VICTORIA by Knut Hamsun, translated from...

VICTORIA by Knut Hamsun, translated from the Norwegian by Oliver Stallbrass (Sun & Moon Press: $10.95; 155 pp.). Long out of print, this intimate depiction of an ill-starred romance contrasts sharply with the Nobel Prize winner’s epic, “Growth of the Soil.” Johannes, the son of a miller, becomes a celebrated writer, but his literary success can’t remove the stigma of his humble birth. He yearns for Victoria, the daughter of a local nobleman, who is also a prisoner of her class: Her happiness is sacrificed to the financial needs of her aristocratic family. Hamsun examines each character in this bittersweet puppet show, shakes his head at their follies, then allows them to crumple back into the toy box.