Pan (novel)

Last updated
Pan
PanHamsun.jpg
Early edition cover
Author Knut Hamsun
Original titlePan
Translator Sverre Lyngstad
James McFarlane
Language Norwegian
Genre Novel
Publisher Gyldendal Norsk Forlag
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Penguin Classics
Publication date
1894 (Norway)
1921 (USA)
Publication place Norway
Media typePrint
Pages192
Preceded byNy Jord 
Followed byVed Rigets Port 

Pan is an 1894 novel by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. He wrote it while living in Paris and in Kristiansand, Norway. It remains one of his most famous works.

Contents

Plot summary

Lieutenant Thomas Glahn, a hunter and ex-military man, lives alone in a hut in the forest with his faithful dog Aesop. Upon meeting Edvarda, the daughter of a merchant in a nearby town, they are strongly attracted to each other, but neither understands the other's love. Overwhelmed by the society of people where Edvarda lives, Glahn suffers a series of tragedies before he leaves forever.

Symbolism

The changing seasons are reflected in the plot: Edvarda and Glahn fall in love in spring; make love in the summer; and end their relationship in the autumn.

The contradicting symbols of culture and nature are important in the novel: Glahn belongs to nature, while Edvarda belongs to culture.

Much of what happens between Glahn and Edvarda is foreshadowed when Glahn dreams of two lovers. The lovers' conversations also foretell the future.

Epilogue

The Epilogue: Glahn's Death is told from another person's perspective. In the main narrative of the book, which is told in first person by Glahn, he sees himself as awkward and unattractive. The Epilogue shows that is not the case, instead from an outsider's viewpoint Glahn is beautiful, talented and desired. Glahn has left Nordland and moved to India to be alone in the forest and to hunt, but he is suicidal because of his lost love, and when he can not bear it any longer he provokes the narrator of the Epilogue into shooting him.

Film adaptations

The novel has been adapted for film four times. The first was a Norwegian silent film directed by Harald Schwenzen in 1922. In 1937, a German-made version was produced under the sponsorship of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who considered Hamsun one of his favorite authors. Goebbels had initially attempted to get Greta Garbo for this film, but was unsuccessful, and he did not like the finished film, which became the first foreign film to be released in Norway with its soundtrack dubbed into Norwegian. The next version, a color production by the Swedish studio Sandrews, was directed by Bjarne Henning-Jensen and released in 1962 under the title Kort är sommaren (Summer is short). A Danish-Norwegian-German version, directed by Danish director Henning Carlsen, was released in 1995. [1] The book is also the basis of Guy Maddin's 1997 Canadian film Twilight of the Ice Nymphs [2] and the primary inspiration for Ben Rivers' 2011 docufiction Two Years at Sea . [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knut Hamsun</span> Norwegian novelist (1859–1952)

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 23 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Maddin</span> Canadian director, screenwriter and author

Guy Maddin is a Canadian screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer, and film editor of both features and short films, as well as an installation artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since completing his first film in 1985, Maddin has become one of Canada's most well-known and celebrated filmmakers.

<i>Hunger</i> (Hamsun novel) 1890 novel by Knut Hamsun

Hunger is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1890 by P.G. Philipsens Forlag. The novel has been hailed as the literary opening of the 20th century and an outstanding example of modern, psychology-driven literature. Hunger portrays the irrationality of the human mind in an intriguing and sometimes humorous manner.

Victoria is a novel by Knut Hamsun.

<i>Ask the Dust</i> Novel by John Fante

Ask the Dust is the most popular novel of American author John Fante, first published in 1939 and set during the Great Depression era in Los Angeles. It is one of a series of novels featuring the character Arturo Bandini as Fante's alter ego, a young Italian-American from Colorado struggling to make it as a writer in Los Angeles.

<i>Twilight of the Ice Nymphs</i> 1997 Canadian film

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs is a 1997 fantasy romance film directed by Guy Maddin. The screenplay was written by George Toles and inspired by the novel Pan (1894) by Knut Hamsun, with an additional literary touchstones being the short story "La Vénus d'Ille" (1837) by Prosper Mérimée. Twilight of the Ice Nymphs was Maddin's second feature film in colour and his first shot in 35 mm, on a budget of $1.5 million. As seen in Noam Gonick's documentary Waiting for Twilight, Maddin was dissatisfied with the filmmaking process due to creative interference from his producers.

Pan is a 1922 Norwegian film directed by Harald Schwenzen. It was the first of four film adaptations of the novel of the same name by 1920 Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun, and one of the earliest Scandinavian adaptations of a Hamsun work. It tells the story of a romance between a wealthy woman and a soldier, and was filmed in Nordland and in Algeria.

<i>Growth of the Soil</i> Novel by Knut Hamsun

Growth of the Soil is a novel by Knut Hamsun which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. It follows the story of a man who settles and lives in rural Norway. First published in 1917, it has since been translated from Norwegian into many languages including English. The novel was written in the popular style of Norwegian new realism, a movement dominating the early 20th century. The novel exemplified Hamsun's aversion to modernity and inclination towards primitivism and the agrarian lifestyle. The novel employed literary techniques new to the time such as stream of consciousness. Hamsun tended to stress the relationship between his characters and the natural environment. Growth of the Soil portrays the protagonist (Isak) and his family as awed by modernity, yet at times, they come into conflict with it. The novel contains two sections titled Book One and Book Two. The first book focuses almost solely on the story of Isak and his family and the second book starts off by following the plight of Axel and ends mainly focusing on Isak's family.

<i>On Overgrown Paths</i> 1967 novel by Knut Hamsun

On Overgrown Paths is the English title of the final novel by Norwegian author and nobel laureate Knut Hamsun. Hamsun's attempt to prove his soundness of mind after his sanity was called into question. Written at the age of 90, as his last literary work, the short novel is part a fiction pamphlet, part diary, part old man's apologia and part protest at the court ruling in his 1948 trial, that determined he had "permanently impaired mental abilities".

<i>My Winnipeg</i> Canadian film

My Winnipeg is a 2007 Canadian film directed and written by Guy Maddin with dialogue by George Toles. Described by Maddin as a "docu-fantasia", that melds "personal history, civic tragedy, and mystical hypothesizing", the film is a surrealist mockumentary about Winnipeg, Maddin's home town. A New York Times article described the film's unconventional take on the documentary style by noting that it "skates along an icy edge between dreams and lucidity, fact and fiction, cinema and psychotherapy".

Henning Carlsen was a Danish film director, screenwriter, and producer most noted for his documentaries and his contributions to the style of cinéma vérité. Carlsen's 1966 social-realistic drama Hunger (Sult) was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film. Carlsen also won the Bodil Award the following year for the comedy People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart. Acting as his own producer since 1960, Carlsen has directed more than 25 films, 19 for which he wrote the screenplay. In 2006, he received the Golden Swan Lifetime Achievement Award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osvald Helmuth</span> Danish stage and film actor and revue singer

Osvald Helmuth was a Danish stage and film actor and revue singer.

<i>Hamsun</i> (film) 1996 Danish film

Hamsun is a 1996 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Jan Troell, about the later life of the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, who, together with his wife Marie Hamsun, went from being a national hero to a traitor after supporting Nazi Germany during their occupation of Norway during World War II.

James Walter McFarlane was a scholar of European literature, author of The Oxford Ibsen, and founding Dean of the School of European Studies at University of East Anglia which included Scandinavian studies.

Pan is a 1995 Danish/Norwegian/German film directed by the Danish director Henning Carlsen. It is based on Knut Hamsun's 1894 novel of the same name, and also incorporates the short story "Paper on Glahn's Death", which Hamsun had written and published earlier, but which was later appended to editions of the novel. It is the fourth and most recent film adaptation of the novel—the novel was previously adapted into motion pictures in 1922, 1937, and 1962.

Dreamers is a novel by Knut Hamsun from 1904. The novel is among Hamsun's last set in Nordland and it contains many comical and caricatured people and events.

Wayfarers is a 1989 Norwegian feature film directed by Ola Solum. The screenplay was written by Hans Lindgren, Lars Saabye Christensen, and Solum. It is based on the 1927 novel Wayfarers by Knut Hamsun. The film depicts Nordland during the transition between the era of the "privileged traders" and modernity in the 1860s.

Growth of the Soil is a Norwegian silent film from 1921 based on Knut Hamsun's novel Growth of the Soil. The Danish filmmaker Gunnar Sommerfeldt wrote the screenplay and directed the film, and he also played the role of the bailiff Geissler in the film. Sommerfeldt invested DKK 240,00 in the film, which was a considerable sum in 1921.

The Last Joy is the third book in Knut Hamsun's "wanderer trilogy." The novel was published in 1912, when Hamsun was just over 50 years old and had much of his writing ahead of him, but already knew the weight of age. The novel is set in the first person; the narrator has lived his life and now has the last joy of opting out of everything and just being with himself in nature. However, in Hamsuns's manner he cannot do it without revealing his self-deception.

Edvarda is a given name which is in use in Scandinavia. It is the feminine derivative of Edvard.

References

  1. Lunde, Arne (2009). "Knut Hamsun at the movies in transnational contexts". Nordlit. 13 (2): 41–52. doi: 10.7557/13.688 .
  2. William Beard, Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin (University of Toronto Press, 2010), ISBN   978-1442610668, pp.131ff. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  3. Ben Rivers, "Ben Rivers by Coleen Fitzgibbon"