Dreamers Book

I first encountered Knut Hamsun while checking out the Munch exhibit gift shop at Chicago's Art Institute. Apparently the show organizers decided to include some books along with bookbags and erasers featuring "The Scream" and my friend Paul, an English professor, pointed at Hamsun's "Mysteries and said, "Have you read that? You'd like it." Now, I have to admit, my ego took a hit that afternoon. I love these depressing, northern European writers. How in the hell have I not heard of a guy who fits the bill AND won the Nobel? Dammit. Anyway, yay for new discoveries. Upon my return home I looked up Mysteries on the library site, but they didn't have a copy across the system, so I requested Dreamers instead.

And what of Dreamers? The short novel reads like an entertaining story you'd hear at a bar told by a manic-depressive drunk who may be a little too insightful for his own good. Storylines interlock and the characters, among them a hyperverbal manwhore with a good idea for how to improve the fish-glue production process, a conservative preacher with a letter-writing fetish, his decidedly inappropriate wife, and the town's leading businessman with a desperate desire to maintain appearances scheme, argue, and make-up on a near daily basis.

Hamsun transcends the pedestrian nature of small town intrigue through his insight into the psychological processes of characters both fooling and convincing themselves of their own perceptions and desires. Within 125 fairly-large-font pages, the kind of novel Hamsun probably planned on a walk into town, the author succeeds without going the ponderous, heavy-handed route.

I get the feeling Dreamers isn't one of Hamsun's major works; Mysteries and Hunger seem to fit that bill. I'll track the former down soon. Thanks, Paul, for pointing out the book…I owe you one.