The three volumes of Thorkild Hansen’s books are extremely relevant to read nowadays as it was for almost half a century ago. A great personality, Nobel prize winner, the great poet of Norway and the symbolic character who won the hearts of million of people world wide, especially in Norway , facing the historic trial in Norway after his controversial accusation as a traitor who helped the Nazis in the period of occupation. He was released from an Old Nursery confinement after he was judged by psychological doctor Gabriel Langfeldt as having a permanently weakened mental faculties (varigt svækkede sjælsevner) ; thus could not be accused as traitor, but he has to pay all what he owned including his house and his authors rights as a compensation for his alleged membership in NS party. His meetings with Gobles & Hitler, and the series of letters written by him to the main newspapers of Norway under occupation withdrew large segments of the society towards demanding a harsh judgement than the verdict that he was weak in soul. Others demand to be executed. He was isolated most of the time from the world events, mainly by his wife Marie, who tried to isolate ham and cut him from hearing what happened to the rest of Norway where resistance was launched and the severe reaction of the Nazi forces escalated by execution of tens of youth for every German soldier who was shot.
The historical events concerning the process and its results can be reached by hundreds of articles, books & interviews with all who have had a connection to the Hamsuns, whether his wife, daughters, sons, friends, lawers, police, psychologists or politicians ….etc.
The three volumes : 376 pages of the first volume documenting the beginnings of the German invasion to Norway and the fled of the king & Government to London, while Quisling, who was condemned to death by Norwegian court after the war was over, took charge of the collaboration with the Nazi’s through his NS party ; 158 pages of the second volume, concentrated mainly on his wife, her letter to Norwegian mothers to send their sons to the front to fight the communists and accepting her son Arild to take the lead, her imprisonment, her collapse and her many visits to Germany lecturing & received as a prominent cultural personality , together with her alleged relations to other men…osv; and the third volume of 305 pages mainly dealt with the process, the return of Marie to the house, his death and the aftermath period, signalling his rehabilitation both in Norway and world wide.
Thorkild’s style and his literary as well as his in-depth investigation to all allegations against Hamsun is amazing by highlighting Hamsun’s place among the whole set of the best intellectuals of the century, whether people who influenced him in his long career of authorship or were influenced by his writing: Dostoevsky, Goethe whose photos were on his room’s wall until his death on the 22. feb (1952….the three were there in an eternal literary world ), Conrad, Hemingway, Thomas Mann, Byron, Freud, Pound, Munch, Schopenhauer – only to mention a few names- makes the books worth reading as a literary art in itself, together with all the ramifications that structured the life of Hamsun, his literary work, and the juridical process of the trial. Art will remain a star and an inspiration surviving the physical death of artists and poets & all the accusations mentioned above. He wrote his last novel On Overgrown Paths (Paa gjengrodde Stier, 1949) after his release from prison, selling thousands of copies world wide and became famous again both in Norway and abroad especially celebrating his 100th birthday in 1959 & Gyldendal printed all his work in 15 volumes again. Perhaps Egon Friedell was right when he compared Hamsun, the last poet, with the greek Homer, the first poet.
