Text: Solveig Hansen, 2022

“It was in those days when I wandered about hungry in Kristiania, that strange city which no one leaves before it has set its mark upon him.”

This is the famous opening line in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (1890), a psychological novel that describes the painful birth of a writer. The narrator in the novel is an unnamed man wandering the streets of Kristiania (the former name of Oslo), a struggling writer trying to hold onto both his dignity and sanity — and his precious pencil stub. His hunger is both physical and mental, and at one point, he almost eats his pencil. Occasionally, he earns a little money by selling an article to a newspaper. In the book, he recounts his experiences during his walks and encounters.

I think any aspiring writer can relate to the drive inside that anonymous writer. He’s craving the act of writing — and recognition, I suppose.

To describe “the whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow” should be the goal of modern literature, according to Hamsun. And with Hunger, he showed how. A young man’s desperation to become a writer became a novel about the desperation to become a writer — and we look into his mind and feel exactly what he feels.

We, the readers, expect a lot from writers. We want them to entertain us, inform and explain, move us, solve complex crimes, and write killer endings that make us nod in agreement and say, “That’s exactly how it had to end.”

As much as I love reading, I’m even more curious about how stories are conceived. What finally triggers the moment of genesis — that exact point where creator meets creation and there is light? How much struggle does it take to find “the right composition of words that create joyous magic, make you feel as if you are in that smoky blues joint or experiencing the morning atmosphere as the city wakes up and gets ready for a new day” — to quote myself.

I know this much: writing is damn hard work. Hamsun’s starving protagonist nearly loses his mind and eventually signs on with a ship, leaving the city behind. Any writer will tell you that the only way to write is to sit down and write — not wait for inspiration to strike. It requires discipline and practice.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” Painter Chuck Close said that.

I’ve often thought I’d like to spend 24 hours out in the streets of a big city, just to observe as it wakes up, gets busy, fills with people and cars, slows down again, goes to sleep — and wakes up once more. Then I’d grab a cup of coffee and a Danish, go home, and write about it all. Maybe not a “whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow” type of piece — but still.

It could be the genesis of an author.

Or not.

I might not be hungry enough.

Image: Mag Pole/Unsplash