Customer Reviews

Rosa (Sun & Moon classics)

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2 star:		(1)
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Knut is 1-in-a-hundred-million, able to actually step back and see the bigger human picture (and, of course, write about what he sees better than anyone else). In fact, Knut stands so far back, we're all like little bugs to him.

Knut takes the Richard Dawkins canon (men have feelings; women have strategies) and expresses it in language so painfully acute that the reader (if you're like me), is left screaming aloud with delight.

The novel is short, but the fun is long because there's zero extra words. I read it s-l-o-w-l-y in order that the phenomenal phraseology could sink in. Made it last all week. And dressed like Parelius the narrator to try to get more into the story.

Rosa is the other side of the coin of Benoni's tale. Whereas Benoni was the hero of "his" book, he's the goat of "hers." I think part of what I didn't like about this book was that a character I really loved was taken and made a mockery of. Hamsun seems more driven to show Rosa's spitefulness & hatred, which gets in the way of his usually beautifully simplistic style. Instead of having the easy-going flow of most of his "small Norweigen fishing village" novels, it's more of a vitriolic diatrabe. Hamsun is one of the most brilliant novelists of all-time, but this is definately my least-favorite work of all his works translated into English. If you're a Hamsun lover, go ahead & get it. If you've never read Hamsun before, this definately isn't a good place to start.