Hunger by Knut Hamsun
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This powerful work of writing by Knut Hamsun, clearly lets you think what the state of ‘hunger’ can do to a human being. Yes, by ‘hunger’, the author does really refer to the state of starvation in the absence of food. This idea of ‘hunger’, which looks like just another figure when it makes its appearance in one’s view in the form of some statistics, something which the well-to do people cannot even imagine about, is the essential sketch of this extremely thought provoking work by Hamsun.

Telling us about a young writer, who isn’t making much in terms of money, the author exceptionally explains what ‘hunger’ can do even to the mind of a well educated person. The struggle of the young writer, while going on without bread for days at a stretch, is displayed here in a bone chilling manner. Sometimes, it drives the poor soul into delirium. He plunges into imagining things and events, talking to himself, inventing new words or furiously trying to work over a new idea for a story or a piece of writing so as to be able to sell it to a newspaper to earn some crones. Sometimes, when overpowered by hunger, he also tries to frighten people and to mock them. This gives him an outlet and a momentarily refuge from the agonizing pain inside. Though he soon recovers his senses and reproaches himself for doing such things.

He keeps looking for a job but doesn’t succeed. One by one he pawns every thing that belongs to him to get some crones for food till at last, he is just left with a blanket and the clothes that he wears everyday.

His struggle makes something inside you break. You feel a sense of anger growing inside for not being able to help that feeble, slowly decaying person. More so when he is wet from seeping on a bench and extremely cold. But what really fills you with anxiety is that the poor man, though almost broke, plunging into the state of hunger every now and then and never once sleeping on a full stomach, still exhibits a strong moral character. He, perhaps because of pride, doesn’t tell anyone about his state of condition. Once, when he is given some exchange money accidentally by a shopkeeper, the weight of those coins in his pocket keep weighing upon his conscience. Till at last, he gives that money to a cake seller voluntarily and goes penniless again. It makes you more anxious. What was he trying to prove? Can anyone imagine parting from the last meagre sum of money when one is already hungry for some 3-4 days and literally dying of starvation? Would I ever do the same if I ever was in same condition? Sitting comfortably in my chair, surrounded by material things which provide a sense of security, I will perhaps answer ‘yes’. But what, if otherwise? It is too dreadful even to imagine that.

Here the author succeeded in shaking me hard and let me to think what this feeling of ‘hunger’ could do to poor, illiterate persons? People who haven’t got the faculty of thinking and whose conscience doesn’t bother them? Wouldn’t it make thieves, murderers and vilest creatures out of them?

Thinking such led me to ponder upon another form of ‘hunger’, a ‘hunger’ of acknowledgement, of empathy, of the feeling of being understood and loved and cared for. What if this necessity to be understood by someone, to be able to talk to someone and to express one’s innermost feelings is suppressed by the pressure of earning a living, by the load of expectations of people around, by the every day’s struggle to assert an existence in the world? What all can happen then? Perhaps, it can lead to a state of insanity or perhaps the person, intoxicated by the fever of these pressures; succumb to one moment’s whim hence by turning into a vile character. Aren’t a large number of crimes that we witness, somehow a result of this ‘hunger’?

Towards the end, even our virtuous hero, succumb to unbearable hunger and harasses the same cake seller for some cakes, which he could eat and thus satisfy his hunger. His salvation comes in the end when he gets a job at a ship which is about to sail soon.

Does the author gives hope toward the end or does he place a big question mark before us? I would let you to ponder upon that. But it is definitely not one easy read. It engrossed me into reading it in single sitting and didn't let me even budge or take my eyes off awhile. Its style reminded me of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and hence made a lasting impression upon me.

Highly recommended!


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