Mysteries

by Knut Hamsun, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Afterword), Gerry Bothmer (Translator)

In a Norwegian coastal town, society's carefully woven threads begin to unravel when an unsettling stranger named Johan Nagel arrives. With an often brutal insight into human nature, Nagel draws out the townsfolk, exposing their darkest instincts and suppressed desires. At once arrogant and unassuming, righteous and depraved, Nagel's bizarre behavior and feverish rants seduces the entire community even as he turns it on its head—before disappearing as suddenly as he had arrived.

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

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1892

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eccentric persons live in their own eccentric world… And their world is full of mysteries…
A mysterious stranger comes into a one horse town…

Below medium height, he had a swarthy face with curiously dark eyes and a sensitive, effeminate mouth. On one finger he wore a plain ring of lead or iron. He was very broad-shouldered and might be twenty-eight or, at most, thirty years old. His hair was turning gray at the temples.

His behaviour is unusual… His purpose is unknown… The whole town is intrigued… He himself is surprised by his arrival…

Why do I meddle in other people’s affairs? Why did I come to this town in the first place? Was it because of some cosmic disaster, because of Gladstone’s cold, for example? Heh-heh-heh, God help you, child, if you tell the truth: that actually you were on your way home but were suddenly so deeply moved at the sight of this town – small and miserable as it is – that you almost wept with a strange, mysterious joy when you saw all those flags.

He seems to be unhappy… He endeavours to help the miserable of the town… He falls in love… His unhappiness increases… His head is full of fantasies… He doesn’t know anymore where his fantasies end and reality begins…

It’s not at all a question of creating an uproar among a crowd of lawyers, journalists or Galilean fishermen, or of publishing a monograph on Napoleon le petit. The important thing is to affect and educate power, the superior, chosen few, the masters of life, the great ones, Caiaphas, Pilate, and the emperor. What good would it do to create a stir among the rabble if I were to be nailed to the cross, in spite of everything?

It is easier to hide in the world of illusions than to live in the real world.

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

Hamsun’s aptly named second novel, Mysteries, is a dazzling, dark look into human nature and man’s psyche. It is no surprise that Henry Miller claimed that Mysteries was ’closer to me than any book I have read,’ this novel is so probing and insightful that you feel it begin to pick your own mind as the pages churn by. Written in 1892, just 2 years following Hunger, this novel once again demonstrates Hamsun’s signature frantic yet serene prose while showcasing Hamsun as a Modernist far ahead of his time and a master of the ‘psychological novel’. Plunging into the existential mysteries of the human heart and soul, Hamsun pens some of his most memorable characters while keeping the reader forever pondering the truth behind the abundant mysteries.

Hamsun is a difficult one to grapple with. When I read him about a decade ago I really enjoyed his work but now, writing this in 2019, I am less willing to overlook the misogyny in his work and his troubled history late in life. He died having been denounced by his homeland and is lesser known nowadays due to his sympathetic association to the Nazi party during WWII. I went into more detail of this in my review for Growth of the Soil, but this association cost him his fame and caused to widespread burning of his books in Norway and the relative popular neglect for his works in the United States following the war. He was an incredible author whose name holds up to his comparisons to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but the politics of his later life are rather quite offputting.

Mysteries places the human psyche under Hamsun’s microscope. Much like his first novel, the great Hunger, this novel follows the concise rise and fall of emotions in the protagonist, creating a well rounded depiction of a man in the grips of mania and excitement. We follow the loquacious ravings, often liquor-fueled, of our hero, Johan Nilsen Nagel, from a calm steady conversation to the height of frenzy, and are shown glimpses through a cloudy window of the mind to his introspective obsessions. This is fully believable and creates for an intense, unpredictable character.

There is a wonderfully ironic moment when Martha Gude takes leave of Nagel to go see a preforming magician since the real magician of this novel is Nagel himself who preforms an elaborate smoke and mirrors trick of personality throughout the novel. The true nature of Nagel, is never fully revealed, instead, the reader must discern what they can as small pieces of the whole are glimpsed, then hidden again behind contradictory evidence. This eccentric stranger, dressed in a loud yellow suit who keeps the town on edge and full of gossip with his erratic behavior, is a ’walking contradiction’ , as Dagny is quick to point out and Nagel is eager to uphold. The reader learns of his lifesavers medal, for example, which he speaks aloud that he earned rescuing a drowning man while on passage to Hamburg, however later on, he adamantly claims to Dagny that is was purchased from a pawn store. He tells the town he is an agronomist, yet it is hinted that this is merely a ruse. Even his name may be false. The biggest insights can only be hinted through a cryptic conversation between him and a former lover whom speak in ’elliptical allusions to the past and used words and phrases that had meaning only for them’.

The nature of this novel is akin to the mysterious nature of the protagonist. Choosing to write from a third person perspective, Hamsun is able to remove the reader from any situation that could give too much away. Unlike Hunger where the reader was a fly on the wall of the narrators internal monologues, the secrets of Nagel are kept from us. Hamsun does occasionally have Nagel speak aloud in long tirades of his inner thoughts, but this is used sparingly and creates a bit of unevenness in the writing, although it is ultimately not distracting. This third person perspective is highly efficient to the delivery of this story, as the reader often learns of Nagel’s whereabouts from his mouth as he professes them to the townsfolk. However, the reader quickly learns to take everything with a grain of salt and we are often left wondering if he speaks the truth, or perhaps even a half-truth.

Hamsun makes remarkable use of Nagel’s long, mercurial rants, often crafting them as small allegories of the surrounding events and people. Nagel speaks in a breathtaking prose laden with symbols and metaphors that always tell much more just beneath the surface of his sparkling words. His tales are often elaborate and outlandish, earning him quite a reputation around town. He also uses Nagel as his mouthpiece for literary and political criticisms, bashing many of the Norwegian politicians of the day, criticizing the capital city and the artists who inhabit it (although, speaking of contradictions, he spoke lovingly of this city, Kristiana, in the opening lines of Hunger), and spitting a brutal assault on both Leo Tolstoy and the highly regarded Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibesn. To digress a mere moment, Hamsun was an outspoken critic of Ibsen, who was quite popular at the time. In the year succeeding the popular release of Hunger, Hamsun invited Ibsen to attend a lecture of his and offered him the front and center seat in a room full of other writers of great notoriety. He then went on to lambaste Ibsen’s work to his face saying his plays were ’indefensibly coarse and artificial psychology’. There is an article featuring this story and a good overview of Hamsun’s biography here.

The real brilliance of this novel is how Nagel serves as a barometer of human nature and in juxtaposition with him, the true nature of the various members of the town can be seen with crystal clear accuracy. While Nagel may be erratic and potentially manic, his boldness reveals an unapologetic image of himself, which brings out the truth in others. The closed mindedness, the destructiveness, the arrogance, and all the other hidden demons float to the surface around Nagel. This can also show a character in a positive light, or just as a harmless windbag who cannot help but vomit their opinions into any available ear. Nagel asserts that there are no selfless acts and that every man has a secret vice, including those who may seem like the most saintly, good-natured folk among us. Each one of us carries a bit of demon somewhere inside. While one may give a small chunk of change to a beggar on the street may seem as ‘selfless’ as it gets, Nagel would argue that does this not cause the giver to feel an inner peace at helping another, which is itself a selfish reward. This existential probe begs the reader to examine his or her own life, and examine their own opinion on Nagel as it may reveal a great deal about them.

This story has no true linear plot, but sets Hamsun’s colorful cast in one town and allows them to simply interact. Due to this storytelling device, many critics have labeled Hamsun as one of the first early Modernists, and many authors followed in his footsteps. Ernest Hemingway claimed that ’Hamsun taught me to write’ (thanks wiki), and after reading the often drunk and frenzied lead characters of his early works one can understand why Charles Bukowski was such a fervent fan and claimed he used Hamsun as a ’writing crutch’. His unique style, voice, and his monumental simplistic prose have caused him to quickly become one of my favorites. This novel is not as direct and concise as Hunger, yet it can be felt that Hamsun was reaching his talents out to greater heights and experimenting with perspective and layering of time (there are many amazing instances where Hamsun will seamlessly follow from various past incidents and present goings-on all within one flowing paragraph without the reader becoming lost), so the rough patches that are slightly noticeable within this book are understandable. He makes up for it ten-fold.

Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that one should not ’read books for the infantile purpose of identifying oneself with the characters… but for the sake of their form, their visions, their art’ ( Lectures on Literature). I have always tried to keep this in mind while devouring a novel, and I have very much appreciated this novel for its aesthetic purposes (I hope), but I fell for that infantile impulse to identify with Nagel. He has become one of my favorite characters found in literature, right up there with the Underground Man and Steinbeck's Samuel Hamilton. While this novel isn’t quite as close to perfection as Hunger, which few novels are, Mysteries is my favorite of Hamsun’s novels, although I would recommend the former if you are looking for an introduction to his work. This novel has an ending out of left field and will keep your mind spinning for days to come as you try to piece together the mysteries Nagel left behind. Who is this eccentric stranger? Does he really know more than he lets on, and how does he know these secrets that lurk inside? Is he crazy, or simply genius? Hamsun leaves that for you to decide.
4/5

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I refused to read Hamsun for a long time, on the grounds that he was a Nazi sympathizer. But I started getting interested in modern Norwegian literature a couple of years ago, and in the end I had to give in. You just can't avoid him; he's referred to everywhere. And if I find him hard to deal with, I'm comforted by the fact that it's much worse for the Norwegians.

Let me expand on that a bit. I'm English by birth, and I've also lived a fair amount of my life in Sweden and the US. None of those countries have ever been occupied by a foreign power (people from the American South may disagree). We don't know what it's like, and it's difficult to understand from the outside. When you read books from countries like France and Norway, which have recently suffered the experience of being occupied, you start to get some idea. The best comparison I can find is that it's like being raped. It's a shameful and degrading thing that you don't want to talk about unless you have to.

Now, suppose that you're a woman who's been abducted by a psychopath who keeps you for years in his cellar, and comes down every now and then to rape and torture you. And then suppose that your big brother, whom you've always loved and admired, gets friendly with the rapist. He visits every now and then. You're lying there bruised and bleeding in the cellar, and you can hear your brother and the rapist laughing together and playing cards in the kitchen above you. It was rather like that with Hamsun and the Norwegians. He was their greatest living author. Everyone had read him; Norwegians are an exceptionally literate people. During World War II, while Norway was occupied, Hamsun expressed his deep admiration for the Nazis. He gave his Nobel medal to Goebbels, and he met Hitler. When Hitler killed himself, Hamsun wrote him a flattering obituary. You can understand the scene in Christensen's Halvbroren, where the grandmother, a sympathetic character, burns all Hamsun's works in her stove. But the same book constantly mentions Hamsun's novels, and the author makes it clear how deep his artistic debt is. Jan Kjærstad, in Forføreren, has similar problems. The section on Hamsun is very interesting.

After the war, the Norwegian government simply didn't know what to do. Their solution was to determine that Hamsun was legally insane. He was also fined a large amount of money. Well, they may have been right. To the extent that the word "insane" means anything, I agree. But it was an unusual form of insanity. Hamsun had an unparalleled ability to project his feelings so that other people could experience them too; when I read Mysterier, it was almost as though I had gone through Doctor Parnassus's magic mirror, and found myself inside his crazed mind. Or, to use another analogy, remember the sequence from Mary Poppins where Bert and the kids jump into the picture; but instead of the anodyne country scene that Bert has drawn on the sidewalk, imagine that they have leaped into one of Van Gogh's last paintings. It's an unpleasant and frightening book, but a remarkably powerful one.

The language is extraordinary. Here are two passages I particularly liked, with my translations.

Det minder mig litt om en nat på Middelhavet, på kysten av Tunis. Det var vel hundrede passagerer ombord, et sangkor som kom fra Sardinien et sted. Jeg hørte ikke til selskapet og kunde ikke synge, jeg sat bare på dækket og hørte på mens koret sang nedenunder i salonen. Det varte næsten hele natten; jeg skal aldrig glemme hvor det lydde godt i den lumre nat. Jeg trek i smug alle dører til salongen i; tættet sangen inde, så å si, og så var det som lyden kom fra havsbunden, ja som om skibet skulde gå ind i evigheten med brusende musik. Tenk Dem noget i retning av et hav fuldt av sang, et underjordisk kor.

Frøken Andresen som satt Nagel nærmest sa uvilkårlig:

Ja Gud hvor det måtte være deilig!

It reminds me a little of a night I once experienced on the Mediterranean, off the coast of Tunis. There were a hundred or so passengers on board, a choir who came from somewhere in Sardinia. I wasn't in their party and I couldn't sing myself, I just sat there on the deck and listened while the choir sang underneath me in the saloon. They sang nearly all night; I will never forget how wonderful it sounded in the warm darkness. I sneaked down and closed all the doors; concentrated the essence of the song, as it were, and it was as though the sound came from the bottom of the sea, as though the ship was sailing into eternity on the music. Imagine something like a sea full of singing, an underwater choir.

Frøken Andresen, who was sitting closest to Nagel, said involuntarily:

"Oh my God, it must have been so beautiful"

And later, in the scene which I think explains the title:

Stemmen er en farlig apparat. Forstå mig ret: jeg mener ikke netop stemmens materielle lyd, den kan være høi eller lav, klangfuld eller rå, jeg mener ikke det stemmestofelige, tonetillværelsen, nei jeg holder mig til mysteriet bak den, den verden som den utgår från ... Til helvete forresten med denne verden bak! Altid ska det være en verden bak! Hvad fan raker det mig?

The voice is a dangerous instrument. Understand me correctly: I don't mean simply the material quality of the sound, whether it's high or low, melodious or harsh. I don't mean the acoustic or prosodic properties. I'm talking about the mystery behind it, the world it comes from... Oh, never mind, fuck the world behind it! There's always supposed to be a world behind things! What's it got to do with me?

I'm not sure what this means, to be honest, but I feel it's saying something important. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Mostly, I feel relieved to have escaped intact from the Imaginarium.

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية مسكونة بالأسرار للكاتب النرويجي كنوت هامسن
رجل غريب الأطوار ينزل من سفينة إلى بلدة نرويجية صغيرة
مثير للانتباه والريبة بأفكاره وآراؤه الحادة الغير تقليدية
حكاياته وأحاديثه ومشاعره مزيج مُحير بين الحقيقة والأكاذيب
خلال السرد نتعرف على أهل البلدة بكل تفاصيلهم وعاداتهم وعلاقاتهم المختلفة به
ونكشف ما يدور في عقله من خيال ورؤى وملاحظات يرى بها العالم والناس
يكتب هامسن عن النفس وتناقضاتها والشر المستتر وراء مظاهر المثالية والوداعة
وعلى لسان بطل روايته ينقد الأدباء والشعراء والسياسيين
أسلوب مميز في الحوار ولغة شاعرية في وصف جمال الطبيعة

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…”

Johan Nilsen Nagel arrives in a small, coastal Norwegian town bearing a fur coat in summer, a yellow suit, and a violin case without a violin. He deliberately leaves out telegrams on his table that give the impression he is quite rich. He later claims they are false, but the reader is already suspicious that subterfuge and deliberate lying are part of whatever game he is playing.

Who is he, really? And what possible motivation does he have in being so odd? Why can’t he act like a normal person? What is his aim?

He professes that he has fallen head over heels in love with Dagny, despite the fact that she is engaged to an officer in the Navy. He is not dissuaded by her protests that he must desist. She is intrigued by him, even after she starts to unravel his lies. She has certainly never met anyone like him, and even though she knows he is an unreliable narrator of his own life, she can’t help but continue to think about him. He is messing with her head. Then, he abruptly starts chasing after a woman who would be considered an old maid; certainly, she is many years older than Nagel. This definitely makes me uneasy because I have already discovered that I can’t trust his character. I fear he will lift her up only to drop her unceremoniously after his attention wanders somewhere else.

Can he play the violin? What is that about?

He makes friends with a midget who is forced to do tricks for a few øre. Nagel has surreptitiously attempted to help several disadvantaged people in town, going to great, elaborate links to give them money without them knowing how this windfall found them, and the midget is no exception.

Did I mention that Nagel carries a vial of prussic acid around with him all the time? An insurance policy in case life becomes too overwhelming, a reassurance that he will never be trapped. I kept getting a Werther feel off this novel and wondering if our friend Nagel is heading towards a self-inflicted, dramatic ending.

The whole novel is very puzzling. The book was published in Norway in 1892, but was not published in English until 1971. The Farrar, Straus, and Giroux first edition that I read has a cover that reminds me of the Herman Hesse books published about the same time by the same publisher. I associate Hesse with the 1960s and 1970s, even though he was writing many decades before that. Trying to see this book through a 1970s lens doesn’t work, but also trying to place this novel in the 1890s is almost impossible. He was certainly forward thinking, especially in presenting psychology in fiction, and some would say he was writing the first modern novels. I lean more towards that he was an uncle of the modern novel. He certainly had influence on several generations of writers.

Like many of our historical figures, Knut Hamsun does not live up to the high ideals we would like our heroes or our influencers to be. He was a Nazi sympathizer during the war, and fearing that the British would invade Norway, he rooted rather publicly for the Germans to invade first. He was seen frequently in the company of high ranking Nazi officials, including Adolf Hitler. When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he gave his award to Joseph Goebbels *bone rattling shudder*. During his trial after the war, he pleaded ignorance.

Ignorance?

Maybe anglophobia, or maybe his distaste for the lack of discipline he was seeing in the world. We can come up with half a dozen better reasons, but ignorance is not something I would ever accuse such a man as Hamsun of suffering from.

He is quite possibly Norway’s greatest novelist. I can only imagine the pain that Norwegian intellectuals feel to have such a negative association with such a great contributor to literature. We want our influencers to be beyond reproach, but rarely do they hold up to deep scrutiny. We are dismantling statues in the US, and I completely agree with taking down the Confederate “heroes” because most of those statues were put up for the wrong reason in the first place. They were erected in the 1960s as a response to the Civil Rights Movement. Now there is trending hashtag #cancelhamilton and mutters about removing him from the $10 because he owned slaves. To be more precise he didn’t own slaves, he married into the wealthy, slave owning family, the Schuylers. He did participate in the slave trade by buying and selling slaves for his in-laws. He certainly benefited from slavery. He is flawed as were most of the founding fathers. He is one of only three founding fathers who did not own slaves, but the musical Hamilton does inflate his abolitionist stance.

This review isn’t about Hamilton, but about Hamsun. I make the association between the two men simply because they have both been evaluated and revaluated through the lens of history and been found wanting.

I start to squirm a bit in my seat when I hear about the possibility of Hamilton being eradicated from our history. I’ve always respected the fact that he came from nothing and made something of himself. There are statues to Knut Hamsun, of course. Should they be taken down because of his Nazi associations, or should they remain because of his contribution to literature? Do we judge people by their worst characteristics or by their best? Do we judge people only by their worst day? History should be studied for the people who got it right as well as the people who got it wrong. Trying to whitewash history is a dangerous game.

What a great point of discussion over a few pints on whether Hamsun’s literature has proven to be a greater contribution to the betterment of mankind than his association with the Nazis has been a detriment. In Mysteries, there are certainly no signs of Fascism or any of their guiding principles. Should Hamiton’s contributions to the formation of the United States be ignored? Do I have to unwatch and unenjoy Hamilton? If we take Hamilton down for his connection with slavery, where does it stop? Do we take down Jefferson as well, or how about the father of our country, George Washington? We certainly should be finding those historical people who exhibited principles more in line with our modern sensibilities, but we just can’t sidestep the contributions of the slave owners in the formation of our country. They are there at every step, warts and all. It is frustrating that such men did so little to end slavery. Think if Jefferson and his writing cronies had shown the proper moxie to end slavery with the writing of the Constitution in 1789?

This is such an odd book with progressive ideas. I would certainly hate to see it and Hamsun’s other best books ignored by readers because of his “ignorance” with the Nazies. I’ve decided I will read Pan, Hunger, and Victoria, which along with Mysteries are considered his best books.

Can we venerate Hamsun as a novelist and condemn him as a Nazi?

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[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stranger comes to town. His name is Johan Nilsen Nagel (aka Simonsen). This is Norway and it’s 1890 or so. Nagel says he is an agronomist taking his summer vacation in the country. He alternately charms and appalls the townspeople. He meets the innkeeper; the doctor; the town invalid; the beautiful Dagny, who’s engaged to an absent naval man; a minion called the deputy, whom he proceeds to fight in defense of the invalid. He is constantly teetering between despair and something like ecstasy, or possibly mania.

He carries a vial of Prussic acid about and obsesses about a recent local suicide. He dislikes the British PM Gladstone, presumably because of his rectitude. And he takes great pains to undermine any good reputation he himself may have earned by way of compassionate acts. In short, he slanders himself. This despite anonymously buying a new coat for the invalid, and paying a destitute old woman an immense sum for a chair that he insists is an antique. What brilliant pages these are as he tries to convince the poor girl that she owns an estimable antique! The book is alternately harrowing and funny, bizarre and beguiling.

Naturally Nagel falls for the alluring Dagny. Hamsun like few writers I know has a knack for writing about love’s longing, pining depths. He addresses the topic here fulsomely and perfects it in his next novel, Pan.

“‘You must be crazy!’ she said, shaking her head. And distressed and pale, with an icy glint in her blue eyes, she added, ‘You know I am engaged, you remember and assume that, and yet—‘

“‘Of course, I know! Could I forget the face and that uniform? After all, he’s a handsome man, and it isn’t that I find any fault with him; and yet I could wish him dead and gone. What’s the use of saying to myself, as I’ve done a hundred times: there you won’t get anywhere. Instead I try to avoid thinking about this impossibility, telling myself, Oh yes, I’ll get somewhere all right, lots of things can happen, there’s still hope . . . . And there is hope, isn’t there?’” (p. 140)

Well, this bit comes across as basely melodramatic, but his gift for the subject matter of pointless love is genuine. Now do some of Nagel’s monologues go on too long? For that reason alone I subtract one star.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acknowledgments
Introduction & Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Translator's Note

--Mysteries

Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes

[Ben Winch · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a teenager my dad urged two novels on me — Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game and Knut Hamsun's Hunger — which I consider all-time favourites to this day. Hesse I loved immediately; I read everything of his I could find. But Hamsun took a little longer. Upon first reading Hunger I thought, 'Huh? That's it?' It's not that I didn't like it, but it perplexed me. Hesse — and most if not all of my parents' other recommendations (Marquez, Kundera, Eco, Grass) — had seemed so grand somehow, so exalted. But Hamsun was the opposite; his gaze was microscopic. And crucially, not once did he signpost any moral message or 'broader significance'. Hunger was so far from a novel of ideas it was baffling. What was it about? Why did it exist? Why did Dad revere it? But 20 or so years and several readings later I'm with Dad. Hamsun (the young Hamsun) was a genius. Hunger, Mysteries and Pan (his first three novels, in that order) are masterpieces, worthy of comparison with anything I've read. There are scenes in these books that have burnt themselves into me: in Hunger when the delirious narrator becomes paranoically obsessed with an old man in the park; in Mysteries when Nagel plays the violin at the town talent night; in Pan when Glahn shoots a character he loves unconditionally. Hamun's characters are alive. Thrillingly so. His secret? He doesn't fence them in, or use them to illustrate theses. Hunger is what Crime and Punishment could be if Dostoevsky let it grow wild. Mysteries is wilder. Less autobiographical, more imaginative, more broad-reaching. At times it's almost surreal. Sure, the character is virtually the same, but transplanted into this more fertile terrain he flourishes. It's mind-bending: the tricks he plays on himself and others, the tangle of motivations, the palpable sense of mystery that he, the reader and Hamsun all feel as the story unfolds. Add to this the almost incredible, sleek modernness of the prose (which reads just as well in both existing translations) and, for a book written in the 1890s, you have a minor miracle. In Europe when these books were published, they say, young people would queue for hours to buy them. Hamsun — who had travelled to America and seemed to have brought back its tough laconicism — was revered by most of those writers who would go on to invent European modernism. There simply wasn't anyone else like him. Flash forward to John Fante and Charles Bukowski, both of whom read Hunger and reiterated: even by then (40-50 years later) he was one-of-a-kind. Look, Camus almost did it with The Outsider, but again he didn't let his character free. Read Hunger and tell me it doesn't breathe. Compare it to almost anything and tell me if it seems dated. Mysteries, OK, maybe there are passages that have dated, but only because it's looser, shaggier. But that scene where Nagel plays the violin — God, it's brilliant! This guy in a loud suit who all through the novel has denied he has any musical talent even though he carries around a violin case (he even goes so far as to admit it's just for show, though he could be lying) suddenly gets up at this rinky-dink talent night and plays his heart out. The townsfolk are stupefied, but here's the catch: we still don't know if he's any good or not! His technique is bad, that much is clear, and yet even he, after all his modest denials, is forced to admit that he really did put some soul into it. I mean, is this not punk rock about 80 years before the fact? It gives me the shivers! And then the whole romantic tangle he gets himself into, so deep that even he doesn't seem to know which of these women he really wants, or if he wants any of them at all. And those scenes in the forest — revisited in Pan and hewn into something more recognisable, more lyrical — but here just raw and real and magical... Read Hunger, read Mysteries, read Pan. Re-read them. There's plenty of others, but I dunno, I've never made it more than a few pages into any of them. I didn't want to spoil it for myself. The twentieth century starts here.

(As to the Hamsun-haters, those who won't read him because 'he was a Fascist', wake up! Firstly, what has that got to do with his work anyway? This is imaginitive writing. It's about as close to apolitical as you can get, and I guarantee you will find no Nazism here. And secondly, being a Fascist is NOT something you're born into. Mysteries was written over 40 years before Hamsun threw his lot in with Hitler.)

[Tahani Shihab · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية تغوص في النفس الإنسانية المعقدة والمركبة من عدّة شخصيات، استطاع الكاتب أن يشدّني لقراءتها لآخر صفحة

[Dalia Nourelden · Rating 3 out of 5]

الرواية دي بدايتها جذبتني وبعد كده بدأت أفقد انجذابي ليها ومرت فيها جزء طويل ممل وفكرت فعلا اني اسيبها لكن كان فيها شئ بيجذبني اني أكمل ، كان فيها اجزاء بتجذبني ، بجانب شخصية نيجل المربكة وكان عندي فضول اعرف هتنتهي على ايه ؟!

بس النص التاني بدأ يختلف او قدر يرجع يجذبني والملل قل ، الحالة الهستيرية والمضطربة في الشخصية ظهرت بشكل أكبر واستفزتني تصرفات كتير له وحيرتني تصرفات تانية ، حيرتني دوافعه ومشاعره .

شخصية مربكة مكنتش عارفة يصعب عليا ولا لأ !! هو شخصية غريبة، بيكدب احيانا بدون اي اسباب لكده وده شئ يخليني احتقره ،احيانا كان بيعمل كده كنوع من لفت الانتباه وأحيانا زى ما اعترف كنوع من التلاعب العقلي والنفسي . بيقول الحاجه وعكسها فبتبقى مش عارف تصدق اي حاجة فيهم. بس في نفس الوقت في اوقات تانية له أفكار وتصرفات تخليك تُعجب بيه.

كان مربك للشخصيات اللى في الرواية خصوصاً داجني كيلاند مكانتش عارفة تصدقه ولا تكدبه !! ، تعجب بيه ولا تكرهه !! ،تحترمه ولا تحتقره !!

" أنا لا أفهمك ، أحيانا عندما تتحدث أتساءل إذا ما كنت عاقلاً . سامحني ، لكن في كل مرة ألتقيك يزداد شعوري بالكدر والارتباك . مهما كان موضوع حديثك، أجد انك تفسد اتزاني."

شخصية غريبة، هو غريب من البداية بس مع النص التاني تزايدت وخصوصا في تعامله مع داجني. ده ميمنعش ان له معاملات تانية غريبة زى تصرفاته مع القزم ومع مارتا . وطريقة حديثه مع نفسه ومع غيره أغلبها غريب وبعضها مش مفهوم.

" لقد وفرت لكم جميعاً دستة من موضوعات ممتعة كثيرة للمحادثة، ولا جدوى من التلهية في حيواتكم الرتيبة ! لقد اختلقت لبفضيحة تلو الأخرى في حيواتكم المتشابهة المتوحشة !"

رواية فيها اجزاء عجبتني وجذبتني واجزاء تانية كانت مملة جدا واجزاء غريبة .. وكان ممكن يكون تقييمي ليها أعلى من كده لو مكانش الجزء الممل منها بالنسبالي كبير

١١ / ٧ / ٢٠٢٣

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

That's a strange novel that leaves a bizarre impression at the end of the reading.
We follow Nagel, a whimsical character who plays several roles in this adventure, from the generous altruist to the most devious character. He is manipulative, but he is also playing at letting himself handle it. This character slips like an eel in our hands, elusive, always where we don't expect him, who, in the end, under his apparent confidence, is more like a simple manic-depressive. This Scandinavian novel made me think of the somewhat ethereal Nordic cinema of Bergman and Dreyer. Our character's philosophical questions reflect his incoherence more than a real, structured thought, drunken evening rants that say everything and its opposite, and his relationships with others sometimes seem calculated to collapse immediately afterward in a headlong flight. Desperate. Still, I liked getting lost in this novel, sometimes stumbling, like in a labyrinth of characters' words, like in the books of Henry Miller or James Joyce and Albert Camus, with a somewhat chaotic, tragic dimension. What has Nagel come to do in this village other than get lost there and satisfy a desire to become an artificially sad character? Only a few hours after turning the last page, I managed to measure its magnitude, as if the silence afterward was still novel.

[Heba]

" الصوت آلة خطيرة ، لا أعني جرس الصوت الذي قد يكون عالياً أو منخفضاً ، شبحياً أو حاداً ، أنا لا أتحدث عن الصوت ولكن عن العالم الداخلي الذي تنبع منه الأسرار الدفينة"...
إن السيد "نيجل" ..أو ربما كان يدعو " سيمونسن" ..شخصاً يستطيع أن يرى دخيلة الشخص الذي يتحدث اليه، لم يكن يقنع بكل ما هو زائف، شخصاً مربكاً على نحو يجعلك لا تدري أكان حقاً مخادعاً ومراوغاً ؟
أم كان الشخص الوحيد الصادق في عالم يدنسه الرياء والنفاق...؟
كان رجلاً يُحلق خارج السرب..لم يسلم أحدٌ من انتقاده ، فيلسوفاً لم يتعلم ابداً التفكير ..لو فعل لكان رصيناً ولم يكن ليتحدث محموماً متسرعاً بكل تلك الأحاديث ..
لقد كان ثرثاراً على نحو غريب ومقلق ، أرجعت ذلك لكونه وحيداً ، فالفراغ قد يقود المرء إلى المغالاة..
لقد أشفقت على قلبه المسكين معذباً بالحب الذي يستحيل عليه أن ينعم به..كان بالرغم من كل شيء يتوق إلى قلب يشاركه الحياة فلما تعذر ذلك ، غدا يائساً محبطاً يتلوى في عذاباته وهواجسه...
جاءت النهاية حيث تقول من أحبها "هذا كان الطريق الذي يسلكه دوماً "..
ولكنها طريق زلقة .."
أراها نهاية تفيض براعة وذكاءً ، أجل بالفعل هو لم يكن يسلك سوى الطرق الزلقة ، لا يأبه لعواقبها طالما أنه يسير وفقاً لقناعاته ومعتقداته ، كم كان غريباً هذا الرجل لم يشبه أحداً وحاولت عبثاً أعرف أى نوع من الرجال كان ..ولكن دون جدوى...

[Hux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was bizarre. A stranger named Johan Nagal comes to a small Norwegian coastal village with a seemingly infinite supply of money and anecdotes as well as a significant number of mysteries which, along with his mannerisms and ideas, bamboozle both the reader and the inhabitants.

I actually loved this. At first I thought it was a (very early) detective novel as Nagal seems fascinated by the recent murder (or was it suicide) of a man who appears to have been in love with a young woman called Dagny Kielland. He questions the people of the village about it, specifically a short, disabled man referred to by everyone as the Midget. As the novel proceeds, Nagal demonstrates that he has brilliant insights into the human psyche, can psychologically manipulate people with ease, and even admits to his games when he's caught out, claiming that he is lying but that his confessions should also be taken into account. I genuinely belived a twist was coming which would reveal his clever plan, his subtle investigation into these village people and the recently deceased man.

But... that never comes. Instead, we are left with a deranged man, a lunatic, who claims to have fallen madly in love with Dagny but also pursues the spinster Martha (asking her to marry him). He tells tales, and weaves stories, and provides anecdotes that marvel and bemuse his listeners. Some of his stories are bizarre and monstrous, ghost stories and drug fueled memories of hallucinations (which reminded me of Hesse). He is pleasant to people one minute, then ranting about their dishonesty and furtive motives the next. The man is all over the place, a delusional maniac but one of immense and subtle intelligence. I think I adored him. At first the ending felt flat, a disappointing nothing on the shoulders of so much potential. An unfinished thought. But then I was relieved, glad that Hamsun didn't give us the obvious and instead chose to leave his audience as perplexed as the people in the village.

This one had me thinking, churning it all over in my mind. What was Hamsun getting at? Why build things up like this only to knock them down? What was he attacking? What was he implying? The book's title is apt and the whole thing was a curiosity that fascinated me. I especially enjoyed his feverish rants (and the insights which are clearly Hamsun's in the mouth of Nagal), regarding socialism and literature, in particular when he criticised Tolstoy (a man who, amazingly, was still alive at the time). That Hamsun wrote this in 1892 only adds to its stature. It isn't perfect but this one will stay with me a while.

[Bobby · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only mystery here is why I read all 330 pages of this nonsense.

[Gray Side · Rating 5 out of 5]

كانت قراءة هذه الرواية من السعادات المؤجلة بالنسبة لي، لم أتوقع أن تترجم في وقت قريب، جزيل الشكر للأستاذ ممدوح وللمترجمة الرائعة أماني لازر، ولا أنسى فضل دار مسكيلياني باصداراتها المنتقاة بعناية.

يوهان نيجل من أغرب الشخصيات الروائية التي قرأتها، ناقم على المثاليات والقوالب الجاهزة ومعهم قبيلة العظماء والعباقرة عن بكرة أبيهم، تتقلب أحواله وتصرفاته عبر رواية أسرار بطريقة غامضة، يمارس السقوط الحر بخفة ملائكية تثير الشكوك، تتشوه ملامحه وتتبعثر بفعل الضغط الآتي من ضبابية عقله الباطن، يتآلف مع الصخور والأشجار في الغابة أكثر من البشر، ذكرني بتمرد المراهق هولدن كولفيلد وشاعر النقاء آرثر رامبو.

نقد لاذع وجهه هامسون عبر الرواية لعدة كتاب ذكرهم بالاسم أو الأسلوب الأدبي الوعظي والمتكلف، امتدح ثراء الحكايات الشرقية بالخيال اللامحدود كما في قصص ألف ليلة وليلة، ويرجع ذلك لمعايشتهم اليومية للخيال المشبع بدفء الشمس وامتداد الصحاري، قارنها بحكايات أهل الشمال المرتبطة بحدود الشتاء وأكواخهم الخشبية. كان بطله نيجل يتقمص روح شهرزاد ويثرثر بحكايات ساحرة حتى يكسب أو يشتت انتباه الآخرين - القراء ضمنهم طبعاً - وكان ينجح في ذلك دائماً.

لست ضليعة بالأساليب الأدبية في كتابة الرواية ولكن أسرار كتبت بطريقة معقدة ومحرضة للقراءة حتى النهاية، على ذكر النهاية وجدتها نوعاً من الصدمات الباردة التي تغتال صبر القارىء ! من يشاركني انطباعه عن هذه النهاية يا أصدقاء وكيف كان فهمه لها أكون له من الشاكرين ^^

تنبيه : الأستاذ ممدوح كتب في مقدمة الرواية أن هامسون أستخدم مطرقة الأعماق في الكتابة، لذا الرواية تحتاج لعضلات قرائية مرنة تستمتع بجماليات الأدب، أصحاب الوقت الثمين لديكم حرية انفاقه فيما يروقكم من طيبات الكتب الأخرى :)



هنا بعض الاقتباسات للتعرف على يوهان نيجل :

- كيف يمكن أن يكون الإحساس عندما تعوم عالياً هناك بين الكواكب، وأنت تشعر بأطراف المذنبات تمس جبهتك ؟ أية بقعة بالغة الصغر هي الأرض، وكم هم تافهون سكانها !


- قد تملّ الفتاة من مثقف قبيح بسرعة أكبر من مغفل وسيم. لو كان نيجل فتاة صغيرة ولديها الخيار، فقد يختار الوسيم دون تردد، ولتأخذ الغربان آراء الرجل بالسياسة النرويجية وفلسفة نيتشه.


- أنا فيلسوف لم يتعلم أبداً التفكير.


- لو كان تولستوي شاباً يقاوم الغواية أو لو كان لديه معركة يقاتل فيها ويحاول أن يكسبها مبشراً بالعفة والعيش الطاهر، لقد اكتفيت من تولستوي. في النهاية هو يفعل ما فعله كثير من العجائز قبله، وما سيواصل الكثيرون فعله بعد رحيله. الأمر بهذه البساطة.


- شعراء ! أوه نعم يقال أنهم تغلغلوا في أعماق القلب البشري. من كان هؤلاء المتغطرسون ممن لديهم الدهاء الكافي كي يحرزوا هذا القدر من التأثير في الحياة المعاصرة ؟ لقد كانوا طفحاً جلدياً وجرباً على المجتمع، بثوراً متقيحة يجب مراقبتها باستمرار وتعهدها بالعناية لئلا تنفجر.

[Emilio Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela muy moderna a pesar de haber sido escrita en 1892, apenas dos años después de Hambre, la primer novela de Knut Hamsun; y acá al igual que en Hambre, la tensión de la novela también se centra principalmente en el carácter del protagonista más que en la trama.

La historia comienza cuando Nagel, un misterioso personaje del que nada se sabe sobre su pasado, arriba sin razón aparente a un pequeño poblado noruego y con algunos actos, acapara enseguida la atención del pueblo.
Nagel es un personaje con el que simpatizamos rápidamente dado su carisma y una sensibilidad especial que tiene para conectar con ciertas problemáticas de algunos lugareños, pero con el correr de las páginas se vuelve cada vez más oscuro, contradictorio, provocador, y comienzan a aparecerán en él actos neuróticos que alteran el orden del lugar y que desconciertan a uno como lector.

Me gusta la sencillez con la que escribe Hamsun, disfruto sobre todo de la enorme capacidad que tiene para caracterizar psicológicamente a sus personajes, algo que me recuerda a Dostoyevski, pero en esta novela sentí la ausencia de una trama que la sostenga, con lo cual la parte media de la historia se desinfla bastante, y para colmo una vez finalizada todavía me quedan mas dudas que certezas sobre varios puntos, así que mi calificación es: 3,5

[João Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Hamsun Centre" - Presteid - Hamarøy - Noruega (Arq. Steven Holl)

(http://hamsunsenteret.no/en/home)

Nos últimos tempos li quatro obras fundamentais do escritor norueguês Knut Hamsun (1859-1939), laureado com o Prémio Nobel da Literatura em 1920, “Fome” (1890), “Mistérios” (1892), “Pan” (1894) e “Victoria” (1898), todas publicadas pela editora “Cavalo de Ferro”.
“Mistérios” é para mim o melhor dos referenciados quatro romances – sem a crueza errática de um jovem escritor que deambula por Kristiania (actual Oslo), “acompanhado” pelos seus pesadelos e pelos seus sonhos em “Fome” ou as românticas narrativas de “Pan” e “Victoria”, de amores e desamores, envoltos em comportamentos obsessivos e trágicos, em cenários deslumbrantes da beleza natural nórdica – de Knut Hamsun.
John Nilsen Nagel desembarca numa pequena cidade costeira, um desconhecido de fato amarelo, de aparência e comportamento excêntrico, impulsivo nos actos e nas decisões, que vai transformando a quietude das pessoas, num conjunto de atitudes receosas e incompreensíveis.
Nesse comportamento controverso e extravagante Nagel torna-se amigo de Grogaard, o “anão”, uma personagem renegada e grotesca, num relacionamento ambíguo fruto da histeria e das crises de depressão, e apaixona-se pela comprometida Dagny Kielland, numa relação complexa de desencontros amorosos ou num capricho inexplicável de verdades e mentiras.
Nagel é o centro desta narrativa “misteriosa”, manipulador e hipócrita, louco sonhador mas, simultaneamente, possuidor de um charme e uma sinceridade atroz, que se revela muitas vezes na sua magnanimidade e nobreza de espírito – “… a vida é uma luta contra os monstros que se escondem nos recantos do coração e do cérebro…” (Pág. 42).
Knut Hamsun descreve maravilhosamente os cenários envolventes da narrativa, a amplitude do mar e a tranquilidade da floresta, mas revela pouco sobre a consciência profunda das personagens, uma tarefa que o leitor vai ter que “associar” e “agrupar”.
Numa leitura compulsiva, “Mistérios” é um livro fascinante, misterioso e negro…

[D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the middle of the summer of 1891 the most extraordinary things began happening in a small Norwegian coastal town. A stranger by the name of Nagel appeared, a singular character who shook the town by his eccentric behavior and then vanished suddenly as he had come.

This is how Hamsun introduces us to Nagel, his yellow suit and his world of mysteries. I finished this book an hour ago. I spent my night reading this breathtaking novel. And for the past one hour I have been sitting in front of my laptop, lost in thoughts; attempting to write a review. I admit, I have failed.

All I would say is: READ IT. You will know why my brain froze. Mysteries is haunting, enigmatic, existential, and one of the best novels I have come across. Highly recommended.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not a perfect book, Hamsun has again created a unique character, a unique atmosphere, and something resembling Musil's "man without qualities" in the person of Nagel. Mysteries, in some ways, supercedes "Hunger" in scope and depth of writing, but is much more disorganized and not as consistent in tone. Both Hunger and Mysteries simmered and seethed with nervousness, desperation, exhausted illumination, and fascinating strangeness, but where Hunger flowed essentially like four movements of a symphony, Mysteries weaves through high and low points of artistic success. Still, I have to say I was moved many times and found myself totally immersed in Nagel's dark subconcious wanderings and flights of fancy. The chapter where he recounts the story of his night following Jack-O-Lantern through the woods was especially striking.

[Ludmilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Güvenilmez bir baş karakter mi arıyorsunuz? Alın size Johan Nagel.

Kitap boyu Nagel'in tutarsızlıkları peşinde sürüklenip gidiyorsunuz. Kitabı çekici yapan da bu. Nagel'in neyi, niye anlattığını anlamaya çalışmak.

Nagel'in davranışları Hamsun romanlarında sıklıkla gözlemleyebileceğiniz romantik bir ilişkinin ve küçük bir çevrenin içinde gözlemleniyor. Kitabı sıkıcı yapan da bu.

Evet, Hamsun büyük yazar, Nagel'i tüm derinliğiyle yansıtıyor. Ve bir kahramanı, ona dair flashback olmadan, eylemleri üzerinden, uydurduğu hikayeler üzerinden kavramaya çalışıyoruz. Hamsun bunu çok iyi başarıyor.

Ama bu kitabın sıkıcı olduğu gerçeğini değiştirmiyor. Güvenilmez karakterler içeren kitapları özellikle seviyorsanız ya da Hamsun aşığıysanız benden çok çok çok daha fazla seveceğinize eminim.
Notum: 3/5

[Alma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…”

“But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there.”

“I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.”

[Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

أسرار .....كنوت هامسون

توماس مان كان يرى أنه لم تٌمنح جائزة نوبل قط لكاتبأكثرجدارة بها من كنوت هامسون.

أهو دستويفسكي بُعث من جديد فعلا؟أم أننا لم نفتح بعد كل الأبواب المتاحة لنا في عوالم الأدب الجليلة.
كنوت هامسون واحد من أهم الكتاب الأوروبيين في نهايات القرن ال19 وأوائل القرن العشرين،فهو من أهم الأصوات التي نادت بالتحرر للأدبمن قبضة الكتاب الكلاسيكيين،ولميكتف بمجرد هجوم ما عليهمخ،بل اتبعه بكتابة ما أجمع الكتاب على إنها واحدة من تحفه العظيمة،وهي روايته أسرار.
ولولا انحياز الرجل للحركة النازية ودفاعه عن هتلر،لكنا وجدنا احتفاء أكثروأكثربه.

الرواية ببساطة عبارة عن خليط ممتع بين الرواية النفسية المتقنه ذات العمق الكاشف لشخوصه،وبين حس جريمة،وفوق كل ذلكقدرة على مفاجأة القارئ وأن يصدمه.

رواية عظيمة بكل ما تحملها الكلمة من معنى.

[Rhett · Rating 5 out of 5]

It reminded me a lot of Twin Peaks--there's even a midget, and there's actually a Twin Peaks episode that drops Hamsun's name, so I'm sure David Lynch loves this book--but the Agent Cooper isn't an agent, he's an eccentric stranger who mysteriously shows up in a small town in Norway, who like Cooper, mingles and charms his way into the town scene and gets caught up in their dark inner secrets. Same tone and scariness and humor too.....I want to reread this soon.

[Ahmed Taha · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية لطيفة، رغم أني لم أفهم ما حدث في النهاية! أو أتظاهر بذلك، لا أدري.
تكلم من قدم نسختها العربية كثيرا عن تيار الوعي، لكن ما شدني أكثر هي طريقة نيجل في التلاعب بعقل من حوله، لا أدري الوصف الصحيح هل mind games? Manipulation? Brainwashing?
أود لو كانت لدي هذه القدرة الغير نبيلة، لكني أطيب من مارتا للأسف.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ciezko mi tę ksiazke oceanic, byla bardzo intrygujqca ale styl pisania byl ciezki

[Jim Leckband · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always wanted to read a book by an author named Knut. But first let me give you 200 crowns and I'll tell you a story that happened to me in San Francisco. First, though, I'm in love with you and I can't live without you. I can't really play the violin even though I have a violin case but everybody in town wants me to play. You're really a very sinister person underneath - it might not look like it now, but you will turn out badly - like The Midget. The dastardly midget replaced my prussic acid with spring water and I've tried to kill myself but all I do is run around and slam my head into the ground. And that chair that is missing two legs - it is a masterpiece! I collect them and cowbells and will give you 200 crowns for it!

A stranger comes into town and causes mayhem and confusion. What it all means? I don't know, but the above paragraph sums it up as much as anything else can. What are the mysteries? It's a mystery...

[Nataša]

Rekoh već da mi je nedostajalo Hamsunovo pisanje...i stojim iza toga. Drago mi je da opet dohvatih njegovo štivo, prepustih se živopisnom pripovedanju i na par dana preselih ponovo u norveške krajeve.

Istovremeno, moram priznati i da mi je ovo bilo, za čitanje, jedno od (njegovih) napornijih dela - ne jer je teško, turobno ili nerazumljivo, već iz razloga što mi je glavni junak bio izuzetno antipatičan...tirade unutrašnjih monologa, buka misli i teatralne besede u društvu su u meni na trenutke izazivale žestoko negodovanje i reakcije tipa "dokle više!?"

Već duže vreme se nisam srela sa muškim književnim likom koji u ovolikoj meri odiše jadom i patetikom...iako Hamsunu upravo takvi nisu uopšte strani.
(Setimo se sirotog pukovnika Tomasa, žrtve neuzvraćene ljubavi, zatim Edevarta - on takođe u nekoliko navrata gubi glavu zbog gospođe koja baš i ne haje preterano za njega... čak i večiti lutalica Avgust u sebi nosi neku opšte prisutnu setu i nemir u srcu, uprkos tome što se vazda predstavlja kao glavni dasa, uvek pun priča i kojekakvih dogodovština - Nagel me je nebrojeno puta podsetio na njega, kad god bi se zaneo nekom svojom storijom.
Sve u svemu, čini mi se da sam nekako najviše razumevanja imala za lamentiranje glavnog junaka Gladi, jer je njegova beda zaista bila osnovana i opravdana.)

S druge strane, ne treba zaboraviti da je Hamsun "napao tradicionalni roman jer primenjuje površnu psihologiju i utilitarno se bavi socijalnim problemima, dok je on u prvi plan istakao "subjektivnost autora", čije viđenje života i ljudi izvire iz emocija..." te i ne čudi što ovo nije klasična naracija koja nas upoznaje sa žiteljima učmalog skandinavskog grada, već ulazi u mračne dubine ljudske psihe - pa ko voli, nek izvoli.

Kao zaključak bih ipak navela da - ja volim :)
Iako svaka njegova naredna knjiga ostavlja sve slabiji utisak (možda je došlo do zasićenja ili "već viđeno" momenta), neosporno je da mi je Hamsun i te kako prirastao srcu i verujem da ću mu se i dalje vraćati. Čitanje njegove proze (u LOMovom izdanju, naravno) je u mom slučaju već postalo svojevrsni ritual, koji rado praktikujem, bar jednom godišnje.

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes. "Mercurial." That is the word that kept coming to my mind to describe Johan Nagel, the central character of Knut Hamsun's masterful Mysteries. Specifically, entries 2 and 4. Maybe not "thievishness" (though I wouldn't put it past him--not for a second), but Nagel embodied the other characteristics so much that I often found myself wondering if he was actually a flesh-and-blood human or some kind of earthbound trickster god sentenced by the "All-Father" to live among the mortals. I doubt it, but I can't rule it out. Such are the "mysteries" that Hamsun gives us.

Certainly there are abundant mysteries in Mysteries, but I didn't see the novel as a puzzle that Hamsun intended for us to piece together to get all the answers, like those people who analyzed, re-analyzed and over-analyzed every single element of Lost trying to find the answer instead of just enjoying the damn show. I doubt that Hamsun had all the answers himself. I think he knew that the questions are so much more interesting than the answers.

Agh, I loved the book (maybe not as quite as much as Hunger, but it's up there), but I'm not quite feeling a review for it yet. Maybe I'll try again later.

Just read s.penkevich's review, it is quite dandy.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nagel is a disrupter—he annihilates social norms wherever he goes. And in this case he goes to a small town by the sea, where he proceeds to woo various women, tell outrageous stories while holding drunken court in his hotel room, and generally act at odds with conventional behavior. He is immediately drawn to both the town’s outcasts and its social elite, equally at ease in the company of both. Though he can be charming and the life of the party, he is also an outsider, appearing only to play a role in social situations, while when alone he grows anxious and disturbed. At his most interesting Nagel reminds me of many of Robert Walser's characters, but more volatile in his unpredictability. At his least interesting he is a bloviating cad prone to tedious, rambling monologues that taxed my patience as a reader. His frequent speeches and diatribes wreak havoc on the pacing of the novel, much to its detriment. Ultimately this lacks the narrative drive and focus of Hunger, but nonetheless it’s an interesting literary artifact. No doubt it generated quite a bit of head scratching when it was published.

[Vahid · Rating 4 out of 5]

صندوقچه‌ای از اسرار که قفلش باز نشد!
کتابی کم حادثه و پرحرف که هم حرف‌های خوبی برای گفتن داشت و هم در جاهایی از داستان کشدار و خسته کننده به نظر می‌رسید.
ناگل شخصیت محوری داستان بسیار مرموز و عجیب بود.
دروغگو، دیوانه، صادق، مست، حقه‌باز، نفرت‌انگیز، دوست‌داشتنی، هوسباز، عاشق‌پیشه و...
تقریباً شبیه قهرمان یادداشت‌های زیرزمینی!
استادی هامسون در ارائه مرزهای لطیف و ظریف عشق و نفرت‌ ستودنی بود یعنی شما به عنوان خواننده کتاب نمی‌توانستید درباره شخصیت ناگل قضاوت کنید که آیا دوستش بدارید یا از او متنفر باشید.
مسلماً شاید به نظر دوستان کتابی جذاب و خواندنی نباشد اما برای علاقمندان به موشکافی لایه‌های پیچیده روح و روان انسان خواندنی و عالی است.