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Available
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Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2001), Paperback, 352 pages
Description
In a small Norwegian coastal town, society's carefully woven threads begin to unravel when an unsettling stranger named Johan Nagel arrives. With an unsparing and often brutal insight into human nature, Nagel draws out the seemingly innocent townsfolk, exposing their darkest instincts and suppressed desires. At once arrogant and unassuming, righteous and depraved, sane and truly mad, Nagel seduces the entire community even as he turns it on end--before disappearing as suddenly as he arrived. Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
User reviews
LibraryThing member KTPrymus
Johannes Nagel is a perplexing man. Mysterious, you might say. If most people are difficult to get a read on, Nagel is the advanced calculus of human psychology. It’s interesting, then, that Knut uses this character to represent the coming 20th century man. Knut was about 100 years ahead of his
Nagel rolls in anonymously into a small Norwegian port town, but his entrance sets the stage for his erratic behavior. After deciding to take up residence in the town he takes the ship another 30 miles up the coast and walks back. His reasons for this are never fully explained, though it is doubtful that any explanation he could give would make much sense. You would think the use of a third person omniscient narrator would make him a more readily understandable character and indeed, we are allowed to peer into Nagel’s head throughout the novel. All we can gather, however, is that this is a man obsessed with how others perceive him. Even when he is alone he acts as though he is being watched and intentionally behaves in a way fitting the effect he wishes to achieve.
The problem is that there is no consistent notion of who Nagel wants to be. What he wants to be is perhaps too strong, and this is the crux of what Knut is trying to represent with this character. It is never certain than Nagel has any genuine desires of his own. His actions are done not so that he could be this or that sort of man, but so that others will percieve him as that sort of man. This is not simple case of portraying oneself in a manner other than what one really is inside, rather this is a case of having no inside whatsoever. That Nagel is a stranger in town makes no difference; I imagine his erratic behavior to be with him wherever he calls home, if there is such a place.
Nagel is a textbook example of someone lacking integrity in the most extreme sense, and Knut brings him to life brilliantly with a near Dostoyevskian attention to human psychology. That so many of us today are obsessed with the image we project in persistent online spaces (hello LibraryThing!) makes this book a particularly germane read, highlighting the perils of being overconcerned with our own image. While there can be much debate over the tragic events which occur at the end of the book, regardless of interpretation it is a foreboding glimpse into our own possible future.
For an interesting read concerning our need for others to see us, check out Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, particularly the story Ghosts.
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time, though, and the actions of Nagel may represent less the lifestyle of early 20th century gentlemen but more the necessity of visibility characterized by 21st century bloggers and social networkers.Nagel rolls in anonymously into a small Norwegian port town, but his entrance sets the stage for his erratic behavior. After deciding to take up residence in the town he takes the ship another 30 miles up the coast and walks back. His reasons for this are never fully explained, though it is doubtful that any explanation he could give would make much sense. You would think the use of a third person omniscient narrator would make him a more readily understandable character and indeed, we are allowed to peer into Nagel’s head throughout the novel. All we can gather, however, is that this is a man obsessed with how others perceive him. Even when he is alone he acts as though he is being watched and intentionally behaves in a way fitting the effect he wishes to achieve.
The problem is that there is no consistent notion of who Nagel wants to be. What he wants to be is perhaps too strong, and this is the crux of what Knut is trying to represent with this character. It is never certain than Nagel has any genuine desires of his own. His actions are done not so that he could be this or that sort of man, but so that others will percieve him as that sort of man. This is not simple case of portraying oneself in a manner other than what one really is inside, rather this is a case of having no inside whatsoever. That Nagel is a stranger in town makes no difference; I imagine his erratic behavior to be with him wherever he calls home, if there is such a place.
Nagel is a textbook example of someone lacking integrity in the most extreme sense, and Knut brings him to life brilliantly with a near Dostoyevskian attention to human psychology. That so many of us today are obsessed with the image we project in persistent online spaces (hello LibraryThing!) makes this book a particularly germane read, highlighting the perils of being overconcerned with our own image. While there can be much debate over the tragic events which occur at the end of the book, regardless of interpretation it is a foreboding glimpse into our own possible future.
For an interesting read concerning our need for others to see us, check out Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, particularly the story Ghosts.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
I was introduced to the author Knut Hamsun by reading his first novel, Hunger. It is a Dostoevskian tale of a young journalist who is literally starving to death. His story is about trying to write and live while not even being able to afford a scrap of food, pawning his vest to be able to survive
I was drawn to Mysteries because of a reference in Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi where he said of Mysteries that it "is closer to me than any other book I have read." High praise from a writer that I respect and whose Colossus I loved.
Mysteries is not exactly thrilling, but it is an adventure into the unknown. It does not rely on a traditional plot, rather it starts under mysterious circumstances where a strange young man named Johan Nagel without any past appears in a small coastal town where a person has been recently killed. However, playing against expectations the book doesn't delve in to the suspense of the murder, rather all the mysteries lie in Nagel's relations with the townspeople and in discovering the duality of human mind. The duality that confuses us more than the bystander why we are what we are. How can we be so selfish while performing a selfless act? Why do we care about so much about something whose absence doesn't matter in long run? Why we love someone who doesn't love us back? I found moments in the book left me feeling that I was sharing a dream with the characters - an eerie feeling indeed but more puzzling than frightening.
Sven Birkerts has said that Hamsun has created " works of desperate lyrical romanticism". But Hamsun is also a precursor to and in some ways participant in modernism, writing works that span the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. This book is compelling with challenging arguments that you think and perhaps question your beliefs, especially the arguments on societal interpretation of the genius. Birkerts, in his introduction, goes on to say that Mysteries is "compelling in its fans a depth of devotion that owes less to narrative, character development, or evocative prose than to something more elemental, more . . . mysterious." (p. x)
It is thus to me and a novel of ideas that I can truly enjoy.
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a few more days. It is a searing story that one does not forget. I had reread that book about a year ago, but still had not tackled any of Hamsun's other works before I had picked this book. My expectations were high, as he is a Nobel Laureate, but I was not sure if he would equal, much less surpass, his earlier novel. Now I look forward to reading more of his works.I was drawn to Mysteries because of a reference in Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi where he said of Mysteries that it "is closer to me than any other book I have read." High praise from a writer that I respect and whose Colossus I loved.
Mysteries is not exactly thrilling, but it is an adventure into the unknown. It does not rely on a traditional plot, rather it starts under mysterious circumstances where a strange young man named Johan Nagel without any past appears in a small coastal town where a person has been recently killed. However, playing against expectations the book doesn't delve in to the suspense of the murder, rather all the mysteries lie in Nagel's relations with the townspeople and in discovering the duality of human mind. The duality that confuses us more than the bystander why we are what we are. How can we be so selfish while performing a selfless act? Why do we care about so much about something whose absence doesn't matter in long run? Why we love someone who doesn't love us back? I found moments in the book left me feeling that I was sharing a dream with the characters - an eerie feeling indeed but more puzzling than frightening.
Sven Birkerts has said that Hamsun has created " works of desperate lyrical romanticism". But Hamsun is also a precursor to and in some ways participant in modernism, writing works that span the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. This book is compelling with challenging arguments that you think and perhaps question your beliefs, especially the arguments on societal interpretation of the genius. Birkerts, in his introduction, goes on to say that Mysteries is "compelling in its fans a depth of devotion that owes less to narrative, character development, or evocative prose than to something more elemental, more . . . mysterious." (p. x)
It is thus to me and a novel of ideas that I can truly enjoy.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
This is like a cascade of tiny Dostoevskies. It's a Dostoevsky a minute. And that's its small imperfection, in a way--despite all the magic and torment in this book, there's something unavoidably ungenerous about it, grudging, closed. You can see the germ of Hamsun's politics in it. If Hitler
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hadn't come along he'd have been demanding they close the homeless shelter, or getting an injunction against his neighbours to force them to mow their lawn. Still, really good read. Show Less
LibraryThing member ncnsstnt
The only mystery here is why I read all 330 pages of this nonsense.
LibraryThing member Aarinstad
One of the first truly surreal modern psychological novels; Mysteries is my favorite book by Knut Hamsun. It's as exciting as a well paced thriller, quite curious and overall filled with memorable characters.
LibraryThing member kishields
Wonderful psychological novel, with great insight into the motivations behind our actions in society... and beautiful, eery, lyrical passages as well. I particularly enjoyed the final third of the book as Nagel unravels and feels an increasingly mystical dread of his fate and the omens that precede
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it. Unforgettable and unique. Show Less
LibraryThing member poetontheone
Hamsun's Johann Nagel slowly unravels before our eyes, his strange interactions with the residents of a small village just as perplexing to the reader as to those who encounter our sad and silly hero. Their is an unsettling humour in this psychological finger trap, with the increasing exaggeration
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of the narrative eliciting more chuckles nad raised eyebrows, but also heightening its bleak mood and the utterly pitiful state of its central character. A strange and haunting novel in which Hamsun again proves that he is a master of psychological characterization. Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Or how a poor, misguided (and tortured) Christ came into our midst, sought to convert us, and then disappeared. Said to be one of the first existentialist novels, we see why "the stranger" can never really get along or fit in - he's too obsessed with his role and being mysterious. *Not* a light
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read. Show Less
LibraryThing member kjuliff
Norwegian Wood
It was hard to believe that this book was written in 1892. Certainly in style it’s ahead of its time. The depiction of the inner life of its characters, the stream of consciousness writing, the strange feelings we get of the troubled Camus-like anti-hero, are the most memorable
Although written in the third person, Hansun drops into the mind of Nagel, the rebel without a cause who is the protagonist of this fascinating book.
The book starts with Nagel who| arrives unannounced at a Norwegian coastal town knowing no one, wearing a yellow suit and carrying a fur coat and a violin-less violin case. He takes a room at the local hotel and proceeds to embark upon some very unpredictable acts whose purposes are at odds with conventional society.
He takes pleasure in persuading people to act contravention to their own dispositions. He orders a new coat for the town jester, a cripple who ignorant villagers laugh at, calling him as “the midget”. He insists on buying an old worn-out chair from a poor widow for a price that exceeds her annual income. These people don’t want his money but Nagel wants them to go against their virtue of poverty to satisfy himself.
To Nigel money is no object and he throws it around hosting a “stag party” for the towns local dignitaries.
The dinner party scene was the highlight of the book. The town’s pastor, doctor, deputy and Negal sit around a table discussing world políticas. When thoroughly inebriated the move on to literature. Negal is contemptuous of Tolstoy, and Ibsen, calling them mediocre. He despises Marx, socialists and liberals, claiming the latter are makers of bureaucracies whose height of legislation is the setting up of a committee to improve the footwear of mailmen.
As the book progresses Nagel becomes manic, contradictory and irrational in his thought patterns. He confuses himself as his opposing desires clash. He proclaims his useless passion for the pastor’s blond-haired daughter and proposes to a poor gray-haired widow. When he falls down in his manic dementia the novel veers from the third person narrative to the stream of consciousness of Nagel’s mind.
Mysteries is a very intriguing book. I had to keep reminding myself that it was written in the 19th century. I had to google this writer, Knut Hamsun - I’d chanced upon the novel by accident. I needed to know more. This was when I was halfway through the book. I discovers he had, much later in life, praised Hitler. I almost stopped reading but continued to the end because I felt there must be some obscure reason. How could this be?
I ended up going with the Guardian reviewer in The Nazi novelist you should read -
“I will not defend Hamsun's politics. He betrayed both his country and more importantly humanity in general and deserves every bit of the scorn that's been heaped upon him. Hamsun's writing, however, is another matter. Whether we like the man or not, it seems to me both foolish and pointless to continue ignoring the significance of Hamsun's work - if for no other reason than it's an important part of our literary evolution and denying this can do nothing but cloud our understanding of our ourselves as readers and writers.”
I am both glad and ashamed that I finished this novel. Like the book’s main character, I’m holding two competing thoughts in my head. I can’t unread it. I thought the book was brilliant.
It was hard to believe that this book was written in 1892. Certainly in style it’s ahead of its time. The depiction of the inner life of its characters, the stream of consciousness writing, the strange feelings we get of the troubled Camus-like anti-hero, are the most memorable
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features of this Norwegian novel.Although written in the third person, Hansun drops into the mind of Nagel, the rebel without a cause who is the protagonist of this fascinating book.
The book starts with Nagel who| arrives unannounced at a Norwegian coastal town knowing no one, wearing a yellow suit and carrying a fur coat and a violin-less violin case. He takes a room at the local hotel and proceeds to embark upon some very unpredictable acts whose purposes are at odds with conventional society.
He takes pleasure in persuading people to act contravention to their own dispositions. He orders a new coat for the town jester, a cripple who ignorant villagers laugh at, calling him as “the midget”. He insists on buying an old worn-out chair from a poor widow for a price that exceeds her annual income. These people don’t want his money but Nagel wants them to go against their virtue of poverty to satisfy himself.
To Nigel money is no object and he throws it around hosting a “stag party” for the towns local dignitaries.
The dinner party scene was the highlight of the book. The town’s pastor, doctor, deputy and Negal sit around a table discussing world políticas. When thoroughly inebriated the move on to literature. Negal is contemptuous of Tolstoy, and Ibsen, calling them mediocre. He despises Marx, socialists and liberals, claiming the latter are makers of bureaucracies whose height of legislation is the setting up of a committee to improve the footwear of mailmen.
As the book progresses Nagel becomes manic, contradictory and irrational in his thought patterns. He confuses himself as his opposing desires clash. He proclaims his useless passion for the pastor’s blond-haired daughter and proposes to a poor gray-haired widow. When he falls down in his manic dementia the novel veers from the third person narrative to the stream of consciousness of Nagel’s mind.
Mysteries is a very intriguing book. I had to keep reminding myself that it was written in the 19th century. I had to google this writer, Knut Hamsun - I’d chanced upon the novel by accident. I needed to know more. This was when I was halfway through the book. I discovers he had, much later in life, praised Hitler. I almost stopped reading but continued to the end because I felt there must be some obscure reason. How could this be?
I ended up going with the Guardian reviewer in The Nazi novelist you should read -
“I will not defend Hamsun's politics. He betrayed both his country and more importantly humanity in general and deserves every bit of the scorn that's been heaped upon him. Hamsun's writing, however, is another matter. Whether we like the man or not, it seems to me both foolish and pointless to continue ignoring the significance of Hamsun's work - if for no other reason than it's an important part of our literary evolution and denying this can do nothing but cloud our understanding of our ourselves as readers and writers.”
I am both glad and ashamed that I finished this novel. Like the book’s main character, I’m holding two competing thoughts in my head. I can’t unread it. I thought the book was brilliant.
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LibraryThing member karacag
a great litterature art!
LibraryThing member Vivl
I picked this up off the free books shelf at my university art department primarily because of the positive notice from Thomas Mann on the cover. Thinking back, I should have known better as I didn't get into the one Thomas Mann (the ubiquitous Magic Mountain) that I attempted many years ago. Also
This is superficially a story about a man: a stranger, and indeed a very strange man, in a small Scandinavian town in the early 1890s (I haven't been sufficiently interested to find out whether it is based in a fictional or real location, although I would guess fictional). Actually, though, it isn't. The main character is not a man, he's a symbol and for what exactly I neither know nor care.
Thinking I really should finish reading something so "important", I struggled on, reading just a small amount each night and swearing liberally the while, to the 2/3 point (on the day of my 44th birthday) at which I decided that life is too short, I am too old and I can't be bothered wasting my precious time in this fashion.
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the fact that I hated both 19th century lit units I did at uni 20-ish years ago should have rung alarm bells. Silly me.This is superficially a story about a man: a stranger, and indeed a very strange man, in a small Scandinavian town in the early 1890s (I haven't been sufficiently interested to find out whether it is based in a fictional or real location, although I would guess fictional). Actually, though, it isn't. The main character is not a man, he's a symbol and for what exactly I neither know nor care.
Thinking I really should finish reading something so "important", I struggled on, reading just a small amount each night and swearing liberally the while, to the 2/3 point (on the day of my 44th birthday) at which I decided that life is too short, I am too old and I can't be bothered wasting my precious time in this fashion.
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LibraryThing member BayardUS
Mysteries explores similar ideas and moods as Hamsun's Hunger and Pan, but with more bizarre humor and random asides. The main character, Nagel, comes to a small town with one apparent goal: to mess with people. Actually, is that his goal? We'll never know for certain. Between his many
Well, actually, it seems pretty certain that he's a sociopathic dog killer.
Because Nagel wasn't in a coherent state of mind at the end of this book, these mysteries are left to linger. Not that they were ever going to get solved- the book quickly establishes a recurring theme of the discord between what characters say and think and act as though they want, and what they truly want. No one is up-front about who they truly are in this book, or at least there are very few characters who you could plausibly argue are. It makes for a ready source of intrigue throughout the book, although Nagel's story gets repetitive in places, so the last third of the story isn't quite as interesting. The ending means that much of this intrigue remains unresolved at the close of the book. My personal preference favors actual resolutions, and while I realize that this would undercut the ideas that Hamsun was trying to get at with this book, it's still my preference and the book suffered in my eyes a bit because of the path it took. The uncertainty that permeates the story also prevents the characters from feeling fully fleshed out. Distinct, yes, but because you can't say for sure what type of people they are they remain ciphers even after Hamsun spends pages and pages on them.
On the plus side the dreams and stories Nagel tells are filled with striking imagery, some of the best writing I've seen Hamsun craft. Most of the dreams and stories work in thematically as well, so they aren't mere padding (in fact they all might work in thematically, and I may have just missed the connections for a couple of them). Overall, an interesting read, though because of personal preferences it wasn't as enjoyable for me as it could have been.
As an aside, this may well be the last work by Hamsun that I read, unless the mood strikes me to explore some of his shorter pieces. Here's how I think what I've read of him stacks up:
Hunger > Growth of the Soil > Mysteries > Pan > Victoria
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conversations and moments of internal dialogue Nagel's actions can be interpreted in a variety of ways, perhaps this whole journey to a small town is something he's done many times before, and he's just following a tried-and-true script in order to seduce one of the town's beautiful women, or maybe his feelings are genuine. Perhaps he's wealthy, or perhaps he just tricked people into thinking so. Perhaps his many dreams and stories are true, or perhaps he's making them all up to amuse and further his agenda. Perhaps he's a charitable soul, trying to help the outcasts of the town, or maybe he's a sociopathic dog killer.Well, actually, it seems pretty certain that he's a sociopathic dog killer.
Because Nagel wasn't in a coherent state of mind at the end of this book, these mysteries are left to linger. Not that they were ever going to get solved- the book quickly establishes a recurring theme of the discord between what characters say and think and act as though they want, and what they truly want. No one is up-front about who they truly are in this book, or at least there are very few characters who you could plausibly argue are. It makes for a ready source of intrigue throughout the book, although Nagel's story gets repetitive in places, so the last third of the story isn't quite as interesting. The ending means that much of this intrigue remains unresolved at the close of the book. My personal preference favors actual resolutions, and while I realize that this would undercut the ideas that Hamsun was trying to get at with this book, it's still my preference and the book suffered in my eyes a bit because of the path it took. The uncertainty that permeates the story also prevents the characters from feeling fully fleshed out. Distinct, yes, but because you can't say for sure what type of people they are they remain ciphers even after Hamsun spends pages and pages on them.
On the plus side the dreams and stories Nagel tells are filled with striking imagery, some of the best writing I've seen Hamsun craft. Most of the dreams and stories work in thematically as well, so they aren't mere padding (in fact they all might work in thematically, and I may have just missed the connections for a couple of them). Overall, an interesting read, though because of personal preferences it wasn't as enjoyable for me as it could have been.
As an aside, this may well be the last work by Hamsun that I read, unless the mood strikes me to explore some of his shorter pieces. Here's how I think what I've read of him stacks up:
Hunger > Growth of the Soil > Mysteries > Pan > Victoria
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LibraryThing member IonaS
Since Knut Hamsun received the Nobel Prize for Literature, though not for this book, and Henry Miller greatly praised his work, I had been looking forward to reading this book, which I have had for years.
But it was not to my taste. (One comment on Goodreads states that one must be brain-dead not to
In 1891 a strange young man called Johan Nagel in a flamboyant yellow suit travels for some reason to a coastal Norwegian town.
He’s an extremely voluble man who talks to everyone but keeps contradicting himself. He admits: “I am a phony”.
He falls in love with a beautiful girl called Dagny who is already engaged to another. She declines Nagal, but he persists in his attentions.
Later, he begins to pursue another woman.
Nagal seems to have plenty of money but we’re not told where it comes from. He has an unexplainable propensity to present others with money or gifts.
He doesn’t speak naturally like everybody else: his speech is designed to manipulate others.
Only at the very end does the book get slightly interesting. I kept on with it because it was penned by Knut Hamsun and I wanted to read the whole thing before criticizing it.
Most of the other reviews are exceedingly positive, so I am apparently one of the very few who doesn’t appreciate Hamsun’s genius.
I just don’t see the point of the book, and the character of Nagal seemed unrealistic and unappealing.
When I’ve recovered from reading this book, I may try to tackle Hunger or one of his others. I own The Wanderer, so I may try that one.
But it was not to my taste. (One comment on Goodreads states that one must be brain-dead not to
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appreciate it.)In 1891 a strange young man called Johan Nagel in a flamboyant yellow suit travels for some reason to a coastal Norwegian town.
He’s an extremely voluble man who talks to everyone but keeps contradicting himself. He admits: “I am a phony”.
He falls in love with a beautiful girl called Dagny who is already engaged to another. She declines Nagal, but he persists in his attentions.
Later, he begins to pursue another woman.
Nagal seems to have plenty of money but we’re not told where it comes from. He has an unexplainable propensity to present others with money or gifts.
He doesn’t speak naturally like everybody else: his speech is designed to manipulate others.
Only at the very end does the book get slightly interesting. I kept on with it because it was penned by Knut Hamsun and I wanted to read the whole thing before criticizing it.
Most of the other reviews are exceedingly positive, so I am apparently one of the very few who doesn’t appreciate Hamsun’s genius.
I just don’t see the point of the book, and the character of Nagal seemed unrealistic and unappealing.
When I’ve recovered from reading this book, I may try to tackle Hunger or one of his others. I own The Wanderer, so I may try that one.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
Norwegian (Bokmål)
Original publication date
1892
Physical description
352 p.; 7.76 inches
ISBN
0141186186 / 9780141186184