A book jot from January 2022:

I just finished reading Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun, translated by Robert Bly. This novel is narrated by an unnamed protagonist living in the city of Christiania (modern-day Oslo) near the end of the 19th century. He is extremely destitute, often homeless, and his penurious existence combined with a perhaps unusual sense of propriety results in such protracted periods without food that his physical and mental health are severely affected.

The reader is given an intimate tour of the insides of the narrator’s brain. His sanity is often in question, as well as what it is exactly he is struggling so fiercely against. There’s a great deal of deep psychological darkness and physical suffering, as well as occasional moments of beauty and even gentle light-heartedness. As the narrator’s thoughts are traced in intricate detail, the reader gets a sense of his minute-to-minute existence.

When considered with the entirety of the book, the ending seems to hold a key to understanding the narrator’s extreme descent into hunger and isolation.

“My God, I was a long way down.”