oh hamsun, my hamsun!

so to be happier i have decided to start reading hamsun again. i read him when i was younger, in my teens....i read hunger, victoria, pan, the women at the pump, mysteries.....and i reread those every year it seemed....and then this year when it rained a lot i took down from my shelf a hardcover of growth of the soil i had bought in solvang many moons ago. and i read it.

so there is something about reading hamsun with the sliding glass door open and the rain outside echoes the cold wetness in the book and your mind binds tightly to the text and you relax....i re-read mysteries...the women at the pump, pan and dreamers...hunger...the ferguson bio...on overgrown paths...all in a few weeks in january of this year..it was feverish the pace i was chewing on these books and i wanted more...there is a feeling i get near the end of good books of dread....worrying that the next may not be as good...so i went online and started ordering what hamsun i could find and afford....i bought and read in wonderland...and then found a copy of segelfoss town...devoured that too..

and then i stopped and my dilemma now is...i want to read them all over again but i want to do it in a more pointed, cohesive...let us say..coherent way.

i can read them strictly in chronological order, or..as many of his novels have recurring characters and there are even several trilogies there....do i read it thusly?

i posted that question on librarything but no response thus far....we shall see....for now i think it would be safe to start with "Tales of Love and Loss"



a souvenir press paperback published in 1997 - translated by robert ferguson. it has 20 short stories.