A wife, two cows, and a pig

Knut Hamsun’s On Muted Strings is a sequel to Under the Autumn Star. It takes place six years later and concerns our friend Knut, who has been idling and wandering to no great accomplishment. He decides he wants to return to see the Captain and his fair madame, so he sets off to the country.

He’s wearing a long beard now, and he’s 50. He’s gray and he’s lost some of the ardor that he showered on dames when he was younger. He meets Lars his old companion from the first book who is now living on the Captains estate. Lars wants Knut to grow up, telling him needs what he has; a wife, two cows, and a pig. That’s what went for comfort in the old Norway, but Knut has other ideas. He’s busy observing the Captain and his wife as their marriage disintegrates.

She can’t conceive and starts to lose it. She first resists then balls an engineer from the city. The Captain’s no slouch; he puts the blocks to a young married maiden from a parsonage. Fan receives the shit and madame flees to the city to have her gash surveyed by the engineer on a regular basis. Knut follows her and works with the engineer to keep tabs. He returns to the Captain, and she soon follows, at first cheerful and apologetic, then overcome with morning sickness; she has a bastard in the belly. She flees and drowns on an icy river. This exit was very apropos, considering the set-up Hamsun weaves as people, nature, and action combine.

Knut the character in this book is more developed than in the previous. He is, at 50, in full understanding of life’s limits. Life at that age is playing on muted strings. Up next is Hamsun’s Pan.