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Knut Hamsun

Dreamers (New Directions Paperbook) Paperback – May 17, 1996

by Knut Hamsun (Author), Tom Geddes (Translator)

6 ratings

3.7 on Goodreads

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The midnight sun illumines more than fishing and fjords in this remote northern Norwegian village. In fact, half-baked schemes and hilarity abound. Big Ove Rolandsen, telegraph operator, mad scientist, and local Casanova, trades wits, fists, and kisses with a host of quirky neighbors. He serenades the curate's wife and fights a drunken giant, but taking on Trader Mack, the town's fish-glue magnate, is a more difficult matter. Knut Hamsun, author of the acclaimed Hunger and winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize for Literature, renders the dreams and dramas of these townsfolk with a delightfully light touch. Robert Bly has written that Hamsun "has a magnifying glass on his eye, like a jeweler's," and Dreamers gleams like a perfect, semi-precious stone.

Print length

132 pages
Language

English
Publisher

New Directions
Publication date

May 17, 1996
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0811213218
ISBN-13

978-0811213219
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Previously unpublished in this country, this short novel by Hamsun, who won the Nobel Prize in 1920, shows a lighter side of a writer best known for his more nihilistic work. Set in an isolated Norwegian fishing village, the novel is a romantic comedy of sorts, centering on Ove Rolandsen, an antiheroic and often inebriated aspiring inventor. Rolandsen is a schemer, a liar and a not particularly effective womanizer. He bears a distinct resemblance to the protagonists of better-known Hamsun novels such as Hunger and Mysteries. Rolandsen is engaged to the local parson's housekeeper, yet he has eyes for both the local sexton's daughter and for the daughter of Trader Mack, the town's most prosperous businessman. Rolandsen has invented a new process for manufacturing fish-glue, the commodity which is the main source of Trader Mack's wealth; yet Rolandsen, who works as a telegraph operator, lacks sufficient funds to get his invention out into the world. Hamsun handles his plot with a light and assured touch, and the novel is considerably more charming than its location and subject matter might imply. But the book's ambition is disappointingly minor compared to what Hamsun was capable of in his best works, and Geddes's rather stiff translation fails to bring across the liveliness with which Hamsun's prose has been rendered by more assured hands.

From Library Journal

Written in the 1920s, this was the Nobel prize-winning author's humorous tale of Ove Rolandsen, denizen of a small Norwegian fishing village. Rolandsen's adventures include romancing the curate's wife, fighting a giant, and opposing the town's fish-glue magnate.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Directions (May 17, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 132 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0811213218
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0811213219
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,322,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #164 in Scandinavian Literary Criticism (Books)
- #30,709 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction

Customer Reviews:
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3.7 out of 5

6 global ratings

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Avid reader

not a good starting point

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 5, 2014

If you have heard of the Norwegian Knut Hamsun, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920 and later on became an admirer of Hitler, persist with your interest. Hamsun is truly one of the greats, in spite of the deplorable political misjudgments of his old age. But "Dreamers" might not be a good starting point. It is written in a rather light vein and struck me--who is a Hamsun fan--as not having withstood the test of time very well. The plot is predictable, the characters a bit stereotypical, the psychological analysis lackluster. Hamsun at his best is more searching, less compromising, his plots less conventional than this romantic comedy allows him to be. Start with the great Hamsun classics, "Hunger," Mysteries, "Pan." If you have read those and want to continue, you might be better served reading some of his later works "The Women at the Pump" (1920) or "The Ring is Closed" (1936), which continue in his earlier vein. Should you be interested in the old man's own reflections after his catastrophic fall from grace, you might look for "On over-grown Paths", the diary of the 85-year old man during his trials in Norway after 1945.

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Sesho

SMALL VILLAGE CASANOVA TRIUMPHS

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 6, 2005

Ove Rolandson is what a modern audience would call a "playa". He goes around flirting with the factory girls, is the sire of a couple of illegitimate children, proposed to Elise Mack, the daughter of the local fish glue magnate, and become engaged to Olga, the sexton's daughter. And he also has an eye on the new curate's wife. As you can see, he has a lot on his plate. He's not quite the smooth operator that he wishes to be though. While working at the telegraph station and getting drunk and picking up chicks seems to be his only pasttimes, he harbors a secret desire to be an inventor and an entrepreneur. He is secretly experimenting on different methods of extracting fish glue from parts that others see as useless, that, if he can get them patented, could make him a competitor of Trader Mack, the boss of the town.

Dreamers is lighter novel than Hamsun usually writes. It's basically a comic work. We have almost-murders, almost-affairs, almost-dirty dealings, but nothing ever brings the book down into the realm of "heavy" literature. It almost feels like a Shakespearean comedy such as Much Ado About Nothing. Nobody gets hurt in the end. At bottom, most of the characters here have a core of goodness that never lets the plot degenerate into tragedy.

This was a good light read. For an example of more intense works by Hamsun, I would check out "Hunger" and "Pan", the latter novel showing how the same elements we find in "Dreamers" can be melded into something more primal and powerful. I would also recommend Shakespeare's comedies such as "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Love's Labor's Lost". Also, check out "Harvest" by Jean Giono for a similar take on a pastoral subject with more intensity.

5 people found this helpful

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A delightful, humorous well-crafted novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 12, 2002

Hamsun is an author everyone should read - his clear and precise language, his ability to pick details that build fully human characters, and his wicked sense of humor all make for reading at its best.
In this novel, a young but ambitious telegraph operator who is a womanizing drunk as well as a clever inventor seeks capital to make his dreams of better, cheaper fish-glue with dye as a byproduct. Along the way one meets the fiancee he can't get rid of, a curate with a hell-fire-brimstone manner and a wife who is spoiled and childish, lay-helpers with hidden hatreds ... a whole village of believable characters acting in very human ways.
This is not a deep, philosophical novel but through the characters' actions there is a sense of hopefulness that overpowers the foibles.

5 people found this helpful

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August747@aol.com

A Hamsun gem of a romantic tale in new translation.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 27, 1999

Dreamers is another wonderful non-romantic romance involving ordinary people in a small Norweigen village from the master of the genre, Knut Hamsun. However, this new translation is a great dissapointment to me after reading the 1920's Alfred A Knopf edition. Much of the colour & humor are lost in this edition. I would strongly suggest using Amazon's used book search & auctions to find the out of print Alfred A Knopf version as it is a far superior translation to this edition that will bring many more smiles and laughs to the reader.

15 people found this helpful

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