Alternate Cover edition of ISBN 0285647873
One of the great masters of modern consciousness reaches the peak of his achievements in the two closely related short novels, Under the Autumn Star and On Muted Strings, which make up this volume. The narrator Knut Pederson (Hamsun's real name) is an unsimple character in search of the simple life, which he hopes to attain by wandering around the Norwegian countryside doing odd jobs, but whose quest is continually frustrated by his susceptibility to the women he meets.
The futile pursuit of the first novel is complemented by the wiser, more poignant observations of the older narrator in the second. Both novels show Hamsun at his most lyrical and passionate, ironic yet deeply humane, master of one of the most original prose styles in modern literature.