Hunger and Pan and Victoria, I wanted to be able to get inside the great writer's mind...and it just can't be, because the author of this bio wasn't there. If you want psychological insights and great writing you must go to the source: Hamsun's own novels. Yes, you'll get dates and details here in Enigma, but that does not make for interesting and/or engaging reading. I was disappointed. The gifted, self-taught Knut Hamsun remains a favorite, though. One of the giants.

I don't take the time to read many biographies, but I have become very intrigued by Knut Hamsun and his writing in the last few years, and so decided to learn a little bit more about his controversial life by checking out Enigma. From the very beginning, I was drawn in by Ferguson's deep research and careful writing, and found that I couldn't put the book down for long without feeling a need to jump right back in. Hamsun led a life that continues to confuse and even anger his modern fans and detractors, and so it is no surprise that his biography is unbelievably interesting.

If you are looking to at last discover the evidence to claim unequivocally that Hamsun was or was not a Nazi, don't bother looking here. On the other hand, if you are looking to gain insight into who the man actually was and what he actually believed (for better or worse), Enigma is well worth a read. Hamsun was a character as fragmented as the ones he wrote about, and Ferguson does an admirable job bringing all the different sides of him to life through narratives, articles, letters, and pictures.

I always thought Hamsuns own personal screwiness imposed itself onto the characters of his books. Depending on who you talk to he is either overrated or underrated as a writer. I find him to be a very good but not quite great writer. I find it ironic that so many Hitler heads and Euro "new right" types are so into Hamsun because he said he thought Hitler was cool when he was like 90 years old but with the exception of Growth of the Soil he is a very Jewy type writer and was even more so that way in his personal life. Realisticly his pro-Hitler proclamations were probably more than anything due to his life long anti-English sentiments. You have to look long and hard to find anything Hamsun ever said that was even mildly racist. During WW2 there was a famous (at least within Denmark) writer named Nexø that went to Stalin Russia and made radio broadcasts into the west during the war. Even though Stalin killed more people than Hitler nobody really held it against him but Hamsun will pay the price for a long time to come for his quasi support of Hitler.

Like I said Hamsun was a screwy guy. There was a woman who Hamsun claimed was stalking him and sending nasty letters about him to many of his acquaintances. The police watched and followed her for months and found no evidence of any of this. I have to believe that Hamsun orchestrated the whole thing, even sending out the letters himself. He did however live many places and had some interesting observances. On America he says Americans think "the meaning of a work of art is reduced to its cash value" and "instead of founding an intellectual elite, America has established a mulatto stud farm". His observavtions on Muslims while passing through Turkey were "the Koran has created an attitude towards life which cannot be debated or discussed". Overall this was a decent biography of Hamsun.

I think that it is a very well written biography book of Knut Hamsun. It dipicts and well studied how Hamsun's own experiences relate to his works. Anyone who loves Hamsun's works must read this book. I am very sure that you will enjoy reading it and will understand Hamsun's attitude towards his works deeply. This book is highly recomended his admires who have read Hamsun's majore books, but not a novice, I guess.

i bought this book. i read this book. i lost this book on a bus in one city. i saw someone reading this book in a different city months later. we discussed knut hamsun for 5ive hours. in another city i bought this book again. who among us could read hunger, pan, mysteries, victoria, dreamers and under the autumn star without wanting to know all we can about the author? this is as natural as stubbing your toe. if reading the afore mentioned books doesnt make you want to know everything about knut hamsun, you are defective. this should be against the law. like not dying of thirst when you refuse to drink water.

they call this book ENIGMA people. figure it out. they call it that because knut hamsun was an extremely intresting person composed of complex contradictions. and this book also gives a synopsis of every major work hamsun ever produced. something like that could very well be termed invaluable, couldnt it? it also is packed full of anecdotes from hamsuns life. but then again, what did you expect?

did you know that he was a nazi sympathiser? did you know that he found a fingernail in a graveyard when he was a child and was consequently tormented by a ghost for some time?

oh yeah, if you were worried about whether its "well written" or not, i can assure you that it is. but maybe ive presumed too much.