Aged Novelist at Play

VAGABONDS--Knut Hamsun -- Coward-McCann ($3).

Edevart was a simple lad. Even in the far-from-sophisticated Norwegian village of Polden there were sharper wits, more skeptical memories than his. But Edevart was willing to learn about life. When young vagabond August drifted into the village, smiled and showed his gold teeth, told whopper after whopper about his adventures, Edevart heard his vocation calling. He and August became "buddies."

From August he learned many useful facts, many ornamental dodges. August had been everywhere, done everything and everybody; but when he was in a tight place was apt to confess himself a miserable and not quite bright sinner. From failure and success he made equally quick recoveries. Edevart and he roamed the country, peddled worthless watches, fished, worked in the fields, schemed, got drunk and lost everything, time & again. August, always on the way up or down, never got anywhere; but Edevart nearly made his pile, succeeded at least in giving his young brother the chance to reap where he had sowed. When he was skipper for Trader Knoff, Edevart was the big man of Polden, and brought a short-lived prosperity to his native hamlet. But he was always too kindhearted, the roguery he learned from August never really became part of him; and another man's wife took all his savings to the U. S., leaving him with a worthless farm, bitter memories.

Vagabonds will remind few readers of Author Hamsun's earlier books; its people are neither monumental peasant types nor furious eccentrics, but ordinary voting citizens. Hamsun's 71-year-old creative energy is burning with a low blue flame.

The Author. Knut Hamsun, Nobel Prize Winner (Growth of the Soil, 1920), is Norway's No. 1 novelist. By 1918 his books had been translated into 23 languages, bettering Hans Christian Andersen's record by one. Says he, with proud humility: "In 100 years I shall be forgotten." Other books: Hunger, Pan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.