![]() Nagel is living off an inheritance and could care less about money, which he gladly attempts to dispense with in every bar, shop and encounter with his newfound subjects. ![]() In fact, he falls in love ("obsesses over" might be more accurate) with two different women and befriends the village idiot, Miniman, about whom he is curious as though he were his own doppelganger. ![]() Johan Nilsson Nagel randomly decides to take up residence in a small Norwegian village and involve himself in its social life. Like Hunger, Mysteries depicts a man at wits end, alienated and starving for fulfillment in a crass and forsaken world. It is an obvious offshoot of Hunger in that it deals with one man's existential crisis, and contains a slight amount of foreshadowing for the pastoral ideals attempted in Growth of the Soil. This is the third book of Hamsun's I've read at this point - Growth of the Soil and Hunger being the other two - and I'd say, probably the best of these. ![]() The existential nightmare par excellence of unrequited love. ![]()
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