VICTORIA

"The miller's son walked and thought. He was a big boy of fourteen, brown from the sun and wind and full of many ideas. When he grew up he wanted to be a matchmaker. It was so deliciously dangerous, he could get sulfur on his fingers so no one dared greet him. He would be greatly respected among his comrades for his uncanny craftsmanship."

1898

Victoria (1898) is Hamsun's "song of love".

The novel tells the story of the miller's son Johannes, who has loved Victoria, the landowner's daughter, since his youth. Johannes travels to the city to attend school, where he also has his first poetic attempts published. In the meantime, the landowner has run into financial problems, and Victoria becomes engaged to Otto, the son of a wealthy chamberlain, to save her father. After a long time and a series of complications, Johannes and Victoria are finally given the opportunity to be together. But the novel ends tragically with Victoria dying of tuberculosis, at the age of 23.

The simple plot is sustained by refined narrative strategies and lyrical language, and the novel has been described as a masterpiece of European impressionism.

"Ask someone what love is, and it is nothing more than a wind that blows through the roses and then dies down. But often it is also an unbreakable seal that lasts for life, lasts until death."

"And love became the origin of the world and the ruler of the world; but all its paths are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood."

"He kissed a mouth, then it was as if two lights met in his heart, a sun that flashed against a star. He fell into an embrace, then he heard and saw nothing more in the whole world."