Knut Hamsun

Sverre Lyngstad

The Last Joy (Green Integer Books, 115)

Sven Hassel

There were not so much people as animals. Sometimes small and frightened, huddling together in cattle cars, wounds gaping, tongues swelling even as they licked the moist frost from the walls... Grievously wounded - having survived the operating table and the perilous journey West on a freezing freight train - Sven Hassel and his comrades find themselves behind the lines in a Hamburg hospital. The Reich is a hotbed of lies, betrayal and propaganda. Disgusted by the Nazi cause, the comrades drink themselves into oblivion, visit brothels where women dance naked on saloon tables and reach for home comforts before they return to the dreaded Russian Front. Because Hitler's war must go on... COMRADES OF WAR is a gritty portrayal of war's harsh realities and the fear and fanaticism at the heart of The Third Reich. Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army. He began writing his first novel, LEGION OF THE DAMNED in a prisoner of war camp at the end of the Second World War.

Comrades of War

Dag Solstad

Novel 11, Book 18

Norway

This is the first comprehensive study in English of the novels of Knut Hamsun, Nobel Laureate in literature for 1920, from the radically innovative Hunger (1890) to The Ring Is Closed (1936). The texts are discussed in depth, with analysis of recurrent themes, narrative modes, and generic idiosyncrasies, and are evaluated in terms of originality and artistic integrity. Reviews and other critical opinions are cited to broaden the evaluative spectrum and throw light on the novels' receptions. Although the book is scholarly, its blend of commentary and summarizing description - of settings, characters and story lines - will also interest the general reader.

A Critical Assessment

Knut Hamsun, Novelist

Hunger

Sverre Lyngstad

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