KARIANNE BJELLÅS GILJE: "SOME HELL OF A NEWSPAPER OFFICE"
About the non-fiction writer Knut Hamsun
Can we get a more holistic picture of Knut Hamsun by reading his non-fiction? Undoubtedly. All of his available texts, non-fiction as well as fiction, give us parts of the author's work – and life. To the extent that there is a single whole, it is precisely in the mosaic of these parts. Time has passed for literary scholars who reject any connection between an author's experiences, opinions, and experiences, and how these are expressed in fiction and non-fiction. We might immediately think that fiction texts open up more interpretation and diversity of meaning than non-fiction texts. It is in the very concept, non-fiction is committed to the matter, to reality. Or as non-fiction professor Johan Tønnesson writes in the book What is Non-Fiction : "Non-fiction is texts that the addressee has reason to perceive as direct statements about reality." This is, however, just one of the most obvious things that can be said about non-fiction, and it is also why both this professor and many others like him have begun to take an increasingly strong interest in non-fiction texts in the history of literature.
A simple deep dive into Hamsun's non-fiction can show how these texts provide knowledge about both his life and his work – in addition to the fact that the non-fiction provides reading experiences in itself. When we gain more knowledge of what Hamsun called "some hellish newspaper writing" in a specific newspaper debate, it gives depth and context to the reading of the novel for which Hamsun was most honored in his time, the Nobel Prize-winning novel The Produce of the Field from 1917.
The theme is infanticide. The very word itself is horrifying. In The Harvest of the Field, two infanticides occur – we meet two mothers who kill their children immediately after birth. These are described very differently by the narrator in the novel. Why? As we shall see, we have to turn to non-fiction in search of answers. For if one studies Hamsun's non-fiction during the period in which he wrote this novel, it turns out that for two whole years he was engaged in an extensive newspaper debate precisely on the topic of infanticide, with opponents with a high public profile at the time – such as the author Sigrid Undset, the women's rights activist Katti Anker Møller, the doctor Johan Scharffenberg and the politician Johan Castberg.
On January 16, 1915, Hamsun published an article in Morgenbladet . Here he writes: “A few weeks ago, Morgenbladet reported on a young girl who had been sentenced to eight months for killing her child. It did not say eighteen years or eight years, but eight months. Were there special circumstances present, or has it now become eight months for killing a child?” Hamsun concludes that the child had potential for development, while “the mother is hopeless”, therefore: “Hang both parents, clean them out! Hang the first hundred of them, because they are hopeless. The first hundred, that is what is respected, then perhaps the terrible conditions will improve. Let something be done, let the children be free from these grips around the neck, for all this blood and all these murders!”
These powerful salvos were, not unexpectedly, the prelude to a year-long exchange of words. Through his speeches, Hamsun manages to make it sound as if he is alone in defending the children – while all the other 25 debaters want to defend the unhappy mother. It was probably not that simple. All of Hamsun’s opponents agree with him that the very act of taking the life of a newborn child is ethically reprehensible. But they still try to a greater extent than Hamsun to analyze the mother’s reasons for acting as she does, and to ask how infanticide can be prevented or prevented. Their main objection to Hamsun is that he does not see that it is also society that is at fault, not just the individual, unhappy woman. But Hamsun snorts. He will not listen to “The Half-Male Sigrid Undset” and Katti Anker Møller’s “Cat-Møller’s Meow” – they only “lullaby and talk” and “will not get off the ground” if they are just going to shift all the blame onto society. Hamsun wants action – in the form of stricter penalties for infanticide.
The reason Hamsun became so strongly involved in the infanticide case right on New Year's Day in 1915 was that the so-called "Children's Laws" were to be revised, and one of the driving forces was Johan Castberg. A main point in the legislative changes was that unmarried mothers and "illegitimate" children would be given stronger financial security - because a man would have the same duty towards his children whether they were born in or out of wedlock. Castberg and his sister-in-law Katti Anker Møller perceived Hamsun's speech as an attack on the revision of the Children's Laws. To a certain extent, the debaters probably talked past each other to promote their own side of the issue - which is a well-known phenomenon in newspaper debates. But there was also real disagreement, which mainly concerned which point of view the matter was seen from - that of the child, the mother or society - or a combination of several.
The child – that is Hamsun's main concern. Not only in the infanticide debate, but also in other non-fiction and fiction, he honored the young, those with opportunities and a future. In the debate, he claims that the “old men and idiots” sit in “palaces” while the “children’s hostels shudder from year to year in poverty”. Such statements led Hamsun biographer Robert Ferguson to write that the infanticide debate is just “one of many cases where one would rather have Hamsun had kept quiet”. He justified this by saying that the debate has been used to “prove that Hamsun lacked a fundamentally humane attitude”. Ferguson then forgets the nuances – both in the newspaper articles and not least in the novel. Even though Hamsun apparently preaches “simple” solutions – “Hang them!”, one does not have to read long before the nuances emerge. And when the infanticide debate continues in Markens grøde, direct quotes from Hamsun's fiercest opponents are woven into the novel's characters' lines – and these are not presented in an unambiguously negative way.
Hamsun himself considered “A novel for my Norwegian contemporaries” as a subtitle. This is a sign that the novel can also be interpreted as a broad response to the participants in the world outside the book covers. The doctors and mothers who wanted to put him in his place in the newspapers get their fictional spokesperson in “the sheriff’s wife”. In the second part of the novel, she gives a speech in defense of Barbro from Maaneland, who has drowned her child. The speech contains many direct quotes from the newspaper articles of Hamsun’s opponents – and Barbro is acquitted.
The novel's other child murderer , Inger Sellanraa, receives milder treatment than Barbro. And why is that? Yes, because with her the development that Hamsun suggests in the newspaper debate as the best occurs: Inger receives her long sentence, shows remorse, develops and becomes "something". Barbro, who is acquitted, remains a "loose maid", without remorse and development. When Hamsun was allowed to control the story as he wanted in his novel universe, he writes characters that confirm his claims from the newspaper articles: The punishment will have a preventive effect, and punishment and remorse can lead to a development in the child murderer. What he does not do, however, is hang Inger Sellanraa. Are the claims from the newspaper debate about the death penalty for child murderers, which he repeats in a newspaper article in Aftenposten on 16 April 1916, intended as debate-provoking salvos of power more than real wishes? Much could indicate that. The key point for Hamsun seems to be that the punishment is severe enough to have a preventive and “deterrent” effect.
But then there is the child. This is also Hamsun's main concern in the novel. "Lieutenant Geissler", who is often characterized as Hamsun's spokesman in The Produce of the Field, says: "We protect birds and animals [...] it seems a bit strange not to protect infants." The same technique, namely highlighting paradoxes and examples that show how society systematically devalues the young, is repeated in the newspaper articles. In retrospect, we can at least say that some of this strong criticism of civilization has been taken on board - children and young people have been given far more rights in Norwegian democracy since 1915. However, we must add: The improvement in children's rights has not, fortunately, come about through prosecuting women - but by improving the conditions that led desperate women to extreme actions.
If Hamsun's non-fiction is read in its historical context, it complements the story of the author's life. This is how non-fiction by fiction writers has been used throughout history. But also keep your eyes open for the literary aspects of non-fiction – as here: Two sentences that shape a story, in the midst of harsh polemics in Hamsun's first debate contribution in 1915:
And a child is also beautiful, it's beautiful to have in life, it plays with small hands and sometimes it looks up. It's so wonderfully surprised when it enters another room.
An argument for taking care of the child, of course. But not just any non-fiction either.
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Karianne Bjellås Gilje (b. 1969) is the editor of the non-fiction journal Prosa . She is a cand.philol. with the main thesis "Hang them!" Analysis of Knut Hamsun's non-fiction in the "barnemorddebatten" (1996), and has contributed to a number of books about Knut Hamsun.
