I read Hunger recently and the image of this Norwegian guy trying to stay alive through the winter on whatever scraps he can, too proud to ever admit he's broke and so hungry that he gobbles up snow, stayed with me for days.
I don't know much about Hamsun but he comes across as a real freak.
One of my favorite authors.
Hamsun could probably be on this website in the traveler greats section - when he was younger the doctors told him if he left the country he'd died from some problem with his lungs - so he immediately took off and went traveling all across the US working on railroads on the way...
Hunger is great because everyone in the book feels the lead character is out of his mind, even though he's more educated than they are and more eloquent - still they detect that there's something unbalanced beneath the surface.
And yet the society he lives in is claustrophobic and small-minded and unable to think about anything other than the next coin or the next meal. The protagonist meanwhile occupies himself with all kinds of high ideas, writing feverish articles yet is unable to even fill his belly - the basic social failure.
Man, i see myself in that book on every page.