As a writer I would put my soul into my writing. I would ponder the streets pencil in hand until I gained inspiration. Writing is a creative form of expression where each line allows a story to unfold. Distractions were plenty,and a quiet place to gather my thoughts was a luxury I rarely got to enjoy, but even with a gnawing emptiness in my belly I still managed to find solace in my words.
Today, things seem to have changed and I often want to curse at how our language is abused. But I manage to grimace and bear the insult and later feel I am a terrible person for being so critical. And yet I so want to tell the youth of today to respect their mother Tongue. With the advent of text messages and twitter there seems to be both an economy and distortion of words. I fail to understand while perfectly respectable words such as that and this are transformed to da and dis. Surely, one should grow out of baby talk once an individual has reached a certain age pertaining to maturity. I am sure though my writing would not fetch many if any at all kroner in today's Market, and yet how i would honor the opportunity of promoting the wonders of our language to ever will have the patience to listen to me. After, all with busy lifestyles who has time to read. And yet maybe it is my delirium that speaks for me. I appear to be coherent but one can never be too sure.
Your pastiche does in fact sound slightly like Hamsun's writing, but there are a few areas that aren't so consistent. I don't think the protagonist of Hunger ever truly acknowledged his tendency to get distracted. It is very clear that he does, but at the same time I don't think he is aware that his focus is faltering, rather he just goes with the flow.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you are spot on with his attitude toward language, in regards to his deep thinking, and his profound, if not absurd, tendencies to become so enamored by a concept or idea that he can ramble on and on about it. Like in your piece, he sometimes gets disgruntled, but he can at times fall in love with something, any idea or concept.
I also noticed some connections of yours to his world, such as kroner, and ours, with the discusiion of twitter and texting. This piece was interesting in regards to the connections made, but also the way in which they were made.
Boogaloo
I agree that I doubt that the protagonist would never admit how distracted he gets. Also, I think the atmosphere of your piece is quite thoughtful and serene- which is nice, except for the fact that when reading Hunger, I got more of a feeling of slightly insane and abrupt, at times. In the novel, we are seeing as the protagonist progresses, heading to reach an awakened consciousness- but we never actually see him reach it. This pastiche seems to more apply to somewhat who is in total control of his thoughts and reflecting back on himself: more of someone who knows entirely who he is in the 'awakened consciousness'. I don't remember the protagonist doing this.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that he would be more critical and angry when speaking of the irrational use of distorted words to the younger generations. He seems almost reasonable, arguing for a return to the mother tongue- but wouldn't the protagonist be a bit more angry and vicious? When we see him in the novel, he changes his mood constantly and erratically, going from one extreme to the other, and never seeming to be that reflective of any sort.
I like the theme of your pastiche, and how it connects to him being a writer- but perhaps if you could capture his personality a bit more with descriptive word choice and phrases. I have come to look at the protagonist as very proud and a bit self-obsessed: he always thinks he can write a ten-kroner article. So when I hear him say "I am sure though my writing would not fetch many if any at all kroner in today's Market", I do not know if this fits at all with his character in the novel.
I think you have the right idea about the protagonist, but perhaps instead of him being so reflective, he should be a touch more in the present. He tends to describe all of his present actions rather than thinking about what has been going on in his past.
I find this pastiche to by way too monotonic to resemble either Knut Hamsun or Hunger. In the novel, the protagonist is practically known for his superfluous thoughts and his fickle nature. I find it hard to beleive he would be able to keep a train of thought going uninterrupted for that long. Like the other two comments, I also agree that neither Hamsun nor the protagonist would admit to their capricious nature. The protagonist is absolutely oblivious to the way he acts. Furthermore, whenever the protagonist writes, it seems that he becomes very passionate, and as the other two said, he would probably have ended up being very censorious of modern day language and would have probably gone as far as to curse the language. The protagonist is, to some extent, crazy, and your blog post portrays a mild mannered literary critic. Although the character becomes humbled in a situation where he wants to save face, overall, he is very arrogant. This was not portrayed in your Pastiche. Although you have the idea of a character set up, you need to show some of the protagonists apparent characteristics in the piece, as a topic such as this gives a lot of opportunity to Hamsun it up. Also you accidentally did not capitalize an "i" in the piece. Overall, I could see what you were trying to do, I just feel like you were missing out on the character a bit.
ReplyDelete-Asim