Again, Knut

CHAPTER THE LAST--Knut Hamsun-- Knopf ($3).

Author Hamsun and Publisher Knopf have produced some 15 Hamsun novels in the U. S. Chapter The Last is laid in the Torahus Sanatorium. There is The Suicide, so-called because that is what he threatens ever to do. He almost becomes normal when his wife comes back to him, but when the Sanatorium burns down she dies and he, ironically, escapes. Then there is a man going blind with what The Suicide calls "the barber's itch." Says he to The Suicide: "My eruption is only on the skin but you're sick inside." Other characters who experience a chapter-the-last are: 1) a lady "always wringing something" whom a bull gores; 2) a man who dies of shock when his wife threatens him with a pillow; 3) a doctor who falls into a hole in the ice and dies from exposure rather than arouse anyone; 4) a countrymaid who dies after eating the Sanatorium's canned meat. Norwegian humor and pessimism lend distinction to this bleak novel.

Knut Hamsun, 69, is a onetime shoemaker's apprentice, coal-heaver, schoolteacher, road-mender, farmhand, trolley conductor, fisherman. Twice he has visited the U. S. Now he lives with his family on an estate near Grimstad, Norway.