The fruits of the earth

Growth of the Soil (1917) is, on the surface, a hymn to simple life and a return to the land, centred on the figure of Isak, a peasant who builds a life from nothing in a remote area of Norway.

The novel exalts physical labour, the connection to the soil, and the creation of property and family as the pillars of a pure and authentic existence. Nature is presented as redemptive, in contrast with the decay of cities and modernity. In Hamsun's prose (hypnotic in its simplicity), there is a musicality in the way he describes the cycles of the land and rural life, as if time itself bent to the rhythm of the plough.

However, this exaltation of soil and blood took on unsettling resonances in the following decades. The author, Knut Hamsun, Nobel laureate in Literature, proved to be an active supporter of the Nazi regime. He supported the collaborationist government in Norway, met with Goebbels, and wrote a eulogy for Hitler in 1945.

This political involvement irremediably tarnishes his legacy. In Growth of the Soil, some critics already saw the ideological seeds of a way of thinking that values purity, nationalism, and exclusion—an uncomfortable reading, but one that is impossible to ignore.

Hamsun's legacy was marked by his public support for Nazi Germany during the Second World War, as were those of Céline and some, not so few, others.

From a literary point of view, he is an unavoidable figure.
A damned man by right. Is that enough?