FICTION.
Hunger. By Sant Hamann. (Duckworth. 8s. 6d. net.)— For once a title may be said to be entirely representative of the contents of • book. This autobiography of a journalist in Christiania is a drama of starvation. Every page of it is burdened with the physical pains and acute mental distress occasioned by want. Mr. Hamsun has created a terrible and a moving picture, so moving, indeed, that it is difficult to believe it the work of imagination unaided by experience. If the balance is not always justly held between the real and the ideal,
the preface explains that this is a first novel, and over-emphasis is the snare of the immature artist. The translation would
appear to be adequate, though the alternative use of the past and present tenses tends to confuse and irritate the English mind and ear.
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