Will I love Hunger?

The only work of fiction on the list, Nobel Laureate Kurt Hamson’s Hunger (1980) was a game changer for modern literature.

Firmly anchored in the point of view of the narrator, we journey painfully with a man, a writer as a matter of fact, on the way down into the depths of meaningless, despair, and hunger. Adapted into several films, the story reflects how little society values the intellectual capital of people it perceives as the dregs and describes in detail the effects of starvation on the human mind.

A worrying and unsettling read, Hunger remains the best work of… show more.

I found this book mentioned in one of Charles Bukowski’s. If Bukowski liked it, I surely would, too, I thought. This is, without a doubt, a severely strange book. Hunger followers the narrator as he desperately tries to become a successful writer while battling the hardships of starvation and homelessness. He becomes delusional with grandiose ideas and attempts to humiliate a love interest of his. This book will leave you questioning your literary choices.  

Hamsun's account of a man’s refusal to die of starvation in 1880s Kristiania. His protagonist yearns for life and love as he pursues the impulses of his subconscious, even though they seem to only lead to his further degradation and destruction. Is there a deeper purpose to this apparent madness? Perceptions, sensations, and fears, all assail the young man's soul, even as he tries to write another article for the local newspaper editor or attempts to hide the fact his trousers are falling apart. The sight on the street of the woman he calls Ylayali, and the yearning aroused, keeps… show more.

The quintessential me-against-the-world book, the model that all later attempts are measured against. Knut Hamsun’s description of himself as a hunger-stricken artist in 1890’s Christiania (modern day’s Oslo) manages to create such reading hunger in the reader that he will almost refer to this book as his first real meal. The prose is simply electric. Imagine incredible Norway at around 1900 when this small nation could pride itself of four world-class artists: Henrik Ibsen (born 1828), Edvard Grieg (born 1843), Edvard Munch (born 1863), and Knut Hamsun (born 1859).