Reading Order
PanKnut Hamsun Pan Reading Order
Knut Hamsun's Pan (1894) is one of the most hypnotic novels in the Scandinavian tradition — the story of Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's summer in a northern Norwegian forest, his passionate and doomed love for Edvarda, and the inexplicable cruelty that runs through both their natures. Hamsun wrote Pan immediately after Hunger (1890), his breakthrough novel, and it shares Hunger's interest in the irrational dimensions of consciousness but sets them against a landscape of extraordinary beauty: the Norwegian summer with its endless light, its forests and fjords, its sense of a world almost outside of time. Pan is a short novel of great intensity, organized around the mystery of why two people who love each other cannot stop destroying each other.
Where to start
Pan
Complete Pan Book List
- 1Buy
Pan
Knut Hamsun·1894·Hamsun's most beautiful novel — Glahn's summer in the northern Norwegian forest; the essential companion to Hunger and the work that shows what Hamsun could do when he combined his psychological intensity with a landscape of extraordinary beauty - 2Buy
Hunger
Knut Hamsun·1890·Hamsun's debut novel and his masterpiece of modern psychological fiction — the unnamed narrator's degradation in Christiania; the best starting point for Hamsun if you haven't read him, and essential context for understanding Pan - 3Buy
Mysteries
Knut Hamsun·1892·Hamsun's second novel — Johan Nagel's inscrutable behavior in a small Norwegian coastal town; between Hunger and Pan, and the most mysterious and playful of the three - Buy
The Growth of the Soil
OptionalKnut Hamsun·1917·The novel for which Hamsun won the Nobel Prize — Isak's settlement of a Norwegian wilderness and his creation of a farm over decades; completely different in tone from the earlier trilogy, organized around rootedness rather than rootlessness
Pan — Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I read Knut Hamsun in?
Start with Hunger — it is his breakthrough novel and the work that establishes his psychological method. Then Pan for the most beautiful of his early novels, and Mysteries for the most playful. The Growth of the Soil, for which he won the Nobel Prize, is very different in tone and spirit and can be read at any point.
Is it possible to enjoy Hamsun despite his politics?
Hamsun's Nazi collaboration during the German occupation of Norway — culminating in his obituary for Hitler — is the most serious case in literary history of a great writer's politics making their work difficult to engage with. Many readers and scholars conclude that his pre-Nazi work, produced decades earlier, must be evaluated on its literary merits. The question is a genuine one and each reader must decide for themselves.
What is Pan about?
Pan follows Lieutenant Thomas Glahn, who has retreated to a hunter's cabin in the northern Norwegian forests for a summer. He falls passionately in love with Edvarda, the daughter of a local merchant, and their relationship is characterized by a pattern of approach and withdrawal, tenderness and cruelty, that neither can explain or control. The novel is also a meditation on nature, solitude, and the relationship between civilization and wildness.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.