Farming Fiction - Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun wrote Growth of the Soil in 1917.  It was published in 1920 in English.  Hamsun, a Norwegian born in 1859, first came to my attention in high school when a dear friend recommended his work.  I read Hunger, which had been published in 1890, and was floored.  It hit me at a time (high school) when drama and angst were the emotions a la mode, especially I think for young boys becoming young men - if in age only.  

Without knowing much of Hamsun and his (despicable and unwavering) feelings on Nazi beliefs, racial superiority, and his involvement in World War II, I found a copy of Growth of the Soil at a Half Price Books in San Antonio.  His legacy proves complicated to this day, in fact, especially in the Norwegian diaspora.  For a really wonderful discussion by one of my favorite writers, read the essay A Kink in His Crock: Norway’s Nobel Nazi by William Gass, published in Harper’s Magazine in 2010.

Roland Barthes, in Death of an Author, urges us to separate the text from the author.  “To give a text an author and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it is to impose a limit on that text,” (Barthes, 1967).  I won’t try to get too deep into that concept, but I will continue with a short word on the work produced by known Nazi-sympathizer Knut Hamsun, the 1920 Nobel Prize winning Growth of the Soil.

Like many of us, I presume, under the onslaught of media and stimulation, I have a habit of starting books and moving on to other texts before finishing.  Often, I’ll make a genuine effort to return to a text, sometimes multiple times, until I either get rid of the book or see it through.  Such was the case with Growth of the Soil, which I probably started half a dozen times over maybe 8 years.  I was always intrigued by the concept of an epic tale of a nameless man building a home in an almost untouched countryside, rough and unwelcoming.  

The beginning of the book does not disappoint, if one is okay with fairly slow plodding along through the establishment of a home and a farm.  It turns out reading this tale as one starts a small farm from scratch can be actually quite nice, almost like having a friend along for the ride.  Isak, whose name we learn later, is stoic,  simple, somewhat brutish, and fully dedicated to building his farm.  There is no glitz whatsoever, and his decisions early on are fully guided by what may be good for the farm, regardless of the consequence on his current quality of life or physical condition.  

We accompany Isak as he builds a series of small enclosures for a few goats.  Of course, they act as temporary housing for Isak before he’s able to build a home.  He contemplates having a woman to work and build alongside him and eventually spreads the word of his desire to passersby.  Before long, he is joined by Inger, the two begin a family, and the story goes on from there.  

Hamsun plays with time in a way that was somewhat revolutionary at the time, and we seem either mired in the second-by-second playback of Isak’s work or jumping years, children, deaths, and even generations.  The latter part of the book follows the story of both Isak’s children, their negotiation of city and rural life, and the various neighbors whose intentions with the land are often less pure and simple than Isak’s, at least initially.  

Broadforking aerates the soil without inverting soil layers.

In thinking back on the reading of the book, I’m perhaps most moved by the initial steps of Isak’s journey.  Finding land with potential farming suitability, the initial seeding of potatoes, the slow, costly building of structures, and finally the ability to go to market with extra resources.  I’m struck by the full commitment and independence of Isak at the beginning of the story, especially in light of the radical variation in the life I live as I start my journey.  

I am thankful, obviously, to not have the dearth of resources and knowledge that Isak suffers as I build my little farm.  There are moments, though, when his ghost seems present on the farm.  Or maybe it’s not Isak, but my grandfather and grandmother, or the people who traversed and stewarded this land decades or centuries ago, the Lipan Apache, the Tonkawa, the Coahuiltecan, or the mostly forgotten Freedmen who lived in Cedar Creek and Bastrop County at the turn of the century.  Those ghosts, spirits, memories, whatever or whomever they be, inspire me in moments of difficulty, exhaustion, frustration, heat and freeze.  

Quelite’s very first Sora red radish from Johnny’s Seeds.