Victoria

by Knut Hamsun

Fille de châtelaine, Victoria a pour elle la naissance, la grâce et la richesse. Johannes, garçon ambitieux et rêveur, est fils de meunier. Mais, dans la société de la fin du XIXe siècle, le poids des barrières sociales est tel que ni la gloire, ni la réussite de Johannes ne pourront réduire la distance qui les sépare.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Romance, Scandinavian Literature, Novels, 19th Century, Literature

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Novels of Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun (born Knud Pedersen), include Hunger (1890) and The Growth of the Soil (1917). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920.

He insisted on the intricacies of the human mind as the main object of modern literature to describe the "whisper of the blood, and the pleading of the bone marrow." Hamsun pursued his literary program, debuting in 1890 with the psychological novel Hunger.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Love became the world’s beginning and the world’s ruler; but all its ways are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood.’

The passions and desires of young love, and the frustration of love torn apart by society, is a source of considerable energy that has been harnessed by writers through all of history. Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun’s 1898 novella, Victoria, draws on this energy to fuel his inextinguishable prose and return to the theme of doomed love, a theme characteristic of his impressive oeuvre. Although this theme was the heart of Pan, Victoria takes a different approach stylistically, poetically, and most of all, in the behavior of the protagonist. Within this tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers, Hamsun explores the complexities, hopes and inevitable destruction of love in a world ordered through social class as he weaves a multi-layered metafictive prose that marks the dawn of a bright new era for his novels.

Published only 4 years after Pan, a tragic tale of failed love set in the northern wilderness, Victoria evinced a period of major artistic growth and maturity in Hamsun’s already potent literary pen. According to the excellent introduction provided by translator Sverre Lyngstad, Hamsun wrote in a letter during this period between novels that he had ‘tired of the novel, [and] always despised the drama,’ so he had taken up writing verse, which he considered ‘the only literature that is not both pretentious and insignificant, but only insignificant’. The time spent harnessing the power of poetry is immediately apparent from the first page. Having become tighter and slimmed down to near-poetic verse, the prose simply blossoms upon the page. The striking variance in style between his early, gritty, psychologically intense works including Hunger and Mysteries, and later novels such as Growth of the Soil (a crucial work that, as well as being heralded as his ‘masterpiece’, was cited by the Nobel committee as a primary impetus for awarding him their prestigious prize) seems to meet up and pivot upon this novella. Victoria retained his early themes of doomed love, obsession and focal character with manic dispositions - which still continued throughout his body of work, becoming used more for the traits of supporting characters and secondary plotlines – while striking out into different narrative styles and the more streamlined storytelling that shone best in Growth. Hamsun began to keep dialogue to the bare minimum, a strong departure from the loquacious ravings of Nagel in Mysteries, choosing to supply the gist of conversations and leaving the particulars to be filled in through the creative impulses of the reader. Hamsun was a master of revealing only what was absolutely necessary, which helped to drive his novels forward and give him total narrative control. Even a good deal of the action is revealed after the fact, recounted by the characters in a way that gives rise to suspicions of absolute validity.

‘Asked what love is, some will say it is nothing but a wind whispering among the roses and then dying down. But often it is like an unbreakable seal that holds for a lifetime, until death. God created it in so many different kinds and has seen it endure or perish’. Doomed love was a favorite theme of Hamsun’s and appears in some for in almost every one of his books and short stories (the short stories in particular show Hamsun sharpening his skills and insight into this topic). In Victoria, the reader watches the doomed dance of two lovers as they waltz through a series of ups and downs. The novella bounces gracefully between intense amorous excitement and disheartened grief and sorrow, as both the imagery and Johannes’ mood is victim to the whims of his beloved. When love is on his side, love is compared to ‘a summer night with stars in the sky and fragrance on earth’ and Johannes harnesses his joy into frantic writing and singing to the heavens, the latter much to the chagrin of his neighbors, creating an opportunity for Hamsun to allow Johannes to tell of his off-stage escapades in artistically expressive language prone towards exaggeration. In these manic, feverish states, he can live, eat and drink off the feasts of love, ‘coatless, he looks out on the world like a half-clothed madman who has gotten drunk on happiness during the night’. However, when love is withheld, the world around him is bleak and love is only as pleasant as ‘ugly toadstools’. When Victoria implies that social class and social expectations make any union of their hearts impossible, revoking any possibilities of a future between them after days before having pledged her love to him, Hamsun sets Johannes off down a dingy street lined with impoverishment to highlight these social conditions.

Unlike the protagonists in Hamsun’s previous novels, Johannes has a steadier grip of his faculties and does not lash out irrationally despite dipping, or elevating, himself into feverish moods. In fact, the central scene of the novel displays Johannes in a calm, sociable demeanor during a party, a scene in other novels where disaster and outlandish behavior was certain to erupt. Johannes takes compliments and aggression with class and dignity, being the one who comes out smelling of roses. Perhaps this reflects upon the character of Hamsun. There is a strong autobiographical aspect to many of his novels, and his early works which document the rise and fall of irrational moods and behavior may have been a method through which Hamsun was able to step back and observe himself from an outsider’s vantage point in an attempt to gain some insight into his own character. Having aged in experience and wisdom, such irregular nuances may have dulled leading to a more composed and collected protagonist.

Little hope for a sustainable happiness is to be found from the story of Johannes and Victoria as Hamsun further emphasizes his jaded desire to watch love burn in flames than shine with the stars. ‘That’s the way things are,’ lectures an old poet, ‘naturally, you don’t get the women you should have’. Yet, somewhere in this bitter fate, there is a bittersweet sense of beauty. In the burden of never obtaining the one we really love, we can forever desire them and remain in the emotionally intense and radiant infatuation stage forever. However, true love is only reached through accepting and wholly embracing the good and bad of a person, making the ‘love’ more obsession than actual love. Either way, this book is a great example of how many of our problems are of our own doing. So many times does the object of desire lay itself at a characters doorstep, only to be turned away to satisfy some inner angst and pride that will be regretted later. When two individuals become a pair, one inevitably seeks the affections of another, newer infatuation. Hamsun displays quite a bit of pessimism towards young love. The author was quite the wanderer in the younger half of his life, much like most of his protagonists, and was very popular with women. As this was how he understood life, his protagonists are always graced with the same attractive force, even when they are as famished and foul as Hunger’s narrator. The brief and many affairs he may have encountered or observed in his travels must have given him this outlook, and the apparent heart-breaker status of his that can be read between the lines of his books may be the driving force of creating so many characters just to watch their hearts crumble. The passion and the devastation of his tragic romances are sure to ring true in the hearts of an empathetic reader.

Through the use of what James Wood describes as ‘free indirect narration’ in How Fiction Works, Hamsun skillfully threads the non-participatory narration with Johannes participatory observations and opinions, dipping in an out of his head with a clever word choice, exclamatory phrase within the larger sentence or brief interjection of perspective. Take, for example:

‘The starlings were chattering from the branches above their head. Well and good. God grant them a long life… He had made a speech for her at dinner and torn his heart out; it had cost him dearly to correct and cover up her impertinent interruption, and she hadn’t even thanked him. She had picked up picked up her glass and taken a draft. Skoal! Look at me, see how prettily I drink…[sic]’

Johannes and the narrative voice are threaded so tightly you can pass over the seams without even noticing Hamsun has gone back and forth between third and first person perspectives. It is especially difficult to readily deduce as Johannes is a poet and author, and what the reader may first attribute to Hamsun as a poetic turn of phrase or choice of word really belongs to Johannes. This affords the novella its vast prose and poetical form and allows lenience and forgiveness for turning to such exaggerated flowery language. The metafictive duality of the novel is served through the technique as well. We have Hamsun, a writer creating a novel with traces of autobiography about a writer with similar traits who takes the loves and losses from his own life and molds it into his own poetry and novels. Through the small but exquisite samples of Johannes own work, we see Hamsun writing poetry in full-fledged Norwegian romantic-style that retells the recent events of Johannes life, contained within a novel that serves as a poetical literary concoction of events from Hamsun’s life. The meta-language of Victoria comes in many, many layers.

Sverre Lyngstad seems to be one of the better, if not the best, English translators of Hamsun's work. After sampling a few other translations through reading several other Hamsun novels, Lyngstad seems to enact the best balance of flow, prose, and accessible syntax. As an added bonus, his introductions are always stuffed with excellent biographical knowledge and viewpoints on the novel. However, the reader should be warned that the 'introduction' would better serve as an 'afterword' as they are rampant with spoilers and other various plot points that could really ruin the book.

While this book did not strike me quite as powerfully as his others, notably Pan, with which is it best compared to, Victoria shows the Norwegian novelist at a crucial turning point in his career and is a short, sharp and intense work that highlights and amplifies many of the themes from its predecessors. While Pan offered more of the emotionally charged and ambiguous behavior that bound Hamsun’s novels forever to my heart, mind and soul, Victoria provides an impressive poetic depiction of the emptiness felt when love, which had previously swelled and burst free from the heart, is denied, covered up, or gift-wrapped and given to someone detestable. This book invokes true, uncomfortable feelings, yet delivers them so exquisitely that we can only be comforted and left desiring more.

3.75/5

I would recommend starting with Hunger or Pan

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

you would think i would have sopped this thing up with a hunk of bread: doomed lovers, the impossibility of communication, the way we hurt the ones we love? that should have karen's stamp of approval all over it.

but it's like hamsun took a great idea for literary exploration and then constructed this wooden fence all around the emotional appeal and said "you are not coming in!" and i'm like, "dude, come on - just let me care about the characters a little bit". and hamsun's all "no way, jose". so i shrugged and went away.

i only read this because it is used in one of the most emotionally wrenching scenes in the kjaerstad trilogy, so you would think this would also drip with melancholy goo. not so.

it's good, it is just more restrained in its writing than what i usually go for in this type of narrative. and i have read two other books by him, it's not like i was expecting heaving bosoms and passionate speeches, but i just couldn't find anything to grab onto. they all kind of act like bratty teenagers, whose emotions flail up and down and then end in eye-pokings. it would be comical if it wasn't also so sad.

but the bottom line, and this is the bottom line in many books by my beloved thomas hardy as well: why don't you just talk to each other? without lying?? it would just make everyone happier in the end.

that is my lesson to characters everywhere, and it is my advice to you on the internet. go forth.

come to my blog!

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Victoria” is many things at once. A deceptively simple fairy-tale of star-crossed lovers separated by class and circumstance, but also an introspective journey into the making of a poet, a nuanced psychological portrait of the effects of young love, obsession and loss, and a lyrical rendering of alternating idyllic images and the harrowing consequences of pride, fear and jealousy.

As it happened in “Hunger”, the narrative line appears fragmented by dreamy recreations of events lived by the young poet and protagonist of the story, exalting the ecstasy of reciprocated love and magnifying the agony of separation. These allegoric passages provide a pattern of repetition where joy and misery are always inexorably bonded; accentuating the idea that love can be as rapturous as it can be a torment, a double-edged sword that eventually corners its preys. The process of literary creation echoes the ups and downs of the lovesick poet, providing a double entendre for the main theme of Hamsun’s novella.

The evolution of the narrative style is admirable; from a pastoral tale to a dramatic climax reminiscent of the best operas without fracturing the storyline. Hamsun culminates this initially classic romantic story with an unflinching exploration of the human soul, its exceptional inclination towards self-sacrifice and the dark nooks and crannies where vile detachment is fueled by thirst for revenge that anticipates themes and motifs of modern literature.
A prose poem that is more than the sum of its thoroughly crafted sentences, a tale of woe where love beats painfully. Flowers and blood, flowers and blood.

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 4 out of 5]

When he grew up he wanted to be a diver. That was a sure thing. Then he would go down into the ocean from the deck a ship and come to strange lands, to kingdoms with swaying forests, vast and mysterious, and with a coral palace on the ocean floor. And the princess waves to him from a window and says, Come in!

Johannes is a bright young boy with a vivid imagination growing up in a poor household near the sea. His dreams alternate between adventure and romance, fueled by the passing ships and by the beautiful daughter of the local gentry, living in the 'Castle' as the fishermen and peasants call the town manor.

At the end of the nineteen century social norms ensued the two young people could not even think about the possibility of love between so wide apart backgrounds. Yet love is ruled by emotion and not logic.

Victoria. Victoria! If she just knew how completely, beyond words, he was hers every minute of his life! He would be her servant and slave, sweeping a path before her with his shoulders. And he would kiss her tiny shoes and pull her carriage and lay the fire for her on cold days. He would lay her fire with gilded wood. Ah, Victoria!

Nineteen years old Johannes is so eloquent in his internal monologues, and so shy when it comes to actually woo his young princess. The years pass and Victoria remains as inaccessible as the mermaid princess of his childhood dreams. Yet Johannes escapes the confines of century old hard work and goes to study in the capital, becoming a poet and novelist, his sensibility and imagination breaking the social barriers that held him down in the past. But can he put his popularity and his skill with the written word in the service of his quest for Victoria?

What was love? A wind whispering among the roses, no, a yellow phosphorescence in the blood. Love was a hot devil's music that set even the hearts of old men dancing. It was like the marguerite, which opens wide as night comes on, and it was like the anemone, which closes at a breath and dies at a touch.
Such was love.

Past misunderstandings, family pressure and their own timidity drive the passion of these two young people over the cliff and into tragedy. Love is pain, seems to be the major theme of Knut Hamsun's delicate and moving evocation of young love, yet for me this first foray into his work was a thing of beauty, a gem of a story that I would gladly add to my growing list of romantic novellas about youth and love (Dostoyevsky's "White Nights", Turgheniev's "First Love", Conrad's "Youth", Mishima's "Sound of the Waves" and so on)

His heart is full, and his brain is like an unharvested wild garden in which vapors are rising from the earth.
In some mysterious way he has come to a deep, deserted valley where no living thing can be found. In the distance, alone and abandoned, an organ is playing. He walks closer, he examines it; the organ is bleeding, blood flows from its sides as it plays.

[Fionnuala]

The odds were that I wouldn't like this book. It had many of the features I found fault with in the contemporary bestseller "One Day" by David Nicholls: a frustrating main character who falls deeply and irrevocably in love with someone clearly unsuitable who doesn't initially return his regard; many occasions when the pair might have come together but were prevented by misunderstandings and other frustrating circumstances; in short, too much melodrama right up to the very end. So why did I like it so much? The simplicity of the style, the poetic quality of the writing and the intensity of the hero's emotional life. I will definitely read more of Hamsun's work.
A small share in my positive response must go to the fine presentation of this Condor Book, the full colour reproduction of 'Moonlight' by Edvard Munch on the cover, the high quality paper, the bold font and the broad margins which reduce the words per page and make the reading experience very pleasant indeed.

[Manny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suppose you met someone when you were young, and something happened that convinced you beyond reasonable doubt that they loved you, and you loved them. And then, suppose that there were all sorts of practical problems, and that, on the rare occasions when you did meet them, you said the wrong thing, or they said the wrong thing, and people were hurt, or lost their tempers, and you started to wonder if you'd just hallucinated it all. And that this continued for your whole life.

Well, if you've ever had that kind of experience, you might like Victoria, a long, elegantly written prose-poem which pretty much does for hopeless love what Hunger does for being hungry. Wrap it up with a red bow, and give it to a carefully selected person as an unusual Valentine...

[Ratko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Није ово на врхунском нивоу осталих Хамсунових дела, али има његовог шарма.
Помало романтичарска прича (више као скица) о неостваривој љубави између сиромашног сељачког сина и ћерке земљопоседника.

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asked what love is, some will say it is nothing but a wind whispering among the roses and then dying down. But often it is like an unbreakable seal that holds for a lifetime, until death. God created it of many kinds and has seen it endure or perish.

You may call Victoria a fairy-tale, or rather a tragedy; a story about lovers, separated by class and social conditions.

I would always see or hear something that reminded me of you, all day, at night too.

Victoria is a story about the ups and downs of being in love; of celebration of love, as much as despair and hopelessness.

Such is love...It could ruin a man, raise him up again, and then brand him anew; it could fancy me today, you tomorrow, and someone else tomorrow night, that's how fickle it is. But it could also hold fast like an unbreakable seal and blaze with unquenchable passion until the hour of death, because it is eternal.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine love in its complicated state, love as a psychological battle: dreamlike and disappointing; love that never materializes into a relationship, never fully processed; love poured into the literary art as a parallel to love that cannot be. For this isn't simply air-brushed romance, this has melancholy imbued.

Oh Johannes, he who initially exists in his semi-delirious happy frame of mind, in his dream world of love proclamation. She loves him? She loves him not? Victoria lives in a castle and he is the neighborhood kid who helps with errands. She must marry someone who can provide for her, who can buy and maintain her father's castle. But he doesn't know this. Or maybe he does and chooses to ignore this major hurdle - dreamer he is and all. She love me? She loves me not?

What was love? A wind whispering among the roses, no, a yellow phosphorescence in the blood. Love was a hot devil's music that set even the hearts of old men dancing. It was like the marguerite, which opens wide as night comes on, and it was like the anemone, which closes at a breath and dies at a touch.

Johannes writes at night, when the world is asleep and the train's whistle is his alarm clock. He could not become a part of Victoria's world based on his lineage, but he could infuse himself and his thoughts into that world through the written word. Soon, he becomes the poet to be celebrated. The man who once ran errands soon becomes a guest at the elaborate dinner parties. But what happens when your heart's desire is simply unattainable?

A love for the style Hamsun employs in this piece is one that could be debatable. Before he wrote Victoria and after he wrote Pan, Hamsun expressed in a letter how he was tired of the novel and wanted to write verse. This book, some argue, was his attempt to do just that:

Alas, love turns the human heart into a mildewed garden, a lush and shameless garden in which grow mysterious, obscene toadstools.

I wonder if I should have been introduced to Hamsun through his breakthrough novel, Hunger instead. Yet there is something to be said about starting with a writer's body of work that is somewhat an elegy on love. Victoria at times is a muddle of past and present tense, those slight parallelism annoyances that occur in the midst of sentences and paragraphs, but its best moments are when it captures love through a meandering mosaic, albeit clipped at times. The streets are alive through Johannes's observations, when those minute details the average observer misses suddenly become lucid. Hamsun's scholar makes a good point about this read when he writes: "The point here is...to show, by indirection, the phases of Johannes's consciousness as he struggles to recover from his grievous disappointment."

[Nataliya Yaneva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Любовта идва безцеремонна и млада, не(у)зряла (за жалост такава си и остава) и прави в душите своя дълбок прорез, от който капе кръв за цял живот.

„Виктория“ носи полъх на отколешни табута и неосъществени съдби. Противно на анотацията, смятам, че повестта е пропита и с голяма доза сантиментализъм – но не в онзи леко пренебрежителен смисъл, каквито конотации струва ми се носи тази дума. Някаква старовремска романтика има там, леко наивно усещане за чистота и идеалност, като обаче не е пропусната една неотменна характеристика на любовта във всички епохи и култури – нейната антилогика.

Кнут Хамсун се повдига на пръсти върху природни картини, за да разкрие душевни състояния. Природата е третият водещ образ в повестта, който на места улавя настроения, другаде пък прави въжен мост, за да могат другите два персонажа да се достигнат. Въпреки идиличните пейзажи, сред които се разгръща действието обаче, тази „История на една любов“ е наситена с напрежение. Разминаването между Юханес и Виктория е нещо като лайтмотив в цялата повест – впрочем замисляла съм се, че като цяло липсата на резонанс между иначе привличащи се хора е една от драмите на живота. А нещото, което искрено ме подразни, беше, че при всичката си изтънченост и деликатност самата Виктория на моменти беше такова капризно дете, което не знае да си играе ли сега с тая кукла Юханес и изобщо какво да я прави. Някак доста немилостив поглед върху жената беше понякога образът на Виктория, макар и представяна като такъв недостижим блян. Все пак тя беше тласкаща сила, водеща и до лудост и отчаяние, и до трескаво вдъхновение.

Признавам, че макар и кратка, „Виктория“ не е най-бързото четиво. Като съвременен читател (който все пак е заклет романтик), не успявах да вникна напълно в онзи тип емоционалност, при който най-дълбока радост е да съзерцаваш и целуваш праха под краката на любимия. Мога да си представя как един, да речем, 17-годишен човек още по-малко ще се развълнува (ако изобщо) от подобни описания. Въпреки това – хубаво е да хвърлим поглед-два назад, когато такива простички неща са будили възторг. Представяте ли си колко разтърсващи чувства са изпитвали хората и в щастието, и в злощастието си?

[Sergio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Questa è la prima volta che mi avvicino all’opera di Knut Hamsun [1859-1952], scrittore norvegese che vinse il Premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1920, benché lo conoscessi di fama da molto tempo e avessi già comprato anni fa una sua raccolta di opere edita da Sansoni Editore: il romanzo breve che ho letto oggi, “Victoria”, scritto nel 1898, ha come sottotitolo “Una Storia d’Amore” ed effettivamente di questo si tratta, del grande amore che il giovane Johannes prova fin dall’infanzia per Victoria: un amore che continua negli anni, ricambiato dalla ragazza anche se entrambi i protagonisti sentono in cuor loro che difficilmente potrà essere consacrato dal matrimonio perché lui è figlio del mugnaio del paese e lei la figlia del ricco e potente castellano.

Un racconto che alterna pagine di grande romanticismo e slanci poetici ad altre in cui pessimismo e disperazione pur se contenuti nell’espressione e nel quadro generale del racconto sono tuttavia avvincenti e appassionanti dimostrando le qualità descrittive e introspettive di questo scrittore che mi prefiggo di continuare a conoscere attraverso le sue opere, senza dimenticare ma nemmeno esasperare la sua nota e scellerata scelta di aderire, in tarda età, al dilagante nazismo, scelta che pagò successivamente con un inevitabile ostracismo internazionale.

[Pia G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

johannes’i gerçekten çok sevdim. o kadar içten, o kadar yürekten biriydi ki.. sevgisini yüreğinde sakladı, belli etmeye çalıştı, evet ancak asla dayatmadı. yazdığı her şiirde, doğaya bakışında, sessizce sürdürdüğü hayatında hep victoria vardı sanki. ve victoria güçlü olsa da bir şeylere sıkışmış gibiydi. o da sevdi bence, çok derinden sevdi hem de ancak diyemedi. belki korktu, belki yanlış zamandı, belki de kader baştan beri onları ayrı yazmıştı.

ikisi de hep kalplerinde taşıdı birbirini ancak hiç gerçekten konuşamadılar. bazen yalnızca bakışlar da yetmiyor ve bazen sevgi orada olsa bile, yol bir türlü kesişmiyor. keşke biraz daha cesur olsalardı, keşke doğru zaman olsaydı, keşke aşk tek başına yetseydi..

hamsun’un dili o kadar şiirsel ki, sanki bu aşkın sahibi benmişim gibi aynı duyguyla okudum her satırı. ve finalde biliyordum böyle olacağını ancak işte yine de umut ettim. çünkü bazı hikâyelerde insan, sonunda bir mucize olsun istiyor. aslında olmaması da belki hikâyeyi bu kadar güçlü yapan şey, bilemiyorum.

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some books that have a lasting impact on one’s life, books that leave an indelible mark on one’s deepest emotions. For me there are a number, but Victoria by Knut Hamsun occupies a special place as the most captivating and heart-breaking love story ever written. I read it in my mid-teens, in the full flood of my most romantic period.

It’s a short novel; I finished it in less than two hours in a single sitting, overwhelmed by the poetic intensity of the prose, overwhelmed by the story of Victoria and Johannes, two people put on earth to love one another. They do, but there is no happy ending; events, social class, expectations, a sense of duty and circumstances all get in the way. It’s a story of love only fully declared in death, only fully revealed in an ending that absolutely numbed me, reduced me to uncontrollable tears.

I’ve now read it again, though I never thought I would; the first time was painful enough. But it came up in a discussion recently, so I decided to take the risk, if risk is the right word, with the aim of refreshing my memory and adding this appreciation.

I did not recapture the same raw emotions, knowing what was to happen, knowing the course planned by fate and the writer. Besides, I’m older, a little more controlled, not quite so ready to give over to same teenage passions. Well…that’s not entirely true. There may not have been the same quantity of tears, but there were tears, terrible sadness over beautiful and frustrated love.

If you know Hamsun’s work you will know just how wonderfully he writes, how lyrical and poetic his prose. There are some passages that just leap out, memorable and brief. Here are a few of my favourites;

The days came and went: mild, lovely days filled with the bliss of solitude and with sweet memories of childhood – a renewed call to the earth and the sky, the air and the hills.

If she only knew that all his poems had been written to her and no one else, every single one, even the one to Night, even the one to the Spirit of the Swamp. But that was something she would never know.

What, then, is love? A wind whispering among the roses – no, a yellow phosphorescence in the blood. A danse macabre in which even the oldest and frailest hearts are obliged to join. It is like the marguerite which opens wide as night draws on, and like the anemone which closes at a breath and dies at a touch. Such is love.

…it is strange to think that all I’ve ever managed to do was to come in to the world and love you and now say goodbye to life.

Their days came and went; they came close, but they never managed to blend; there is too much misunderstanding, too many things left unsaid. So, yes, you’ve probably been here before, you will know the mood – it’s a story of unrequited love, Norwegian echoes of Romeo and Juliet, of Heathcliff and Cathy. In its directness and simplicity Victoria is a peerless story of an imperfectly perfect love, one that will remain with me forever.

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tanrı aşkı çeşit çeşit yarattı; aşkın devam ettiğini veya sona erdiğini gördü."

Bu sene Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü'nü kucaklayan Jon Fosse'nin iki eserini okuyup kendisine karşı çok da büyük bir aşk geliştiremeyince (sevmedim denemez, sevdim ama özel bir bağ kuramadım bir şekilde), Norveç'in asıl büyük ismi, bir diğer Nobel Edebiyat Ödüllü yazar Knut Hamsun'a bir uğrayayım dedim ve kaç zamandır kütüphanemde bekleyen Hamsunlardan birini elime aldım, Knut dedemle (kendisi tam 93 sene yaşamış, gerçekten dedem!) bir tanışayım artık dedim.

Ve ne iyi ettim! Yüzyıl başı edebiyatıyla kimyam her zaman tutmayabiliyor, bazen pek soyut geliyor anlatımları ve buhranları, o her duyguyu büyük büyük yaşama hallerine adapte olmakta güçlük çekebiliyorum, dolayısıyla kaygılarım vardı ama gördüm ki yersizmiş, Hamsun sahiden zamansız bir yazarmış.

Açıkçası anlattığı hikayeye çok ikna olamadıysam da (sahiden, yüzyıl başı edebiyatında insanlar ama özellikle kadınlar niye hep pek acayip ve anlamsız davranıyor ya?), dilini ve anlatma biçimini çok sevdim. Aslında hikaye epey klişe; fakir oğlan zengin kıza aşık oluyor, zengin kız da onu seviyor ama kavuşamıyorlar çünkü işte sınıf, kan, para mevzuları. Dediğim gibi öykü çok ikna edici değil belki ama bu ikisinin çocukluklarından başlayan arkadaşlığını, baş kahramanımız Johannes'in Victoria'ya hislerini anlatırken seçtiği kelimelerin zarafetini, öykünün her yerine sinmiş naifliği çok sevdim.

Bu arada ben klasikleşmiş Behçet Necatigil çevirisinden okudum ancak kitabın yakın zamanda Dilek Başak çevirisiyle Can Yayınları'ndan çıkmış bir versiyonu olduğunu da belirteyim, o metne de ayrıca bakacağım, aradan onlarca yıl geçtikten sonra yapılan o çevirinin lezzeti de farklıdır muhakkak.

Ben daha Knut Hamsun okurum valla. Büyük eseri Açlık'a varana dek devam. ❤️

Şu cümlelerle bitireyim o halde:
"Aşk bir insanı yere yıkabilir, onu tekrar ayağa kaldırabilir, onu yeniden rezil edebilirdi. Bugün bakarsın beni sevmiş, yarın seni, öbür gün onu! Böyle kararsızdı aşk. Koparılması imkansız bir mühür mumu gibi dayanıklı da olurdu, ölüm saatine kadar tıpkı sönmez bir nur gibi parlardı da; ölümsüzdü bu kadar."

[PGR Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this novel in the Eighties. Victoria is one of the most beautiful short novels in Literature.

Though titled Victoria, the protagonist is Johannes, the miller's son. He is a boy who wants to work in a match factory because, “he could get sulphur on his hands so that nobody would dare to shake hands with him”. Later, as a man, he spends his nights writing epic poetry, capping a productive session with loud singing that wakes his neighbours. Johannes is proud to know the stones and the streams; he looks after birds and trees and scares himself into believing there is an ogre in a nearby cave. As a child he befriends Ditlef and Victoria, son and daughter of the socially aristocratic but economically destitute Lord of the village. He loves Victoria the way a tree loves the sun – eternally, its branches outstretched not to touch but to bask in the radiance of the light. Victoria, however, is forced into marriage with Otto, an upstart aristocrat with a poorer lineage but a great deal of money.

Johannes loves from afar, and Victoria – does she love him at all? Early on, as Johannes stretches his poetic wings, he muses that love is “like the anemone which closes at a breath and dies at a touch”. The novel utilises this concept again and again as first Johannes, and then Victoria, engage in a series of miscommunications, missed opportunities, and harsh words. When Johannes love is in the ascendancy, Victoria brushes him off. Later, she is contrite and declares her affection, but he is hurt and acts cold. The characters are of such a piece that they could love no other, but their equally vast capacity for stubborn indignation ensures they will remain apart.

For Hamsun, love – or even the true essence of a character's personality – is something that exists in bursting spasms of exertion and then fades to cold metal. A character may go months, or even years, being sullen and vindictive, only to suddenly shine with frenzied emotion. What is more, the psychology of a character is something personal and private – their rich inner life is shown to others as a series of grunts and rejection. Johannes and Victoria both share these qualities, and are drawn to the other because of this. To the outside world both seem aloof and cold. Emotion lies dormant until it flares into life, but even then these flares are often hidden from everyone except the individual themselves. Johannes, for example, gloats that he has written Victoria's name on the ceiling of his room, so that he can stare at it and love her from afar. But, he is quick to tell her, he wrote the name so small that not even the cleaning lady can tell it is there. For Johannes it is enough that he knows, his secret a bludgeon to strike the outside world with, only they do not know it. Victoria is much the same, revealing to Johannes when they are much older that she used to walk home the long way every day simply because she knew it was the way he liked to walk, only she never told anyone, not even him. What can we make of these acts of devotion that are hidden from everyone?

Hamsun asks that we make everything of it, but that we keep it to ourselves. Toward the end of this short work, a story is told in miniature of a couple that have loved one another their entire lives. When the husband is struck ill and becomes sickly, he demands his wife leave him, because he has become hideous. In response she hacks away at her 'golden' hair, making herself as ugly as he. Later, when she is sick, she demands the same, but he instead goes to the bathroom and splashes acid on his face, ruining his features so that they can remain together, uniquely one. This short story is the larger work written again, as Victoria and Johannes hurt first the other, and then themselves, again and again throughout their lives. They can never be happy, but their happiness comes from the secret love they – not share, because sharing would ruin it – but possess.

Victoria is a short novel, but its themes are large. As much as the novel is a story of obsession and possession thwarted, it also manages to include much on the then-relevant issue of love between different classes. Johannes, though he becomes a celebrated poet, will never be the social equal of Victoria, and both know it. This adds poignancy to their love, and a valuable (to the characters) sense that they will never truly be together. The characters are written sharply, which renders their love quarrels painful to the reader. It is clear from the first few pages that happiness is not possible for either of them. Victoria muses at one stage that Johannes must be doing alright because he mentions that he is dealing with only 'the small sorrows'. That she expects a person must always live with any sorrow at all suggests much about her character, and that Johannes is, in his way, content with these 'small' sorrows suggests just as much about his. They are lovers in a sense, but lovers who can never consummate physically what they so fervently express in secret to themselves.

[iva° · Rating 4 out of 5]

hamsunova svevremenska priča o nesretnoj ljubavi može biti shvaćena jedino u svjetlu činjenice da je pisana prije 120 godina - iako je tema već toliko puta opisana, opjevana, oplakana i, u realnosti proživljena, hamsun je majstor od pera, majstor od finoće i tankoćutnosti.
nemoj propustiti tih nekoliko sati užitka u kojima se vraćaš u doba u kojem nikad nisi živio - kad su ljudi svoje osjećaje iskazivali s najvećim respektom i obzirom, muškarci se klanjali ženama i općenito se smatrali nedostojnima njihove ljubavi, a žene svojim zarumenjenim obrazima iskazivale naklonost.

(fotografija na naslovnici je totalni promašaj)

[Heba]

" يسأل أحدهم عن الحب ؟
نُجيب : الحب رياح توشوش الحقول الوردية قبل أن تسقط ، ولكن يمكن أن يكون أيضاً خاتماً محصناً حتى الموت ، لقد خلق الله من الحب أصنافاً تلك التي تدوم والأخرى التي تتلاشى"...
هنا حباً محصناً رغماً أنه لم يظفر أي منهما بالآخر ، فلم ينعما بالسلام في البعاد وكان اليأس ينهش أعماقهما ولكن أينما كان قلب أحدهما فهو يُحلق اتجاه الآخر لامحال....
مالي أنا هذه الأيام وقصص الحب البائسة 💔

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una bonita historia de desamor. Hamsun escribe un bello relato sobre dos personas condenadas a no poder amarse. Johaness, el humilde hijo de un molinero y Victoria, de clase social más alta y destinada a casarse con alguien de rancio abolengo.
La novela nos muestra como debemos de decir todo lo que es importante en el el presente y no dejar nada para el día de mañana, sobretodo en el amor, porque puede que sea ya tarde.
El estilo de Hamsun me recuerda a Walser, libros con unas tramas sencillas pero escritos de manera preciosa y con un lenguaje excelso.
Esta es una novela muy sencilla, lejos de los libros más conocidos del autor pero que se lee de un tirón y nos ofrece interesantes reflexiones sobre el amor.

La vida de Hamsun da para otra novela: autor de prestigio en Noruega desde la publicación de su primera novela, Hamsun recibió el Premio Nobel en 1920 (tenía 60 años) y parecía destinado a convertirse en un clásico mundial indiscutible. Pero entonces todo se torció: Hamsun, germanófilo y antibritánico convencido, apoyó al partido Nazi y a Hitler en su expansión por Europa.

Después de la derrota del eje negó a pesar de todo haber militado en ningún partido político, fue detenido, multado con una cantidad astronómica, declarado mentalmente incapaz e internado en un psiquiátrico, escarnecido y demonizado. Sus obras fueron quemadas públicamente, igual (ah, ironías) que las obras de autores judíos y "decadentes" habían sido quemadas por los nazis décadas antes. En sus últimos años, Hamsun, ciego y mísero, aún tuvo tiempo de escribir una última gran novela, Por las sendas donde la hierba crece, muy crítica con el sistema psiquiátrico y judicial de su país.
Todo esto no le impidió ser reconocido como uno de los mejores escritores de su época y influencia reconocida de autores tan dispares como: Thomas Mann, Maxim Gorki, André Gide,H. G. Wells Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Hermann Hesse y los estadounidenses Ernest Hemingway —quien afirmaba: «Hamsun me enseñó a escribir»—, Henry Miller, Paul Auster, John Fante y Charles Bukowski que lo declaró el mejor escritor de la historia.
Una figura no exenta de polémica pero un escritor sin dudas genial.

[Hux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, my second favourite writer with Nazi sympathies (Celine remains undefeated). There's something about Hamsun's writing that always reaches me, cuts deep into the romance of life. And here, it's all about romance. He has the ability to write in a manner that's concise and blunt, often when looking at the limits of the human condition, and yet, in equal measure, he has the ability to suddenly start talking about the course of the stars and how they shatter into dust as tears of unrequited love fall upon them. This whole book is filled with heartache and yearning, poetry and sadness. Hamsun is relentless in his exploration of lost love.

The story is, appropriately for such subject matter, extremely simple. A young boy named Johannes is madly in love with a girl called Victoria. They grow up together and instantly seem to have a connection that goes beyond the formalities of friendship. As he gets older, he moves away to study, becomes a poet (a successful and published author). Meanwhile she is engaged to Otto, a smarmy lieutenant from a prosperous family. And yet she confesses to Johannes that she loves him, a confession that ought to have led to him doing everything he could to win her. But these are different times and everyone is expected to play their role as social etiquette demands. And so they go on, living their lives, apart from one another, failing to find a way to be together despite the endless declarations of love and proximity. What fools!

As ever, Hamsun's writing is great, just so easy to read, vibrant and sharp, crisp with meaning. There aren't many books from the 19th century that feel as modern as this, so much so that you often forget you're reading something from 1898. And as I said earlier, his ability to switch from matter-of-fact prose to heartbreaking expressions of lyrical poetry is wonderful. It feels like you're reading a dark fairy tale, one full of bitterness and loss, yet always with a veneer of romantic optimism for the transformative power of love.

"Asked what love is, some reply: It is only a wind whispering among the roses and dying away."

Hamsun has the unique ability to straddle the styles and themes of two different centuries with a comfort that is impressive. I suspect he will face the next century with similar ease and continue, despite his Nazi failings, to feature prominently in the hearts and minds of many people (including those not yet born). He is a one-off.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

¿Qué ocurre si coges el imaginario de los cuentos de Andersen, con sus chambelanes, sus castillos, molineros, bellas princesas y maravillosos paisajes, y lo cruzas con el teatro del absurdo, con diálogos y situaciones que se enrollan en el vacío como esta misma frase? Pues sale algo como la presente obra, publicada en 1898, que a mí no me ha convencido, porque no he entendido el registro que tiene. ¿Es romanticismo (muy tardío) y bellos paisajes? ¿Es crítica social? ¿O es un estilo rompedor que preludia los nuevos lenguajes del siglo XX? No me ha quedado claro.

Hay frases que me descolocan como:
Es hora de comer y el castellano estará dormido, pensó.

Y diálogos que me rechinan como:
Cuando estuve en casa la última vez era usted maravillosa, pero es aún más maravillosa ahora. Los ojos y las cejas, su sonrisa, bueno, no sé, es todo, toda usted.

Esto lo tiene tan ancho, dijo ella de repente, poniendo una mano sobre la suya. Tiene unas muñecas tan fuertes. Y está usted tan moreno, color castaño... Él se movió, queriendo coger la mano de Victoria. Entonces ella dijo, recogiéndose la falda: Bueno, como ya le he dicho, no me ha pasado nada. Simplemente quería volver a casa a pie. Buenas noches.

También hay fragmentos bonitos, líricos, cuando describe la naturaleza o habla del amor:

Todos los árboles que bordeaban el sendero le eran familiares. En la primavera les extraía la savia y en el invierno era para ellos como un pequeño padre, les quitaba la nieve para ayudarlos a que sus ramas se enderezaran.

En conjunto, no me ha gustado, ni la forma ni la historia. Lo que más me ha interesado es leer su biografía en la Wikipedia y de cómo le regaló a Goebbels la medalla del Nobel para que le consiguiera una entrevista con su admirado Hitler. ¿De verdad, Knut?

[mai ahmd · Rating 3 out of 5]

حاولت أن أفهم شخصية كنوت من خلال هذه الرواية التي فاجأني توجهها فلايبدو أبدا أن الرواية الرومانسية الكلاسيكية الطابع من توجهات هامبسون خاصة لمن قرأ ملحمته الزراعية واخضرت الأرض أو لمن قرأ رائعته الجوع .. هناك إنقلابا في هذه الرواية لكن ليس كل الإنقلابات ذات نتيجة مرضية .. ربما قارىء الجوع لن يتقبل أن تكون فيكتوريا بعدها ولكن لو كان العكس فقد يبدو الأمر مهضوما .. ليست سيئة لكن ليست متوقعة حقيقة وليست من نوعية الروايات التي أحب .. كتب كنوت الرجل الغاضب في الجوع و الرجل الصانع في واخضرت والآن يأتي دور الأديب العاشق .. حسنا يبدو التنوع ميزة لهامبسون فكل شخصياته بعيدة عن بعضها البعض وهذا ما يشجعك على البحث عن المزيد من هامبسون .. في هذه الرواية كانت رسالة فيكتوريا الأخيرة عن الرواية بأكملها .. غير أن اللغة فاتنة وأجواء الريف بديعة جدا ولعشاق الروايات الرومانسية فهذه الرواية خيار جيد .. قرأتها في الطائرة وكانت سهلة سريعة تمضي بخفة طائر

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading

--Victoria

[Iluvatar . · Rating 5 out of 5]

“ And love became the world's beginning and the world's ruler; but all its ways are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood. “

Beautiful, Beautiful.

[Özgül · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazardan okuduğum ilk kitap. Dili sade,anlatımı oldukça akıcı. Hüzünlü bir aşk hikayesi. 3,5/5

“Aşk bir insanı yere yıkabilir, onu tekrar ayağa kaldırabilir, onu yeniden rezil edebilirdi.”

[Alejandro González Medina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se considera a Knut Hamsun uno de los padres de la novela moderna. Muchos autores (entre otros, Stefan Zweig, Hermann Hesse y Ernest Hemingway) reconocieron la profunda influencia que tuvo el autor noruego en su literatura; en no pocos, se puede apreciar de forma implícita elementos heredados de su escritura. Técnicas como el flujo de conciencia o el juego entre tiempo objetivo y subjetivo encontraron su perfeccionamiento en las obras de Hamsun.

Con antecedentes como estos, me embarqué en la lectura de "Victoria" con grandes expectativas. La primera mitad del libro me resultó bastante decepcionante: una historia de amor convencional, hasta un poco ñoña, aunque narrada con soltura y con no pocas elipsis. Muchos acontecimientos, ralentizados solo para transmitirnos el bucolismo de los paisajes y la naturaleza noruegos. Pensé que igual no era la obra adecuada para valorar a Hamsun en su plenitud.

Llegó, entonces, la segunda mitad. ¡Y vaya segunda mitad! Es como si el autor se hubiese guardado toda el repertorio de trucos en la chistera hasta el momento en que no esperas nada nuevo. Ya no importa tanto narrar muchos eventos en la vida de Johannes como sacar el máximo partido a cada vivencia mediante un enfoque que oscila entre un tiempo compartido por los personajes y el tiempo subjetivo de Johannes. El espacio se ve sometido a la misma transformación y así el paisaje se convierte también en una extensión de la conciencia.

Buen libro, quizá indicado para los que se inician en la lectura de Hamsun más que para los admiradores ya consolidados.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who am I to say that a Nobel prize winning author is just phoning it in? Especially since I’ve yet to find real enjoyment in Hamsun’s writing? If I had just picked this book up and read it I wouldn’t have enjoyed it too much, it’s a tad bit too melodramatic with a bit of the coldness of say Strindberg and the inexplicable manly rage of DH Lawrence’s male characters (but not their latent gayness, which maybe I’ll share my theory on this at some other time in a DH Lawrence review). Can I say that the book reads as being like a too German imitator of certain German writers like Von Kleist, but in an extreme Germanity that is kind of off-putting? Has anything I’ve said so far made any sense at all?

I feel like I should like Hamsun, putting aside his doddering sept(or maybe oct)agaurian support of the Nazi’s (we don’t crucify Yeats for this kind of thing, but I have a feeling it’s a language thing, Norwegian being more German to us all (and I mean us English speakers) than well English), he’s all about the kind of themes I’m normally all for in literature. I just haven’t had a good experience with him yet, but one day I will have to go back and re-read some of the books I read earlier, at the time I was wanting him to be Henry Miller, which he’s not, but which Henry Miller had exuberated over so highly in one of his books that I just had to give Hamsun a chance myself (we’ll overlook the two of three month fascination with Henry Miller I went through in 1997).

But, reading this book because of it’s importance to Jan Kjærstad’s trilogy of excellent novels I find it to be quite interesting, but only in light of the overlaps that Kjærstad created in The Discoverer. What portion of the whole trilogy is a retelling of Victoria? Probably only a small part, but there is something going on Victoria that is more interesting than the tragic love story, with it’s 19th century ridiculousness, that Kjærstad is picking up on and turning it from a minor literary device that almost seems out of place in Hamsun’s work to being insanely effective. Maybe this book (Victoria)would have been more enjoyable to me if it had made more use of certain literary devices that intruded at times. Maybe if they had been more welcomed into the overall work of the novel this would have been something more interesting than it turned out to be for me.

This review has been deliberately obscure. Sorry. The parts I want to talk about would wreck havoc, or work as spoilers, on the enjoyment of one’s reading of the Kjærstad trilogy, which once again I recommend everyone read. You’ll either thank me for it, or hate me for wasting your time.

(after writing this I realized that the book was written in 1898, making it actually a 19th century book,not a 20th century book, and some of the Modernism expectations I might have been expecting from literary devices that Hamsun flirts with would have no real possibility of ever being used by a writer at this time, who is writing in this style. I apologize for my ignorance, but let the review stand as is.)

[Agir(آگِر) · Rating 3 out of 5]

کنوت هامسون نویسنده نروژی و برنده نوبل ادبیات است
:وی دارای شخصیت و تفکری خاص و گاه عجیب بوده
طرفدرای از نازی وقتی که کشورش تحت تسخیر آلمانی ها قرار گرفت
یا مبارزه با مدرنیسم در کتابهایش
و پیام برگشت به زمین
حمله آنارشیستی به نویسندگان بزرگی چون تولستوی و هنریک ایبسن

با تمام احترام برای عقائد نویسنده،اولی و چهارمی دیگر خیلی غیر قابل درک هستند
طرفدرای از نازی و حمله به تولستوی
!!!
علاقه نویسنده به گذشته و طبیعت را میتوان در قسمت هایی از داستان دید: انزجارش از بسته شدن آسیاب و قطع شدن درختان و توصیف زیبای جزیره ای که یوهانس و ویکتوریا خاطرات کودکی زیادی از آن دارند

حتی عشق یوهانس و ویکتوریا نشان از عشق های شوالیه ای داره
عشق های که خودگذشتگی و وفاداری و فراموش نکردن یار از خصوصیات اصلی آن است

[Milena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ja sam mislila da nema veće tragedije od moje neuzvraćene ljubavi prema mladom zubaru koji se dere na mene što ne nosim gumice na protezi redovno a ja ga gledam osmehnuta blago telećim pogledom; međutim OVA priča i Viktorijino pismo Johanesu na samom kraju su secivenske, ovaj duševni bol kojim drug Hamsun žari i pali na samo sto i kusur stranica se ne dâ porediti ni sa čupanjem sve četiri osmice odjednom.

[Lee Klein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Other than a vivid drowning rescue and some sadsack suggestions about true love, this is simply flat. Sucky compared to his better known novels -- a dull, poorly characterized (can't picture these characters other than Johannes and his tan wrists), muddy novella at best. One character's head is blown to bits and I didn't care since he made almost no impression. There's an immolation scene too that leads to an inferno but it happens too quickly and reads like bad Gothic lit. Can't believe he wrote it after "Pan" and "Hunger." Seemed like a rushed, imbalanced first draft. Phoned-in descriptions. I'll read "Mysteries" but probably won't search out his lesser known stuff if it's like this one.

[Malacorda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un originale trattato di micologia.
Che cosa io mi aspettassi mai iniziando questa lettura, non saprei dirlo. Anzi no, non è vero, lo so che cosa mi aspettavo, e devo dirlo con sincerità: mi aspettavo una storia romantica; una lettura di qualità ma romantica.
Che cosa ho mai trovato? una romanticheria poeticheria davvero insipida e per giunta inutile, del tutto gratuita. Ma il libro gratuito non lo era: quattroerotti euro buttati. Non parla d'amore perché la storia è troppo banalizzata e appiattita. Non parla della formazione dello scrittore perché nulla viene detto di quello che il protagonista ha studiato, si riportano solo spezzoni dei suoi scritti dove di solito c'è un uomo che scrive di un uomo che scrive, per cui il giochino di specchi tende a ripetersi e a stancare molto presto. Non è un vero flusso di coscienza sebbene si tenda a dare un certo rilievo a sogni, visioni e fantasticherie.
Il guaio è che non sono riuscita ad individuare la chiave di lettura di questo coso: è da prendersi seriamente? È da leggere come fiaba? Vuole essere prosa o lirica? Zuppa o pan bagnato?

Ho provato a sottolineare qualche frase per vedere l'effetto che fa. "Oh, l'amore è una notte d'estate con in cielo stelle e profumi sulla terra". Oh, che originalità. Riproviamo con un qualcosina un po' di più originale.

"Ahimè, l'amore rende il cuore dell'uomo una fungaia, un giardino lussureggiante e insolente dove crescono impudenti funghi misteriosi": le infermiere del reparto di oncologia, l'anno scorso, erano più sincere e candidamente me lo chiamavano "buzzone" o "bognone". Ma in effetti la definizione di "impudente fungo misterioso" mi può tornare buona in più contesti: per indirizzare fungaioli sprovveduti e scocciatori verso il crinale dove crescono le amanite, oppure per darmi un tono quando rientrerò in corsia. Una stella per avermi dato un (uno!) suggerimento valido.