Thomas Glahn and Johan Nagel: Towards the Abyss of Life’S Tragic Indeterminacy

THOMAS GLAHN AND JOHAN NAGEL: TOWARDS THE ABYSS OF LIFE’S TRAGIC INDETERMINACY Michał Kruszelnicki Introduction: Pan and Mysteries : modernist roots? Hamsun’s early novels, Pan and Mysteries , most fully realize the basic tenets of his critical program outlined in Paa Turné 1. The principal aim of Hamsun’s lectures was to turn the Norwegian literature from realism/naturalism into the path of a deeper psychology of an individual as seen by the writer depicting the manifold shades of its psyche. In an unprecedented way the two mentioned novels posit a human being as an incomprehensible and unpredictable mystery. Both the creation of the protagonist as an individual extremely chaotic in thinking and acting and the narration of the two stories served to discredit the traditional model of depicting man as a rational being whose acts have particular reasons and aims. The model of a protagonist filled with ambiguities and inconsistencies, alienated from the society, torn apart between his private life and the demands of the public sphere remains virtually “modernist”, if one agrees to regard literary modernism as an aesthetic and intellectual objection to the ideal of a bourgeois society built upon an enlightened, “humanistic” belief in human’s rationality and benevolence and his ability to set moral order and political welfare by way of a rational interaction of individuals aptly and eagerly finding their place in the society. 1 See: K. Hamsun, Paa turnée . Tre foredrag om literatur ved Knut Hamsun , utgitt av T. Hamsun, Gyldendal, Oslo 1971. 123 It has rightly been argued that “modernism is not only, not even primarily, a formal movement; it is also a change in the mind” 1. At a time of the positivist belief in „pure facts” and in physical sciences’ omnipotence it was literature that responded to this new cultural reality by way of launching a project of a radical psycho- logization of the individual, who, all of a sudden, has ceased to reflect typical for a given social class modes of thinking and acting and came to be not so much the product of social relations, but more of a half-conscious spokesman for his own erratic and unpredictable psyche. It is in this historical and literary context that some critics, most notably Martin Humpàl 2, regard Hamsun’s literary program along with its subsequent realizations: Hunger , Pan and Mysteries . Indeed, in the late nineteenth century the idea of renouncing the notions of “type” and “character” was known to many writers; August Strindberg, for instance, attacked it directly in his preface to Miss Julie (1888) and Fyodor Dostoyevski was suspicious about it in his Notes from the Underground (1864). It could be argued, then, that young Hamsun was not particularly original with his idea of a new psychology of the protagonist and a new mode of narration. Both of these tenets can be found among other prominent modernist writers, notably in the works of Hamsun’s own teachers: Nietzsche, Dostoyevski and Strindberg. One can have an impression that what Hamsun actually did, was only to raise the observed tendencies of the late modernism to their extreme. 1 L. Gustaffson, Strindberg as a Forerunner of Scandinavian Modernism [in:] The Hero on Scandinavian Literature. From Peer Gynt to the Present , Ed. J. M. Weinstock and R.T. Rovitsky, University of Texas Press, Austin/London 1975, p. 131. 2 M. Humpàl, The Roots of Modernist Narrative: Knut Hamsun’s Novels: Hunger, Mysteries, and Pan , Solum Forlag, Oslo 1998. A quick survey of essential works situating Hamsun’s 90’ authorship in the context of the European modernism can be found in Ståle Dingstad’s study: Hamsuns strategier. Realisme, humor og kynisme , Gyldendal, Oslo 2003, p. 35-37. 124 Contrary to this conclusion, however, in my paper I will argue that Pan’s and Mysteries ’ protagonists represent a new and extraordinary, albeit full of ambiguities, image of man, quite different even from the most shockingly bizarre individuals populating the literature of modernism. 1. Hamsun’s modernist specificity: a new psychology of an individual In order to better grasp the specificity of the Hamsunian image of a human being, one should look closer at the psychological dynamic of some other heroes of the modernist prose, and then try to compare them with creations of Nagel and Glahn. The protagonists of the classic works of the nineteenth century are possessive of an extremely rich and complex inner life, constantly acknowledging the transitive character of their own identity and seeking their place in the world. What can always be said about these individuals, however, is that they are always in one way or another bearers of some general or universal traits of personality encouraging the reader to identify them with one concrete idea, such and such existential situation, such and such problem, or, briefly speaking, one particular aspect of humanity. Let us recall a few examples from the psychological literature so that we can grasp the general tendency which seems to govern it. Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Leo Tolstoï’s Anna Karenina represent mainly the solitude of an artistic, erotically unfulfilled nature in an alien world of social convenances. In Joseph Conrad’s novels we deal with individuals who pay a price of exasperating guilt for their impulsive decisions, the feeling being lifted only through a confrontation with the past and their own consciousness. Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe , as well as Mabel from Virginia Woolf’s short story The New Dress and Clyde from Theodore Dreiser’s The American Tragedy all represent a phenomenon of social and economic pressures that shape people’s life and the decried loss of sovereignty in the 125 necessity of conforming to the artificial demands of the leading group, its fashion and behavior. In David Herbert Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers the protagonist Paul stands for the idea of im- possibility of the relationship between man and woman because of the former’s emotional fixation on his own mother. This theme is often used also by Guy de Maupassant. Kafka’s prose shows the lack of orientation and the feeling of life’s absurdity ( Trans- formation , The Trial ) revealed to humans especially in the moments when they are trying to find in it any goal whatsoever (The Castle ). Proust – and let it be our last example – embarks on a nostalgic journey of memory to „regain the time lost” by way of scrupulous tracing of tiniest sensations, which all of a sudden may recapture the images of a distant past. The protagonists of these works are way out of the league of mundane “types” and “characters” so ironically ridiculed by Hamsun in his attacks on the popular patterns of realism. And yet, albeit their refinement as psychological creations, one cannot escape the impression that these personas always represent some clearly determined dimensions of human existence more than they represent the others. Now, what can we say for sure about Hamsun’s heroes: Glahn and Nagel? Here we meet a dilemma, since no aspect of their personalities comes to the fore. If they undertake an action, the only rule that governs it is a sudden, impulsive, half-conscious decision made generally in the most extraordinary circumstances. Of course, critics have come up with a great deal of inter- pretations, trying to indicate some dominant features in these two characters. Hanna Larsen, for instance, regards Nagel as a philanthropist 1, while Johan Borgen reads Mysteries – the first four chapters of the novel being most important to him – as a story 1 H. A. Larsen, Knut Hamsun , Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1922, p. 49. 126 about artist’s creative life and his eventual doom 1. In Rolf N. Nettum’s highly influential study Nagel appears as the advocate of a mystical doctrine, the teacher of a pantheistic belief in the great unity of the universe, which he desperately tries to communicate 2. All such readings are valid, by they bring forth but one aspect of Nagel’s personality. I think Øystein Rottem and James McFarlane are much closer to the truth when they stress the chronic inconsistency in Nagels’ thinking and acting. McFarlane writes that Nagel – being himself a thorough observer of other people’s ways – does not allow them to enter his inner world by way of constant buffooneries and mystifications 3. In this sense Nagel has certainly a core, a personality, if you will, but we do not know it, simply because he does not want us to know. According to Rottem: “Nagel is a master of disguise, a man who feigns ( for- stiller seg ), and plays roles. There is no ‘real’ Nagel and it would be a pointless task for a reader to try to (re)construct a figure thought in this way” 4. Insightful as McFarlane’s and Rottem’s thesis may be, I personally do not believe Nagel to be reflexive enough to be able to consciously trick other people. For my 1 “Allerede disse første 40 sidene sier oss med all tydelighet at Mysterier er en roman om en kunstner. Noe mer: om en kunstner i unnfangelsens stund, eller i underganges stund” – J. Borgen, Nagel [in:] Ø. Rottem (ed.) Søkelys på Knut Hamsun’s 90-års diktning , Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1979, p. 111. 2 R. N. Nettum, Konflikt og visjon. Hovedtemaer i Knut Hamsuns forfatterskap 1890-1912 , Gyldendal, Oslo 1970, p. 121-128. Nettum regards Nagel’s sojurn in the forest and the mystical dream about “sailing in the skies’ ocean, fishing with the silver rod” as his “central experience” (sentrale opplevelse ) and a key to explain his strange behaviors – ibidem , p. 122, 127. 3 J. W.

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