Bookivorous

My copy of this book heaps extravagant praise on Hamsun and I began reading with my skeptical faculties on full alert (because there's usually an inverse relationship between the height of the heap of praise and the quality of the book). But this time the accolades are justified.Hamsun, like Ibsen and even like Bergman who did the same with film, makes the equation between the fey, almost supernatural quality of the far north and the inner mysteries of the human psyche. It's a compelling, provocative read. Like Johan Nagel, the protagonist, you're never quite sure what's real and what isn't, what can be trusted and what can't. Through the weeks of midsummer, Nagel attempts to settle in a small Norwegian coastal village. He makes friends, makes enemies, tells of his dreams, constructs fables and stumbles towards his inevitable destiny.