But these years
finished the preparatory stage of Hamsun's education. During the solitary
watches he matured as an artist and as a man. In his very first effort
upon his return to civilisation he proved that the days of aimless
fumblings were over: in "Hunger" he stands suddenly revealed as a master
of style and description, a bold and independent thinker, a penetrating,
keen psychologist, a realist of marked virility.
Since "Hunger" was written Hamsun has published over thirty large works--
novels, dramas, travel descriptions, essays, and poems. Every one of them
is of a high order. Each is unlike the rest; but through them all flash in
vivid gleams a dazzling witchery of style, a bewildering originality, a
passionate nature-worship, and an imagination which at times takes away
the breath.
"Shallow Soil," in some respects the most contained of Hamsun's works, is
perhaps best suited as a medium for his introduction to Anglo-Saxon
readers. In a very complete analysis of Hamsun's authorship the German
literary critic, Professor Carl Morburger, thus refers to "Shallow Soil":
"Not only is this book Knut Hamsun's most significant work, but it gives
the very best description available of life in Christiania toward the
close of the century.
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