It’s fascinating how the author describes nature and makes it come alive. He smells the forest, paints a picture, reminds us of our youth, love, culture, nature, civilization. It’s an echo of childhood and youth, the inner soul of the human being, he loved to explore that. There is a struggle between opposites, men and women, nature and town, the love story is eminent, there are obstacles, pride, jealousy.
Lots of symbolism and metaphors, e.g. the changing seasons. Mythology also plays a big part in the novel, the division between his love of nature and with people, we were taken by his love of nature.
We discussed this in our international book club in March 2011.
Read my original review here.
Knut Hamsun received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 "for his monumental work, 'Growth of the Soil'".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
wow, a name from my past. I read one of his books when I was 11 or 12, in French. Alas, no memory at all of what it was. But Pan sounds like a book I would really enjoy, so I added it to my TBR, thanks
ReplyDeleteI had never read anything by him, Emma. But I am glad we did.
DeleteI read his Svält (Hunger). Liked it, but very depressing. I see it has only around 180 pages so I could add this to my Novellas in November. I am looking for books with less than 200 pages for this challenge, so please let me know if you can recommend anything.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't exactly call this "uplifting" or "cheerful", either, Lisbeth.
DeleteAll my shorter books have the tag Novella. I will have a look later and see what my favourites there are. But you are welcome to browse.