I remember reading Paul Auster's essay 'The Art of Hunger', and quickly becoming frustrated with how serious he was being about it. He seemed to like the novel, but also to have missed all the jokes in it. I think Hunger is a funny book, I think Hamsun (at least in his early novels) is a funny writer, and I think people don't mention this enough.

When I get drunk I will usually start talking about Knut Hamsun.

If I try to have a conversation with someone about Knut Hamsun, they will usually either not know who he is, or they might say, 'Oh, yeah. Wasn't he a Nazi?'

Yes.

Hamsun was a Nazi-sympathiser. In his later life - 53 years after the publication of Hunger - he visited Hitler and shook hands with him. There are photographs of it. I think they made a film about it. I read a couple of biographies. Personally, I think Hamsun was a very different person towards the end of his life. But I'm not trying to write a short essay called, 'Can a Nazi be funny?'

(I'm not disputing that Hunger is a very bleak novel, either.)

I'm just saying that I think Hunger is also a funny novel, and I feel confused that people don't seem to pick up on this much. Maybe my idea of comedy is different to everyone else's. I don't know. But when I read Hamsun I laugh a lot.

As far as I can remember, I've only laughed uncontrollably at one other book.

I was about seventeen and bed-ridden with the flu, and a friend dropped round a copy of American Psycho to maybe cheer me up a bit. I remember reading the scene where Patrick Bateman gives his girlfriend a urinal cake at a restaurant, and it made me cry with laughter. But that experience happened probably because I was also ill and doped up on flu medicine.

The only other writer who's done anything physical to me - by 'physical' I mean things like laughing out loud and touching my face and slapping my leg and having to stand up and walk around for a bit and then sit back down - is Knut Hamsun.

I like his early novels - Hunger, Mysteries and Pan - especially.

I get excited just thinking about them. I have to re-read them about once a year. Even though they're in translation the same thing happens to me, each time I read them, no matter which translation I read. I've read three different translations of Hunger now, and the same thing happens each time:

I laugh a lot.

It puts me in a very strange, very good mood.

I feel like I need to talk to people about it.

I think comedy often comes from dark places, and I think there's a very fine line between something being funny and something being horrible. Often something can be funny and horrible simultaneously - just look at David Lynch films. Similarly, Hamsun's comedy often comes out of these horrible situations. The main character does strange things. He follows irrational impulses. He walks around starving and torturing himself. He invents a new word that doesn't mean anything. He convinces himself that an empty paper 'cornet' is full of money. He lies to a policeman. He finally gets some money from somewhere and then spends it all on little cakes. He tries to pawn the buttons on his shirt. He shakes his fist at God. He writes overblown critical essays on little bits of scrap paper.

I think of the character in Hunger as a bit like an existential Charlie Chaplin. He wanders around, playing out all the strange urges and whims people usually have but don't act on: things like 'I could throw myself under that bus' or 'I could pour this glass of water over my head'.

I think comedy often comes out of surprise or shock.  People seem to laugh when they're scared. Hamsun, in Hunger, is ruthless. He presents something odd and a bit scary, which (in my opinion) is the best kind of comedy.

Now I'm trying to think of a final clever analogy, to finish with. I don't quite know how to end this.

I'm trying very hard.

I can't think of one.

(I keep thinking about Paul Auster giving a serious talk about literature with his flies unzipped.)

Anyway, I like Hunger very much. I think you should give it a try, if you haven't already.

back to top