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Just a note to thank you for your chapters so far, Farasha. I have very much enjoyed reading them. I'm reading Hamsun's Growth of the Soil at the moment and find myself wondering if Lawrence read him, as I see affinities. He was surely aware of Hamsun, given the Nobel Prize and all that.

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Thank you. Hamsun is one of my favorite novelists, and Growth of the Soil is, in my view, his best book. I once told a friend that everything one needs to know in life is contained in that book. Once a year I like to read Growth of the Soil back to back with Celine's Death on the Installment Plan, the former showing what life could and should be, and the latter expressing rage at the insanity of modern, urban civilization. Lawrence likely knew of and read Hamsun, particularly since he had some Danish and Norwegian correspondents, but none of his surviving letters mention Hamsun. As for a novelist that has the greatest of affinities with Lawrence, that would have to be Nikos Kazantzakis. His writings overflow with a deep love of life and nature, and I particularly recommend his books Report to Greco and God's Pauper.

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Thank you :-)

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