Customer Reviews

Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (Green Integer: 83)

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When do you play 'on muted strings'? When you are 50 and seeking to make sense of the path you trod. This is the duo of tales Hamsun produced in his middle years, that draws the curtain on his early triumphs and (as it transpires) sets the scene for his later masterpieces the Wayfarers and Growth of the Soil. The division between the narrator and the author is threadbare here, artistically necessary; and through this you get an insight into the characters that burned so brightly in the earlier works but who were much more detached from the writer. Hamsun sets this scene in the opening pages, the sense of being back to somewhere he knew before. And then the muted strings can play. A masterpiece again.

This is the second book of his wonderer trilogy (Under the Autumn Star, A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, and Last Joy). It is extremely beautifully written. Hamsun used his real name and explored ordinary people's trivial daily activities, problems, worries, struggling, etc...
This is simply the wonderful book and he depicted human nature deeply.