Comments on Knut Hamsun's "The Wanderer"

Some people who drive cars need to know exactly how the engine is made up in order to feel comfortable with the experience. Knut Hamsun needed to know exactly how life works for the same reason. Is it remarkable that I see my own experience in the set of questions he needed to answer? Perhaps we all see ourselves in his writing, and that is why he is a great author. I feel that the more I read, the more glimpses I am allowed of the true nature of truth and beauty.

The volume published in English as "The Wanderer" is made up of two short novels concerning mostly the same characters and locations: The Wanderer Under an Autumn Star (100 pages) and The Wanderer on Muted Strings (150 pages).

Under an Autumn Star is an abortive masterpiece. It feels unfinished, both in terms of the scope of the plot and revisions. I feel that further work on this would have produced something to rival Hunger or Growth of the Soil, and Hamsun probably did too, hence the sequel.

It is a work about class. In it we get to see a more realistic portrayal of the side of Hamsun presented in Hunger. Rather than starving because he has tied his head in knots, here he travels the countryside asking for manual work because he prefers it to living as a gentleman. Several times in this novel he resorts to his savings when it feels appropriate to him, but this does not diminish the effect in the same way as Jack Kerouac buying a train ticket across America in Big Sur. Here he has clear motivations (to experience work, to pursue women) whereas in Hunger it was harder to understand why he was doing what he was doing. Here there are characters other than the protagonist. Here he is a sympathetic figure, there the picture is more complex. If Hunger is a great work of art, this perhaps could have been a great short novel.

On Muted Strings is more mature, and shines less brightly. The protagonist returns to one of the scenes of Under an Autumn Star, and resolves the issues established there. We get to see many of the characters we came to know in the first novel again. It is readable, informed and still contains valuable insights, but it suffers the typical faults of being a sequel.