For his epoch-making masterpiece "The Growth of the Land". -------- Reasons for award
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Composition Materials of Hamson | Interpretation of the works of the 1920 Nobel Prize winners in literature (weekend good article)
Knut Hamson, another Norwegian novelist, dramatist and poet in the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, lived a turbulent life, living a life of displacement and hunger from an early age due to his poverty, and in his later years he was banned from an old people's home in Oslo because of his support for the Nazi Party.
However, the ill-fated fate did not lead to the demise of this great writer, and even the Norwegian people looked at Hamson in two: to criticize his political views and commemorate his literary legacy.
Hamson was fascinated by literary creation since childhood, and he believed that "language must have the harmonious effect of music." At all times, writers should constantly look for touching language and use it appropriately to bring tears to their eyes. Good language has color, light, and flavor. The writer's mission is to harness language and play its role, not to make it appear powerless—this cannot be ignored. The writer must be able to swim in the ocean of language of Haohan, and must be able to wield it with ease. He must not only know the superficial meaning of the text, but also grasp its connotation. A word often has an unspoken meaning, a latent meaning, and a side-tapping meaning. ”
Hamson opposed neo-romanticism, and at the same time, under the influence of Nietzsche's extreme individualism, advocated a return to nature, opposed modern civilization in Europe, and advocated psychological literature.
In addition, Hamson's writing style was influenced by the American writer Mark Twain, who used humorous language to satirize American society at the time (The Spiritual Life of Modern America).
In 1890, he established himself in the literary world with the novel "Hunger", and wrote his books "Mystery", "Shepherd", "Victoria" and "The Growth of the Earth".
His work had an immeasurable influence on twentieth-century European and American literature, and his work opened up a new perspective on the understanding of human nature, so it was extremely revolutionary.
However, such a great writer died badly in his old age due to political errors.
He published articles in support of Hitler's aggressive actions at one point, and even after the German invasion of Norway, he maintained his views.
By 1945, when Norway was liberated, Hamson was convicted of treason, forced to undergo a psychiatric examination, and concluded that "he has lost his normal mental function forever." The conclusion not only sentenced him to a huge sum of money paid to the government, but also imprisoned him in a nursing home in Oslo until his death.
At the end of his life, he created a "On the Deformed Path" to fight back against the psychiatrist, which shows the strong desire to write and the sadness of his ideological state of mind.
"The Growth of the Earth" tells the story of the protagonist Isaac who comes to the barren mountains alone, and through his own long reclamation, he has enough houses and livestock to survive.
Just when he needed a hostess, Ingle with the rabbit lips appeared, and despite her flawed appearance, she was a hard-working and simple woman.
Isaac and Ingle live their lives quietly and peacefully, until the jealous Olin emerges, who denounces Ingle for infanticide in her early years — when Ingle discovers that her newborn daughter is also a rabbit lip, she kills her daughter so that she will not grow up to suffer her own experience.
As a result, Ingle is arrested and imprisoned, and Isaac struggles with his life while waiting for his wife until the mysterious Giesler appears.
Geisler pitied Isaac and helped Isaac run around in Ingle, and eventually Ingle was released from prison, but she changed.
During her days in prison, she learned a lot of knowledge and experienced life in the city, and she gradually lost sight of the monotony and tedium of the countryside.
Throughout the process, their children grew up, with the eldest and second sons being the most prominent.
The eldest son was as clever and vain as his mother, doing decent work in the city, but knew nothing about farming, and after spending all his father's money, went to America to have a beautiful leather bag, and never returned.
The second son is very similar to his father, he is industrious and pragmatic, satisfying his life with his hands, while also enjoying the pleasure brought to him by nature.
In addition to the life of the family, there are many side stories to tell about those "passers-by of the earth".
The work ends with the theme of "Ingle had previously experienced a terrifying journey, when she lived in the city, and now she has returned home; in the vast world, there are countless tiny specks of dust -- Ingle is one of them." Man is nothing more than such an insignificant grain of dust. Then night came. "As an end.
"The Growth of the Earth" is like a documentary, telling the story of what happened in this land, without comment or lyricism.
From one person to two people a home, gradually not only more cattle and sheep, but also the outside world gradually involved, and then connected with the outside world, people began to be affected by urban life and then have different choices and destinations, this work shows the history of human social development of "there is no road in this world, more people have become a road".
Every male in this work has the shadow of Hamson, who, like the protagonist Isaac, loves the rustic pastoral life and natural scenery, while the mysterious man Geisler is his inner entanglement and confession.
The author expresses a strong disdain for industrial society.
Indeed, the development of science and technology has gradually alienated people's feelings, such as the existence of mobile phones and game consoles, so that people now spend less and less time with those close to them, and gradually humans are no longer animals that use tools, but animals that are dominated by tools.
In addition, the rapid replication of commodities and the rapid consumption of goods make people work harder for material values, and fewer and fewer people are willing to be patient to read or sit with their families.
The narrative style of this work is also fresh and simple, but the author's portrayal of rural life is extremely vivid and profound, and it has a sense of substitution, but there are very few readers who can resonate.
Indeed, whether it is literary works or film and television works, many endings are attributed to the pastoral hermitage, which shows that this comfortable and simple life is what modern people yearn for.
However, in this work, it tells how to build houses by piling, how to breed and cultivate, etc., which is similar to the general text of popular science, and has a slight difference from the idealized and romantic pastoral life that modern people yearn for.
The "return to basics" that modern people aspire to seems to need to be based on having enough economic foundations to own a garden and a villa, and how many people have imagined how the house was completed.
In contrast, How simple, real and precious Hamson's pastoral life is.
There is no denying the greatness and success of this work, but this kind of documentary or even flowing account description is a huge challenge for today's readers.
It does not have a plot of ups and downs, and it can be said that this work requires the reader to calm down and slowly read and enter.
In addition, while praising nature and laborers and affirming a self-sufficient agricultural society, the author also expresses the author's conservative and limited ideas, which come from two aspects.
One aspect is the contempt for women.
Most of the male characters in this work have good qualities, such as the protagonist Isaac is simple and industrious, the mysterious man Geisler is intelligent and tolerant, the second son Sylvit is simple and inherited, and even the eldest son Ellers is simple and kind, although he is incompetent, lazy and vain, and also inherits the characteristics of his mother.
The description of women is less tolerant, they are symbols of desire, compromising to power and money.
Another aspect is to put the city and the countryside on the opposite side, and it seems that all those who have come into contact with the city will become impetuous and snobbish.
But do the two have to be incompatible?
What kind of person a person will become is derived from the guidance of his heart, not from what environment he lives in and what past he has experienced, perhaps these will have an impact on the trajectory of a person's life, which is also gradually infiltrated and intermingled.
If things change with the environment in which they live and experience, how can they "come out of the mud without staining, and clean up without demonizing"?
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