THE WOMEN AT THE WATER PUMP

"People from the big cities have no appreciation for the measurements and dimensions of small towns. They think they can come and stand in the square and smile and be superior, they think they can laugh at the houses and the paving, they say that many times. But don't older people in the small town remember when the houses were even smaller and the paving worse than now? They have experienced that the town progressed. And at least CA Johnsen has got a huge house there, Johnsen on the pier, a simple building, it has a veranda downstairs and a balcony upstairs, and there is carving all around the roof."

1920

Immediately after Hamsun had finished work on The Harvest of the Field, he began writing The Women at the Watering Can (1920). The two novels are radically different in style and tone, but share a skepticism of modern society.

The main character Oliver Andersen loses a foot and "half his lower abdomen" in a work accident. His physical deficiencies make him unfit to participate in ordinary family and social life. In a subtle way, however, his wife Petra's infidelity and subsequent childbirths, as well as Oliver's own egg raiding on the islands, help to give him redemption and courage.

Oliver's superficial and sometimes comical life is based on will to live and courage, making him a tragicomic hero. The necessity of curiosity and self-deception is also implied in the novel's title.

"All art, then? All art. But not a bad work of art.”

"Oh, the little anthill! All people are busy with their own business, they cross each other's paths, they push each other aside, sometimes they step over each other. It can't be otherwise, sometimes they step over each other."