The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1921-02-05

Heidenstam, the Swede, and after a
gan of three years it is now the turn
of Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian. Evi-
IDENTIFY If Americans are to keep lip
with the times they must pay moro
attention to the Scandinavian lar
guages or put the translators to Woek.
1t is no impeachment OF the Judses
or the prize-winner that Hamsuls
fame should have been so long IN
crossing the Atlantic, although his 90
nance, Hunger" was published as
long ago as 1888. The Nobel prize,
| under the terms Of the founder, is to
be given annually ito the person VINO
shall have produced the greatest work.
| in the ideal sense, lin the world of let
ters," The names are apparently those
of authors with a wide continental rep
utation rather than those most es~
teemed by their own compatriots.
| Hamsun is evidently born writer.
Perhaps his boyhood in the Far North
helped to make him writer, poet and
dreamer. The long arctic nights may
have brought out the hereditary trait.
For such a nature as his is described,
.paradoxical and rebellious as 1t IS
poetic and picturesque" seems neces-
sarily the final fruit Of powerful he
reditary tendencies, and his peasant
forbears are said to have been marked
out from their neighbors at least once
in each generation by an artistic
tendency that made Of them skilled
. craftsmen. At any rate, from the
time he learned to make his letters
he was striving at literary creation.
. and when at seventeen he consented
, to be apprenticed to shoemaker II
was in order that he might earn the
money to have printed at his own ex-
; pense his first two complete works.
! a short novel and long poem.
. The next use he made Of his APP
q premiership was to jump the job with
e some more savings and go to Chris
( tiania, where he hoped to work his
a way through the university. But
(: in that hope he failed. There were
c two reasons for this failure. The
g more important was that he had
: hoped to pay for his lectures by sell
ing stuff to the Christiania publishers
= Of newspapers and periodicals and
2 he couldn't do 1t. They did not want
+ his poetry, his fiction or his essays
4 This failure produced the second rea'
% son. why he could not remain at the
~ university. He became either an un
% bearable nuisance to his fellow stu
% dents or the butt Of their jtbes. The!
10 did not understand him and he made
=. no effort to be understood. So HI
70 left the university and came to Amer
r. lea.
he Hamsun, like other geniuses, wa
re apparently born to be misunderstood
I'd Anyway, shallow Soil," published il
RS 1898, was the result Of Hamsun's lif
Sc among the Bohemfans Of Christiani
in after his street car experience in CHI
an cago. 1t does not seem to have bee
I'M pleasant period In his life. Ev
IDENTIFY he: was no better understoo
,el or liked by the hohemians than
re had been by the students at the un
n. versity dozen years before. Han
wv sun took his revenge by his violer
de attack on the bohemians in "Sha
w. low Soil" The same life has been d
On. scribed by Strindberg in much MOI
ar good humored way.
ae- Hamsun's career and final succe
Oh, seem to point anew the moral that
sh, is hard to keep good man down. F
The had hard life, AM, success seemed
len mere ignis fatuus but he kept I
ger trying.