Hunger: A Novel (FSG Classics)

Knut Hamsun not only managed to touch the mind of the mad but he also delves into their stomach. This story of paranoia, compassion, and starvation is not one to be missed.We follow the main character on his daily walks as he contemplates and frightens himself with the looks he receives from strangers, trying desperately to hold on to what little he has and yet find some way to make ends meet just enough to fill his stomach. Hunger is a painful novel in that you find yourself hoping for the best and finding that while your protagonist does as well he endlessly tortures himself. Wanting to simultaneously belong but be left alone we are torn through the painful extremes by a character for which there exists no middle ground.Knut Hamsun invites us in for the short but worthwhile ride of Hunger, leaving the reader hungry for more and questioning everything they knew about the story by the time it has reached culmination.

This is a phenomenal book about hardcore dieting (poverty) that any anorexic will relate to and appreciate for its honesty, courage and the subtle, peanut flavor of the last chapter (6 calories). If reading about poverty and extreme physical discomfort combined with mental obsession sound like a good poolside pick to you, I bet you are quite lonesome! I enjoyed this novel immensely when I first read it 15 years ago, and it tastes even better today. A bit dustier.

Reading this novel will help you better realize why Europe is going downhill; it is dark, has a main character that you would not want to meet or associate with, and shows a slide of the European mood to one of dejection and failure. It is sad to see the wide ranging impact this novel had on European writers and how it was hailed as being so ground breaking. A great novel if you are also listening to Leonard Cohen and holding a dull razor in your hands.

It's been around for over a 100 years and is rated highly by critics so why did it take me so long to read it??? No own showed me the way, but I found it anyway.............well worth alook if you lie literature that makes you feel...........

Talks about his climb through insanity and back. I loved his descriptions and attention to detail. Read three times and gave this book as a present to 4 of my friends already. They all love it and always mention it when we talk about "philosophy"

One of the most influential works of introspective modernism, it may produce some questions as to why it is so accredited from younger readers who grew up on things like Camus's The Outsider but placing it in historical perspective shows how unique it was at the time it was written.

Breathtaking, wrietten by someone who lived the experience, yet the novel always has a glimpse other tan doom, other tan inhuman suffering because the character seems to live in a "ceratin harmony" within his preicament. Oiutstanding

I saw the film based on this novel years ago and always wanted to read the book. Now that I have, I can only say I wish I had done so sooner. Excellent translation by Bly, too.

A really interesting book from both a psychological and literary perspective. Both the Modernist current and the spirit of the Lost Generation can be utterly felt here.Now, from a subjective point of view, I had a really hard emotional time reading Hunger. It is not an emotional ride everybody could take. It took me resilience to get to the end. One usually connects with the protagonist when one reads a book. Connecting with the character's narcissistic, elitist, and partially self-victimizing episodes was tough, but sometimes facing one's darkness through the accounts of others is a really humbling and enriching growth experience---it certainly was for me.A great read for anybody looking to understand better the psychological and historical birth of the XX-century literature, and for anybody looking to face his/her own darkness.

Advertised as a First Edition. I received a Third edition, 12th. printing. Very misleading.