{"id":6448,"date":"2019-06-30T19:25:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T17:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/?p=6448"},"modified":"2020-05-30T18:49:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T16:49:07","slug":"victoria-knut-hamsun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/2019\/06\/victoria-knut-hamsun\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria \u2022 Knut Hamsun"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Anyone who blogs about books can confirm that doing so inevitably leads to meeting wonderful bookish people. One such acquaintance has become a truly good and much-appreciated email pen pal of mine. Time and again, she has recommended Victoria<\/em> by Knut Hamsun to me. Her copy of this short novel is not very appealing, so I went looking for one myself and actually found a very lovely, albeit old, edition. Victoria<\/em> also carries the subtitle The Story of a Love<\/em>. And an old and little-known love story\u2014well, that always works for me.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The book tells the story of Johannes, the son of a miller, and Victoria, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Victoria lives not far from the village in a grand mansion that everyone simply calls \u201cthe castle.\u201d The story begins when fourteen-year-old Johannes is sent to serve as a boatman, rowing Victoria, her brother, and a young guest from the city to an island so they can explore it. The social divide is already palpable in this first encounter, and even after Johannes and Victoria confess their feelings for each other, it remains an apparently insurmountable obstacle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Of course, the story quickly moved me, as the struggle and conflict over great love always do. The characters feel authentic; their reactions and actions are believable, and through the way they behave, one can sense the inner struggles each of them faces. The story itself doesn\u2019t offer anything truly new\u2014it\u2019s a classic love story. Still, it\u2019s a very pleasant read. I especially liked the subtle nuances in the relationship between Johannes and Victoria\u2014the unspoken tension that resonates in their often terse dialogues and becomes very tangible. I often have the impression that, in the early 20th century, this delicate portrayal of relationships was something of a trend. Here, the grand dramas so typical of 19th-century novels are largely absent. Instead, readers are drawn into finely crafted human relationships that fascinate precisely because of their understated, invisible yet deeply felt emotional undercurrents. Keyserling\u2019s Waves<\/a><\/em>, Colette\u2019s Awakening Hearts<\/a><\/em>, and Fitzgerald\u2019s The Great Gatsby<\/a><\/em> are, in my view, novels that belong in a similar category.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The omniscient narrator tells the story from Johannes\u2019s perspective, and so the language is quite simple. The sentences are short, and especially at the beginning, they convey the young Johannes\u2019s naivety very well. But even as the story progresses, the language remains straightforward. From this point of view, the book is an easy read, though Hamsun repeatedly delights with beautiful descriptions of the setting\u2014be it the park surrounding the mansion or the landscape and weather outside the small room where Johannes eventually spends much of his time writing. It\u2019s truly lovely to read. There are a few lines that I particularly liked, even if they might sound a bit sentimental.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If someone asks what love is, it is nothing but a wind rustling through the roses and then dying away. Yet often it is also like an unbreakable seal that lasts an entire lifetime, until death. (p. 140)<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As mentioned at the beginning, my edition is quite beautiful, even if it\u2019s old\u2014dating back to 1956. The linen cover has an elegant color, and I also love the embossed golden rose. It\u2019s a bit kitschy, yes, but still classy. A book that, by the way, was another great low-budget find\u2014it cost me less than two euros including shipping. You just need the right tip to unearth such a lost treasure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Conclusion:<\/strong> My dear email pen pal gave me a truly wonderful recommendation with Victoria<\/em>. Though the love story is ordinary, it still moved me and led me through a pleasantly concise tale that stands out especially for its subtle emotional nuances, which Hamsun brings beautifully to life. The simple language is enriched with lovely depictions of nature\u2014the lush park surrounding the mansion provides an atmospheric backdrop for the protagonists\u2019 dialogues. A thoroughly recommendable read, especially for those on a budget and perfectly suited for a day at the beach.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Book Information:<\/strong> Victoria<\/em> \u2022 Knut Hamsun \u2022 Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft Berlin und Darmstadt \u2022 176 pages \u2022 1956 edition<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who blogs about books can confirm that doing so inevitably leads to meeting wonderful bookish people. One such acquaintance has become a truly good and much-appreciated email pen pal of mine. Time and again, she has recommended Victoria by Knut Hamsun to me. Her copy of this short novel is not very appealing, so … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Victoria \u2022 Knut Hamsun”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Victoria \u2022 Knut Hamsun - lesestunden","description":"Jeder der \u00fcber B\u00fccher bloggt kann best\u00e4tigen, dass man dar\u00fcber ganz sicher Kontakt zu wunderbaren B\u00fcchermenschen findet. Eine solche Bekanntschaft ist mittlerwe"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classics","category-romance","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/victoria_beitrag_2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}