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Loading... On Overgrown Paths (1949)by Knut Hamsun
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On Overgrown Paths was written after World War II, at a time when Hamsun was in police custody for his openly expressed Nazi sympathies during the German occupation of Norway, 1940-45. A Nobel laureate deeply beloved by his countrymen, Hamsun was now reviled as a traitor--as long as his sanity was not called into question.On Overgrown Paths is Hamsun's apologia. However, the psychiatric report declared him to be sane, but concluded that his mental faculties were "permanently impaired." This conclusion was emphatically refuted by the publication, in 1949, ofOn Overgrown Paths, Hamsun's apologia. In its creative élan, this book, filled with the proud sorrow of an old man, miraculously recalls the spirit of Hamsun's early novels, with their reverence for nature, absurdist humor, and quirky flights of fancy. This edition is the first authoritative English translation of Hamsun's last work, a work which stood at the center of the recent filmHamsun. Knut Hamsun was the greatest 20th century Norwegian novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize, and enormously beloved when the country was occupied in World War II. During the war, however, his wife, a supporter of Quisling and the Nazis, traveled across the country reading from his work, particularlyGrowth of the Soil, which seemed to support notions of agrarian return by a superior Aryan peasant class. Old and confused, Hamsun traveled to Germany to meet with Hitler, hoping, he claimed, to change the conditions of occupation in Norway. The meeting ended disastrously, and after the war, Hamsun was arrested for his Nazi sympathy. As this book reveals, however, Hamsun was anything by mentally disturbed. It is a sad and tragic book filled with pained sorrow of an old man, great in stature and contribution,but completely out of touch with his own time. No library descriptions found. |
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5
Today the Supreme Court has handed down its verdict, and I end my writing."
After I finished reading On Overgrown Paths, my initial instinct was to say that the book would be a terrible place to first pick up Knut Hamsun. I thought that if a reader didn't know too much about the man, they'd find the book to be a weak apologia by a decent writer whose Nazi sympathies may repulse them to the point that they might never pick up incredible novels like Hunger or Growth of the Soil. Conversely, I was deeply moved from start to finish, and upon further reflection, I now feel that the same could be true for any reader, regardless of how familiar they are with Hamsun's life or his books. To understand why, I first have to explain the reason, theoretically, one would have objections to reading Hamsun's work.
Here's a good place to start: Hamsun didn't just write that obituary. He had it published it in a newspaper! OOPS.
For his pro-Nazi writing throughout World War II, Hamsun was tried for treason, but after a psychiatric evaluation determined he had "permanently impaired mental faculties," the charges against him were downgraded and he was only forced to pay a fine, albeit a substantial one. Hamsun disputed the verdict of the psychiatrists, and his release of On Overgrown Paths in 1949, at the age of 90, is as good as any evidence that he might have been right.
So if his mental faculties weren't impaired, what exactly is his defense? Despite a sizable portion of On Overgrown Paths being centered around his life from the end of the war until 1948, he shares very little from his case, but a few of his justifications come through. He says he didn't know about any of the atrocities the Nazis were committing. He says he has Jewish friends (yeesh). He says that all he wanted was to raise Norway's standing in the world, that any particularly flowery praise of Germany came out only as a result of the way it was necessary to frame the occupiers of his homeland. He says he wrote more, so much more, to German officials in Norway and even to Hitler himself to save the lives of Norwegians held as political prisoners. And he says, truthfully, that he was deaf and old, with limited access to the outside world.
That's...just not good enough, is it?
Regardless, Hamsun didn't even intend it to exonerate him, saying afterwards that all that information, "has not been intended as any defense on my part." Fine by me. If you don't want to defend yourself, Knut, I certainly won't do it for you.
So if he's not writing about the most significant parts of his life at the time, and not all of the book is comprised of fun little stories involving an Austrian baker in America or a man who walks barefoot with his shoes around his neck, then it might seem like there wouldn't be much left to say. Hamsun, though, can't help but be evocative, no matter the subject. He writes a great deal about aging. He's in his mid to upper 80s as he's writing. His hearing is almost completely gone. His eyesight is slowly fading. He's had multiple brain hemorrhages and suffers from mild aphasia. He's not mentally impaired, and he can walk incredibly well for his age, but nothing else seems to be right. And even though he isn't really complaining, he still makes it hurt.
This, then, is a perfect example of how Hamsun the writer is so good that he makes Hamsun the person irrelevant. So much of On Overgrown Paths is tragic, but that isn't because Hamsun is old and decrepit. It's heartbreaking because man becomes old and decrepit, and that reality can be overwhelming when you're engulfed in it. It just so happens that Hamsun is an incredible writer who could, just by plainly describing his experiences, elicit profound sympathy for how his life, and every life, winds to a close.
Funnily enough, Hamsun wouldn't care much for that sympathy. The way he saw things, "We are all of us on a journey to a land where we will arrive soon enough. We are in no hurry, we take the chance occurrences in stride." And what he found most important to remember about the world: All that may be true, but it isn't quite as true as he'd like it to be.
While there's certainly plenty of wisdom in his reflections on the impermanence of the universe, Hamsun vastly underestimated the extent of his own legacy, for better and for worse. In the courtroom during his trial, he said to all present about the charges against him: Not you, Knut. You're not getting off that easily. The world doesn't frequently forget a Nazi, and as long as there are books, there will be people around to argue about yours.
I've always loved Hamsun's work, as evidenced by the fact that I read one of his novels every year at the end of April to celebrate the birthday of his late, great translator Sverre Lyngstad (Happy 98th, buddy!), so I wasn't shocked that I connected with On Overgrown Paths. It made me furious with who he was, devastated by what he became, yet still overflowing with gratitude for what he produced. That's the Hamsun in me, tons of extreme emotions all at once. It's a mess the likes of which the narrator from Hunger, that young man so much like the enigmatic, ridiculous, unforgivable, unforgettable author that created him, might have been proud. (