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"0, I shall furnish a queer book this time, unexpected, unknown. Punktumr Knut Hamsun (Naess 4.18)
HAD KNUT HAMSUN known the current meaning of the word "queer, he would probably have chosen a different expression to point out the unique and innovative character of his novel Pan to his German publisher Albert Langen. Nevertheless, the term seems appropriate in an ironic way. It evokes the questions of sexual identity and sexual deviation that are crucial for an understanding of the ways in which masculinity is perceived in this novel, which has correctly been labeled "panerotic." This article is partially an attempt to show how and why Pan lends itself to a reading that in modem terms could indeed be called a "queer reading."
In 1985, Knut Faldbakken published in his novel Glahn a rewriting ofPan that transports the setting and the events to contemporary Oslo. His declared intention was to show the predicaments of contemporary masculinity and to deconstruct the dangerously romantic ideals of masculinity in Knut Hamsun's work. This article will discuss what roles sexuality and sexual perversion play in the two novels and how they relate to each other. After a brief presentation of the two novels, I will discuss the ways in which masculinity and sexuality are treated in both texts and the ways that they are connected to different discursive contexts. I will next proceed to the relation between masculinity and writing in the texts and finally draw conclusions concerning the relationship between the two male authors Faldbakken and Hamsun.
The main narrative of Hamsun's novel Pan consists of Lieutenant Glahn's idyllic yet melancholic memories of a summer that he spent in northern Norway two years before. He lives in a cabin in a small fishing community, hunts his own food, and configures himself as a true child of nature. He is approached by and falls in love with Edvarda, the daughter of the powerful tradesman Mack. After a few passionate weeks, their relationship changes to a constant dance between the poles of attraction and repulsion. Glahn becomes entangled in his jealousy toward the doctor whom he suspects is his rival and toward a Finnish baron, a scientist, who later marries Edvarda. Glahn then turns to a relationship with the loving...