THE MODERN TIME

In our country a new and different spirit has come, it is not only the farmer who is working more than before with his hands in his pockets, it is everyone, the entire population. The craftsman, the day laborer, the maidservant have settled down to a rude indifference to promises, to agreements, to duties, which was unknown and unheard of in earlier times. ("A Word to Us", 1910)

For Hamsun, the modern era was synonymous with the rise of the metropolis and industrialization, at the expense of agriculture and farming.

In America he found many of the values ​​of the modern age that he disliked, such as speed and superficiality. In the essay "Festina lente" (1928), these negative values ​​are depicted, while the calm and harmony of the Orientals are held up as an ideal.

In parallel with Hamsun's skepticism towards the modern era, he was fascinated by technical innovations as a private person. He himself was an early adopter of modern equipment on the Nørholm farm. He was the first in Eide parish to buy a car. He did not have a license himself; his wife Marie drove while Hamsun encouraged him to drive at ever higher speeds.