Troubling legacies : migration, modernism, and fascism in the case of Knut Hamsun

197 Pages·2010·1.174 MB·English

by  Sjølyst-Jackson, Peter

Troubling Legacies
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Troubling Legacies
Migration, Modernism and Fascism
in the Case of Knut Hamsun
Peter Sjølyst-Jackson
Continuum International Publishing Group
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© Peter Sjølyst-Jackson 2010
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ISBN: 978-0-8264-3815-7 (hardcover)
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Abbreviations viii
Introduction: Legacies of Hamsun 1
1 ‘. . . Kristiania, That Strange City . . .’: Location and Dislocation
in Hunger 20
2 Aristocratic Radicalism: Nietzsche, Brandes and Strindberg 37
3 Mysteries and Pan: Sex, Class and Laughter 57
4 Geographies of the Unhomelike: In Wonderland and the
Rhetoric of National Rootedness 76
5 Double Monument: Growth of the Soil – After the Nobel Prize
and Nazism 94
6 Reading Hamsun, Reading Nazism 115
7 Treacherous Testimony: On Overgrown Paths and
the Rhetoric of Deafness 135
Notes 154
Bibliography 171
Index 181
Acknowledgements
The impetus for this book dates back to my formative years at the University of
Sussex, during which the Arts and Humanities Research Board funded the
initial stages of my research. Special thanks to Prof. Nicholas Royle for being an
exacting reader with a keen eye for details and their wider implications; I am
grateful to him for pointing out what matters, and for generously helping this
book see the light of day. Thanks are also due to Marcus Wood for being an
encouraging infl uence. I am grateful to Maud Ellmann and Laura Marcus who
indicated the way ahead for this research; Anthony Mellors at Birmingham City
University for his constructive comments on the draft proposal for this book;
and the Hamsun scholar, Lars Frode Larsen, for checking a crucial fact in the
fi nal stages of writing.
For help with translating German extracts, I am grateful to Katharine
Sarikakis. Any mistakes, in translation or otherwise, are my own. For conversa-
tion and friendship, let me express warm thanks to Val Hill, Lois Wheller,
Tim Morley, Maeve Pearson, Aaron Winter, Alexandra Kookoli, Melanie
Absolon, Lars Helge Strand and Gary Hazeldine. Thanks also to my godpar-
ents, the avid Hamsun readers Kari Brit and Tor Steiner Raugstad, and my
uncle, Steiner Sjølyst, who have lent me many useful books. My father, Antony
Jackson, and my sisters, Ann Lekve and Kirsti Jackson, are always supportive,
and I send them my thanks too. Thanks, fi nally, to Clare Lewis, for love, patience,
proofreading and much more. This book is dedicated to the memory of my
mother, Berit Jackson, and my maternal grandmother, Aagot Sjølyst.
Quotations from the works of Knut Hamsun are by the kind permission of
Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.
Quotations from Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun, copyright © 2007 by
Sverre Lyngstad. Used by permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group
(USA) Inc.
Quotations from Mysteries by Knut Hamsun, translated by Sverre Lyngstad
copyright © 2001 by Sverre Lyngstad. Used by permission of Penguin, a division
of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Quotations from Selected Letters Vol 1: 1879–98 and Selected Letters Vol 2: 1898–52
ed. and tr. Harald Næss and James McFarlane. Norwich, England: Norvik Press,
1990 and 1998, are reproduced with permission of the publisher.
Acknowledgements vii
Excerpts from Points . . .: Interviews, 1974–1994, by Jacques Derrida, edited by
Elisabeth Weber, are reproduced with permission from © 1992 Editions Galilée
and, for the English translation © 1995, the Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University.
Two of the chapters in this book have been published previously. An earlier
version of Chapter 1 appears in Joan Fitzpatrick (ed.), The Idea of the City:
Early-Modern, Modern and Post-Modern Locations and Communities, 2009. It is
published here with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
A shorter version of Chapter 7 appeared as ‘Treacherous Testimony: The Work
of Fiction in the Case of Knut Hamsun’, Southern Review: Communication, Politics
& Culture, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2008.
Abbreviations
The bibliography at the end of this book includes a chronology of Hamsun’s
oeuvre with a comprehensive overview of English translations. Many of the
extracts quoted in the body of Troubling Legacies (e.g. Hamsun’s articles and
lectures) are translated by myself, and appear in English for the fi rst time.
Hamsun’s ‘canonical’ works are often available in multiple translations, and
the abbreviations below indicate the editions I have used. Where possible, for
the benefi t of the English-speaking reader, an original edition is ‘paired’ with a
corresponding English translation. Thus, in the endnotes ‘S, 316/253’ refers to
the 1890 Copenhagen edition of Sult, page 316, paired with Egerton’s transla-
tion, Hunger, page 253. Separate abbreviations are used for additional transla-
tions (e.g. HB & HL). Endnotes also indicate where I have modifi ed the
translation (‘tr. mod.’), or replaced the ‘paired’ translation with my own
(‘my tr.’). All other quotations from Danish and Norwegian texts (primary or
secondary) are translated by myself.
Works by Knut Hamsun
The new edition of Hamsun’s Collected Works was, alas, not complete at the time
of writing; therefore, the old collected works and other collections hitherto
published separately are used where necessary.
Abbreviations for Collected Editions
NHS 1–27 Samlede Verker. Ny Utgave. 27 vols. Ed. Lars Frode Larsen. Oslo:
Gyldendal, 2007–2009.
SV 1–15 Samlede Verker. 15 vols. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1954; tenth impression,
2000.
Other Abbreviations
DSG Den siste glede. NHS vol. 7/The Last Joy. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad.
Copenhagen and Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2003.
Abbreviations ix
FDUS Fra det ubevidste Sjæleliv: Artikler om Litteratur (From the Uncon-
scious Life of the Mind: Articles on Literature). Oslo: Gyldendal,
1994.
FMA Fra det moderne Amerikas åndsliv. NHS vol. 24/The Cultural Life
of Modern America. Tr. and Ed. Barbara Gordon Morgridge.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.
GS Growth of the Soil. Tr. W. W. Worster. London: Souvenir Press, 1995.
HB Hunger. Tr. Robert Bly. London: Picador, 1974.
HL Hunger. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad. New York: Penguin, 2001.
HPS Hamsuns Polemiske Skrifter (Hamsun’s Polemical Writings). Ed.
Gunvald Hermundstad. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1998.
IÆ I Æventyrland. SV vol. 3/In Wonderland. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad.
Minnesota: Ig, 2004.
M Mysterier. København: Philipsen, 1892; facs. edn. Oslo: Gyldendal,
1992/Mysteries. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad. New York: Penguin, 2001.
MG Markens Grøde. NHS vol. 10/Growth of the Soil. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad.
New York: Penguin, 2007.
OH Over Havet. Artikler, Reisebrev (Across the Ocean: Articles and Travel
Letters). Ed. Lars Frode Larsen. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1990.
P Pan. NHS vol. 4/Pan. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad. New York: Penguin,
1998.
PGS Paa gjengrodde Stier. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1949/On Overgrown Paths.
Tr. Sverre Lyngstad. Copenhagen and Los Angeles: Green Integer,
1999.
S Sult. København: Philipsen, 1890; facs. edn. Oslo: Gyldendal,
1992/Hunger. Tr. George Egerton. New York: Knopf, 1920.
SL 1–2 Selected Letters Vol 1: 1879–98 and Selected Letters Vol 2: 1898–52.
Ed. and Tr. Harald Næss and James McFarlane. Norwich, England:
Norvik Press, 1990 and 1998.
UHS Under høststjernen. NHS vol. 5/The Wanderer: Under the Autumn Star
and On Muted Strings. Tr. Oliver and Gunnvor Stallybrass. London:
Picador, 1977.
V Victoria. NHS vol. 4/Victoria. Tr. Sverre Lyngstad. New York:
Penguin, 2005.