Hunger
I’m reading Hunger. Knute (I did it again! I’ll call this the Knute Rockne Effect) Knut Hamsun. I am doing kind of a literary revisiting tour. Things I’ve read and things that were once on my consciousness and then weren’t. Schaefer’s Shane. Camus’ The Outsider. And now Hamsun, 14 years after Norway, where I heard so much about Hamsun’s writing, which was intriguing, and his world view, which was distracting.
I bought something at the local hardware store that came to just under ten dollars. I hand the clerk a twenty dollar bill. The clerk takes it and says “from ten.” I don’t correct him. No need to. He meant “from twenty.” Let him correct himself. But maybe he thinks it is ten? No. I see him put the twenty dollar bill in the slot with the other twenties. He misspoke. But then he gives me change for ten. I say I gave him a twenty. He looks at me cockeyed. Pauses. A short one. Didn’t even feel uncomfortably long. No sound of crickets or a wolf howl in the distance. Nothing like that. He breaks the short pause like so:-“OK.”He hands me an additional ten and wishes me a good day. I am appeased. And that’s that or is it that? I feel a trust has been broken. Perhaps a trust in my honesty. Perhaps a trust in my currency note recognition. Perhaps a trust in his own currency note recognition or “with-it-ness”. Is that worth ten dollars? To me, yes, it’s worth it. Ten bucks is ten bucks. But what is two bucks? Fifty cents? There is a number for sure.
Hamsun’s protagonist would have said to keep the extra ten, he doesn’t need it anyways.
Jae-Ho
I bought a copy of “Le Faim” in Switzerland for absolutely no reason other than I like the book and it was a beautiful copy. I doubt I’ll try and read it in French, but who knows? Maybe I will surprise even myself.
I can’t tell what you think is “worth it”. It can’t be the broken trust, because that makes no sense. And you have the ten dollars. Perhaps you meant it would have been worth it not to say anything?
Ah, that bit reads weird. I meant ten bucks is worth more to me than the broken trust. To clarify further. I’d rather have ten bucks.
If the whole incident was over fifty cents, I stay silent and eat the fifty cents. Two bucks? Three? Not sure.
Should I have stolen the very old copy of Hunger from the priest in Norway?