Activity is a little light, though I know quite a few of you are reading Hunger. I’ll have a little more to say about part one and then compose my thoughts on part two in the next couple of days. I’ve finished the book already - it’s a short read - and that certainly colors my thoughts on the earlier sections.

Remember, if you want to post your thoughts, comments, or analysis, just use the submission form.

Also, I’ve started a Wave that we can use for recommending and voting on the next book we’ll read. If you’ve got a Wave account let me know and I’ll add you to it.

I like reading pieces written in the first person. It’s often like a guided tour through a story. But what I find interesting here is Hamsun’s twist. Narration usually helps the reader move through a story. The guidance provides context and explanation of an uncharted landscape. But what Hamsun does it not so much narrate a story but an existence. We are forced into HP’s (Hamsun’s protagonist’s) mind. In this landscape time doesn’t exist as we expect. There are vague references to it being Fall or it being around noon, or is it three, or maybe almost four. But that’s how the mind works. Dreams are that way. What seems to take hours or days to tell can happen during a cat nap.

It is disorienting and uncomfortable at times. But then it would be for any of us if we tried to follow our own lives by focusing simultaneously on every moment that our brain, body and spirit are experiencing. Trying to present the simultaneous within a linear construct can’t help but produce cacophony. And yet we continue on the journey with HP, experiencing the mundane and magical. By using the first person there is no effort to try to nudge us toward compassion for HP. He seems to fully engage his defeats, finding a perverse pleasure and seemingly illogical rationality in them.  Again he exists and moves solely along his own timeline.

When he describes the gnats that brace “their heels against a comma or an unevenness is the paper, and they intended to stay exactly where they were until they themselves decided it was the right time to go,” it was clearly a metaphor for his own life. He is clearly cognizant throughout that he has options and , while his choices may seem to be random, disjointed and illogical, they are his choices.  His one concession to absolute control is the invisible hand of God that keeps “an open eye on me, and taking care that my defeat proceed after the correct rules of the art, evenly and slowly, with no break in rhythm.”

With this invisible observer in place it seems to me that HP is seeking to create a perfect and perpetual state of limbo in which he is Schrodinger’s cat chasing himself around the box.

readingclub:

Even before I read the first sentence of this book I had already begun contemplating my experience with it. When I arrived at the bookstore shelf I had a choice, not between two covers, but between two translations of the book. The feeling that overtook me was familiar, particularly from a re-reading of one of Kundera’s books a few years ago that had been re-translated. I felt a bit detached, disappointed, confused and quizzical. Which to choose? I ended up selecting the one by Robert Bly. But the question remained: How would my reading of the book be different had I selected the other one? What is gained or lost any time a piece is read in a language other than the one in which it was originally constructed. I always have a vague feeling that I’m not reading the book the author wrote. That isn’t to suggest that translations are bad and I know a couple of translators and know the pains they go through to ensure, as much as is possible, that they convey not only the words and story but the tone, feelings and even cadence of the original. There’s an interesting piece on Reading Translation at http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?lab=HowTo if you wish to ponder the question some more. I’d be curious to know others’ thoughts on the translation conundrum. Well, enough preliminaries, I’ll be back with actual comments on Part 1 shortly.

Those are interesting points. I’ve seen just a little commentary online about the translations of Hunger, with some appreciating the work Bly did over the older translation and others complaining that the poet put a little too much of himself into the work, masking Hamsun too much.

There is certainly a difference between various translations. I’ve mentioned many times before that I found Don Quixote dry and boring in college whereas the Rutherford translation brings the characters to life in a way they’ve never been in English. How much of that is an honest representation of the original and how much the translator’s invention I couldn’t say (though Rutherford’s has been praised.)

I suspect people’s feelings on translations mirrors their feelings on art restorations. Those who think the restored Sistene Chapel looks cartoonish, despite its closer approximation of the original frescoes, will likely find any translation that veers too far from literalism to be wrong. For me, I’m less interested in the cruft that has accumulated over the centuries. If I’m reading a work in English, I want the original. But if I’m reading a translation, I want one that uses more updated language in order to read more like it would to a reader contemporary to the piece.

Even before I read the first sentence of this book I had already begun contemplating my experience with it. When I arrived at the bookstore shelf I had a choice, not between two covers, but between two translations of the book. The feeling that overtook me was familiar, particularly from a re-reading of one of Kundera’s books a few years ago that had been re-translated. I felt a bit detached, disappointed, confused and quizzical. Which to choose? I ended up selecting the one by Robert Bly. But the question remained: How would my reading of the book be different had I selected the other one? What is gained or lost any time a piece is read in a language other than the one in which it was originally constructed. I always have a vague feeling that I’m not reading the book the author wrote. That isn’t to suggest that translations are bad and I know a couple of translators and know the pains they go through to ensure, as much as is possible, that they convey not only the words and story but the tone, feelings and even cadence of the original. There’s an interesting piece on Reading Translation at http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?lab=HowTo if you wish to ponder the question some more. I’d be curious to know others’ thoughts on the translation conundrum. Well, enough preliminaries, I’ll be back with actual comments on Part 1 shortly.

If you’ve got some thoughts on the first part of Hunger, please submit them here. Let’s get a good dialog going.

I finished the first part at lunch today and want to take a day or so to let some of my thinking crystallize before saying much, but I wanted to share a few first thoughts.

What strikes me most about the book is how modern the protagonist feels despite being written 120 years ago. I know this guy; we all know this guy. Today he’d be drinking PBRs and posting sporadically to his highly regarded blog or he’d be that insanely talented dude who’d gone to Berklee, plays six instruments, and plays one show a month, half drunk. He wouldn’t be living on the street but he’d be pretty close to it.

Hamsun’s protagonist (HP for lack of a better name) is so disaffected and disconnected we don’t know his name. His inner life is richly described but crowds around him are barely sketched in. In a few instances Hamsun colors in another character more but there’s a crudeness to the descriptions - and a focus on those aspects that repulse HP - that makes them all less real. Christiania and the surrounding area is described in greater detail - I can feel the cold seeping into me just thinking about the damp forest floor - which makes the people HP encounters seem like so many props.

Hamsun uses an interesting technique where he severely limits dialog and narrates the majority of conversations. Even when engaged with others, HP’s focus is inward. Which focus befits someone with such a pronounced case of bipolar disorder coupled with mild paranoia.

I’ve never known anyone with such rapid and frequent mood swings but I suppose they’re possible. That, or Hamsun shortened the period in order to heighten the tension. Regardless, Hamsun’s descriptions of HP’s internal mental state during each end of the cycle tells me he probably had some first-hand knowledge of them.

I’ll have more to say tomorrow when I’ve noodled over this some more.

How’s everyone else finding Hunger?

Let’s plan to get through part 1 of Hunger this week. That should be a reasonable length for everyone, provides a clean breaking point, and will give us plenty to discuss.

Voting is closed! The winner is…

No. Lemme show you the voting first. And let me tell you how nice it is to be the last to vote. :)

I included every book selection made but one - the Bible¹ - including books I had no interest in reading and books I’d already read and disliked quite a bit. I’m administering this tumblog but I’m not in charge. This is a free forum. Of course this meant I might get stuck reading something I didn’t want to read. Unlike everyone else, some of whom I expect will skip the first book, as the admin I feel compelled to read on no matter what book is selected. So having the last vote and being able to sway any but the most landslide of elections is a nice benefit.

This is simple preference voting. First choice gets three points, second gets two, third gets one. In the case of @jollilama who only cast two votes, he got a 1st and 2nd place vote. In the case of @emilyelisabeth who cast two votes for Hunger and her third for The Great Gatsby, I counted that as a 1st and 2nd for the two books, respectively. I’m not sure how preference ballots normally deal with that situation but it felt counter to the intent to let her pick the same book twice.

Before adding in my votes, we had a three-way tie for the winner between Geek Love, Hunger, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I broke the tie.

Below are the votes recorded from everyone and the outcome:

• ampersands answered: 25, 4, 20
• blanddiva11 answered: 15, 24, 27
• carmenlsigman answered: Oooh! I want! umm 7, 13, 21.
• chicklittumbls answered: 4, 17, 10
• dextercolt answered: 5, 13, 21.
• emilyelisabeth answered: 11, 11, 20 (I really like 11)
• felicitousfun answered: 29, 6, 15
• frageelaytwit answered: 6, 3, 15
• inmi answered: 6, 2, 13
• isawitonthetelevision answered: 15, 23, 19
• jollilama answered: 9, 12
• kaffeineme answered: Can anyone play? 1, 17, 26
• melissasantos answered: 11, 8, 28.
• memymarie answered: 11. 25. 5.
• midseamom answered: 1,8, and 11.
• mikemorrow answered: 4, 6, 25
• milkglassmao answered: 2, 15, 23
• paulosthegreek answered: 19, 17, 2
• piscesinpurple answered: 2, 12, 23
• coyotesqrl votes: 11, 17, 13

Final results:

• 1 vote for Housekeeping
• 1 vote for The Stone Diaires
• 1 vote for Three Day Road
• 1 vote for Tropic of Cancer
• 2 votes for The Magus
• 2 votes for The River King
• 2 votes for American Gods
• 3 votes for The Great Gatsby
• 3 votes for Willard and His Bowling Trophies
• 3 votes for Going After Cacciato
• 3 votes for House of Leaves
• 4 votes for Infinite Jest
• 4 votes for The Dice Man
• 4 votes for The Remains of the Day
• 4 votes for Don Quixote
• 4 votes for Herzog
• 6 votes for A Confederacy of Dunces
• 6 votes for Jitterbug Perfume
• 6 votes for The Road
• 8 votes for Replay
• 8 votes for Angle of Repose
• 9 votes for A Prayer for Owen Meany
• 10 votes for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
• 10 votes for Geek Love
• 13 votes for Hunger

So, Hunger it is. Get a copy and get cracking. We’ll start talking about it next week. Seriously, this is like the wild west here. You have thoughts after reading a bit? Post. Here’s the link to the submission form. Post, comment on posts, let’s get the discussion going sometime late next week.

¹ I have nothing against the Bible and own several. However, I think it’s far too incendiary a topic, there are far too many widely divergent translations, and literary discussions would quickly devolve into theological debates. That’s no damn fun.

Voting closes tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I’ll tally the votes, stuff the box, and give you a completely transparent accounting of the results. If you have a book preference, speak now (or, you know, before tomorrow night) or forever hold your peas.