Customer Reviews

The Last Joy (Green Integer)

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4 star:		(1)
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Hamsun's narrators have a special way of loving life and The Last Joy's narrator is no exception. A man in his last years feels dearly that life is not for the likes of him but rather for the young, and tries to participate in their lives with serene dignity. He speaks rarely, observing things quietly to himself while a string-section of shifting minor chords carries the story's feelings from page to page. There is heart-brokenness and hope so intermingled that if life must go on then so it must and what more is there to say.

Knut Hamsun was in his prime when he wrote this strange story. He plowed a new field and sowed it with seeds which grew from his deeply penetrating observations of people. Hamsun reports on all things importantly human: human conduct, human emotions, human relations, human society, human culture. Each note he strikes rings true. I never heard a false note in this symphony played under Norwegian skies. But I dare say it would ring as pure and true under the skies of Berlin or Beijing or Moscow Russia or Moscow Idaho. Knut Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920, for his epic "Birth of the Soil." I found this strange book, written twenty years afterwards, in 1940, even more rewarding. But until recent years it has never been distributed or much read outside of Norway.

The protagonist at first lives in solitude, in a peat hut, near the sea. He remains nameless throughout the book.

The story starts out:

"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."

In the final chapter he writes of his irons: "They were planned so big and so red; yet they are small irons, and they hardly glow." He does not write this out of self-pity. He says simply. "This is the truth."

The protagonist is the narrator throughout. But he is not just a passive reporter. He is fully engaged with all the people and their life situations. He is deeply immersed in their lives. Sometimes others tell him of observations made through their prism eyes. He in turn reports to us what they said through his own prism eyes.

Soon enough, the next character appears.

"One day a man comes to the hut. . . . `I didn't expect to find anybody in the hut,' said the man. His manner was at once forceful and discontented; he flung down the sack without humility."

[Later we learn that the man's name is Solem, and the contents of the bag are stolen goods.]

"Have you lived here long?" he asked. "And are you leaving soon?"
"Is the hut yours, perhaps?" I asked in my turn.
. . .
"Because if the hut is yours, that's another matter," I said. "But I don't intend like a pickpocket to take it with me when I leave." I spoke gently and jestingly to avoid committing a blunder by my speech. But I said quite the right thing; the man at once lost his assurance. Somehow I had made him feel that I knew more about him than he knew about me.

Solem is invited to eat with the narrator, and he accepts. The men have much telling and interesting conversation. Solem winds up staying the night and leaves the next day.

Two law men come to the hut the next day and asked: "Did you see a man pass by here yesterday?"
"No," I said.

Solem is woven into the story and appears throughout the book. After abandoning his hut the narrator walks to a mountain resort. There an odd assortment of characters appear; but Hamsun does not just describe them for us. He uses vivid brush strokes to show them to us, how they bump together and against the world, how they interact, what motivates them, what gets them up in the morning. Hamsun allows us to reach our own conclusions about the kind of person we ourselves are observing.

Arriving at the resort the narrator tells the reader: "Good days, nothing but good days: a suitable transition from solitude. I speak to the young people who own the homestead now, and to the husband's old father and young sister Josephine . . . Josephine, the daughter . . . is young and plays the piano for me. . . her feet are like a breeze under her skirt . . . It is pleasant to watch Josephine crouch down to milk the goat. But she is only doing this now to charm and please the stranger. Josephine received in her gray, young-girl's fingers" [some small change handed to her as a gratuity]

The bustle of spring season had already started. "Now they'll be coming," he [the old father] said. "If only they would leave us in peace." He added.

Mrs. Brede, the young wife of a wealthy business man arrives at the resort with her small children. She meets Solem. All the women are after Solem. "One evening when she went down to the men's hut and asked Solem to do her a service, I saw that her face was strange and covered with blushes. Would Solem come to her room and repair a window-blind that had fallen down?" We learn later that the young Mrs. Brede had deliberately caused the blind to fall down.

Many other men and women gather at the resort. All the women, young and old, are interested in Solem and he is interested in them, all of them. The men seem to be more interested in hiking the mountains then becoming involved in any social entanglements. When summer ends the visitors return to town. Their paths continue to cross in town with surprising and interesting consequences--some good, some not so good. Alliances are made. Relationships are shattered; some take the broken pieces to the grave with them; others knit the pieces back together resulting in a stronger more satisfying union. As the years pile up one on top of another, the lengthening shadows allow us to see the people in differing light. One becomes exultant in old age, and faces death with equanimity. Another sadly tumbles into the grave still holding tight to their bosom their treasure chest filled with bitterness and remorse.

The final chapter is a rant. It curiously starts out "I have written this story for you." . . . "I have written about human beings. But within the speech that is spoken, another lies concealed, like the veins under the skin, like a story within a story."

The closing paragraph is very unusual indeed. It is:

"Why have I written to you, of all people? Why do you think? You refused to be convinced of the truth and integrity of my conclusions; but I shall yet force you to recognize that I am close to the truth. Not until then shall I make allowance for the fool in you."

I've read about ten other Hamsun books, and have viewed the movie HAMSUN. I found this jewel of his to be the most rewarding. I am 81 years of age and what time I have left has become a very precious commodity. I have absolutely no regrets spending the many hours I did reading this book. (I'm a very slow reader). In fact, I think I'll go back and read it again.

Neil Bezaire, Carlsbad, CA, Author of "First Empty Your Cup"

"The Last Joy" is the 10th book by Knut Hamsun that I have had the pleasure to read. His style is rather unique. I would describe his style as the mindset of a paranoid chess master. He tends to see everyone and everything in terms as hout it/they would impact his space. Hamsun is a brilliant observer in that respect but he generally misses out on Life's social pleasures because of his "loner" perspective.

"The Last Joy" is a rather short acount of a man whose "last joy" (and he defines the term in several ways) was living in the forest alone. He returns to society at a rather remote resort in the mountains. The majority of the book is about his interactions with the people at the resort and his later encounters with them back in their communities. That may not sound all that appealing but it is a rather standard format for a Hamsun book.

My favorite quote from "The Last Joy" is "It was so stange; his watch was running but he himself was dead." Such an observation is an example of what you get with Hamsun.

The book is the completion of a trilogy that includes "Under the Autumn Star" and "A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings". I read those books 15-20 years ago (or more) so I can't comment on the trilogy as a whole. My "3 Star" rating may seem somewhat negative but it isn't meant to be. I gave it that rating because a number of Hamsun's works are a notch or two above "The Last Joy". If you like Hamsun, you'll like "The Last Joy".

Well, no need here.

I can't give any writing that casues me to cry anything less than the most one can give.
Usually I can say the same for words that bring me laughter but with this book, I had both; first laughter then tears.

You will like this novel and the other two in The Wanderer Trilogy (Under An Autumn Star & On Muted Strings) if you are one who is always looking to improve your writing; full with yearning for unseen treasures, evidence of which lies within; if you are not a fan of Hollywood Endings, etc.

I think you get the small gist of it.

If you wish to travel outside of your immediate mundaneness and have not the freedom to do so, read this book. It will teach you or else reaffirm any notion past that to go abroad is medicinal and necessary. This novel will remind you to appreciate the little things in life which are usually around you and not up in the sky as high as lofty buildings or on the ground where propective money lay fallen.

I am not one for giving away anything within the confines of cover to cover.

But this book will appeal to you as the first two aforementioned if you are a wanderer at heart.

As much as we need a home we need the road; perhaps, one for the winter and the other for all before and after.