So terrible.
Hamsun is a minor writer. His best work, HUNGER, is beholden completely to the Dostoevsky of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. As disciple, Hamsun succeeded. And then PAN. PAN is perhaps the worst "serious" piece of literature I have ever read. It is without humor and almost without humanity--except there are humans among us who are as baldly emotive and badly pulled off as PAN. The plot is this: a thinly sketched Hero pines unsuccessfully for a thinly sketched but plainly unattractive woman. The tone is consistently over-wrought. Oh, the emotion!!! It sickens. If you loved this book and wear braces, I am not surprised. I would have looooooooved this book at age thirteen, when common sense was a foreign country and all I had was my ardor and my acne. I hate this book, and I will go to any lengths to destroy it.