Forced by circumstances into perverse cruelty to one another, Johannes & Victoria live their lives apart until, in the last tragic pages, we see that Victoria cannot live without her Johannes.

Knut Hamsun's 1904 classic, Mothwise, is set in the remote northern Norwegian trading post of Rosengaard. Ove Rolandsen, telegraph operator, eccentric scientist, and local Casanova, trades wits, fists, and kisses with a host of quirky neighbours. He serenades the curate's wife and fights a drunken giant, but taking on Trader Mack, the town's fish-glue magnate, is a more difficult matter. ' Hamsun] has a magnifying glass on his eye, like a jeweller's.' Robert Bly