In his day-to-day interactions he lies frequently to create a semblance of success and purpose–but it’s a veneer a crutch to comfort his bruised ego and painful shame. At the same time he thinks so highly of himself and holds low opinions of everyone and everything else. Embarrassed by his condition perpetual homelessness and unemployment, he’s very much concerned about how others perceive him. The book doesn’t follow a strict plot as it’s dominated by internal monologue, so we’re given a firsthand account of the psychological state of our starving artist.

He has nothing but the clothes on his back and the thoughts in his head. We meet our narrator in a bare room in an upper floor of a building in Kristiania**. Readers follow a stream-of-consciousness induced by a young mans’ desire to gain fame as an author, fill his pockets, and more urgently, satiate his stomach. Have you ever heard of the term “starving artist” ? This is a story about the starving artist *. Something stirred in my brain, a thought that bored its way in there a stark-mad notion. At length I stuck my forefinger in my mouth, and took to sucking it. Naught availed I was dying helplessly, with my eyes wide open staring straight up at the roof. I sat up, struck my knees with my flat hands, laughed as hard as my sore chest permitted me only to collapse again. I tried afresh to shake myself out of this strange daze that enveloped my whole being like a mist. I did not think anything about it just then it was as if it did not concern me. Small loose tufts came away, flakes that got between my fingers, and scattered over the pillow.

Hunger book hamsun