Hamsun was
born in the country, of and among peasants. In such surroundings he
grew up. The removal of his parents from the central inland part of
Norway to the rocky northern coast meant a change of natural setting,
but not a human contact. The sea must have come into his life as a
revelation, and yet it plays an astonishingly small part in his work. It
is always present, but always in the distance. You hear of it, but you
are never taken to it.
At about fifteen, Hamsun had an experience which is rarely mentioned as
part of the scant biographical material made available by his reserve
concerning his own personality. He returned to the old home of his
parents in the Gudbrand Valley and worked for a few months as clerk in a
country store--a store just like any one of those that figure so
conspicuously in almost every one of his novels. The place and the work
must have made a revolutionary impression on him. It apparently aroused
longings, and it probably laid the basis for resistances and resentments
that later blossomed into weedlike abundance as he came in contact with
real city life. There runs through his work a strange sense of sympathy
for the little store on the border of the wilderness, but it is also
stamped as the forerunner and panderer of the lures of the city.
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