Victoria

This beautiful and moving story of young love was hailed by the New York Times as «A sustained feat of shimmering lyricism». The lovers are Johannes, the miller-s son, and Victoria, daughter of the lord of the manor. Their brief moment of ecstasy is as transitory as their dreams. Separated forever by their stations in society, they live their lives apart, forced by circumstances into perverse acts of cruelty against one another. Only in the last tragic pages do we see that Victoria cannot live without her Johannes. Deceptively simple, this touching idyll reveals Hamsun as a man who seeks and finds loveliness in sorrow. His vision of love is «strewn with blossoms and blood, blood and blossoms.»