The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and like a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask the mysterious God of life; for no one knows such things. She gave him nothing, no nothing did she give him and yet he thanked her. She said: Give me your peace and your reason! And he was only sorry she did not ask for his life.

Hamsun was eventually invited to meet with Hitler; during the meeting he complained about the German civilian administrator in Norway Josef Terboven and ask that imprisoned Norwegian citizens be released enraging Hitler. The semiautobiographical work described a young writer's descent into near madness as a result of hunger and poverty in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (modern name Oslo). The melodramatic story follows a poet Bjørger and his love for Laura.

The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun". The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the [20th] century" with works such as Hunger (1890) Mysteries (1892) Pan (1894) and Victoria (1898).