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| Knut Hamsun Remembers America: Essays and Stories, 1885-1949 | 
 enlarge | Author: Knut Hamsun
Creator: Richard Nelson Current
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $28.77
You Save: $1.18 (4%)
Buy New/Used from $25.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  (2 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1580504
Languages: Norwegian (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0826214568
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.828603
EAN: 9780826214560
ASIN: 0826214568
Publication Date: April 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Knut Hamsun Remembers America is a collection of thirteen essays and stories based largely on Hamsun's experiences during the four years he spent in the United States when he was a young man. Most of these pieces have never been published before in an English translation, and none are readily available. Arranged chronologically, the pieces fall into three categories: Critical Reporting, Memory and Fantasy, and Mellow Reminiscence. The pieces in this collection tell us something about the development of the worldview of a man who became a great writer, only to jeopardize his reputation by defending the Nazi oppressors of his own people.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Growth of the Author August 28, 2007
"Knut Hamsun Remembers America" is about the 10th book by this Norwegian author that I have read. I was fascinated by his work ever since I read "Growth of the Soil". In "Knut Hamsun Remembers America" we get 13 seperate stories/essays about America and/or his observation of life in America. I was particularly interested in the accounts of his time spent on a bonanza farm in North Dakota, my state of residence for over 25 years now. Hamsun isn't above complaining about a variety of the aspects of American life. He especially seems bothered by the extent of our work ethic (at least in the last 15 years of the 19th Century). His thoughts on the subject are that we do not take sufficient time for relaxation, arts, and literature. It was an interesting insight to the European perspective of American culture that is largely still true in the 21st Century.
The best part of "Knut Hamsun Remembers America" is to be found in the middle of the book amongst his semi-autobiographical fiction about life in the Upper Midwest. Several of these stories were part of the collection found in Hamsun's "Tales of Love and Loss". The stories display the talent of Hamsun as he engrosses us in stories that lack much flair but convey an atmosphere worth experiencing. His final story is another fine example of that style. I enjoyed it yet had to admit that it concerned a recollection hardly worth sharing. Hamsun has always been a shrewd observor of people around him. Unfortunately, his observations during WWII left him without much support as an author in later life. Enjoy the man for what he wrote rather than what he was and you'll see why he won the Nobel Prize for Literature back in 1920 or so.
 Absorbing perspectives on American civilization August 8, 2003
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Written by Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel Prize winner for his novel "The Growth of the Soil", and who later became infamous for betraying his country of Norway to support the Nazis even as Vidkun Quisling did), Knut Hamsun Remembers America: Essays And Stories 1885-1949 is inherently interesting presentation of thirteen essays and stories based on Hamsun's experiences during the four years he spent in the United States when he was a young man. Translated into English and edited for a contemporary readership by Richard Nelson Current, these individual pieces reflect the negative side of "Yankeeland" all too well, though they are not unilaterally anti-American, and some even recall fond images. Knut Hamsun Remembers America is recommended for its gripping and absorbing perspectives on American civilization, while reflecting Hamsun's anti-Americanism in his perceptions and writings.
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