Chapter the Last

The Last Chapter is set in the Torahus sanatorium, where the sufferings of most of the patients are related to civilisation. The novel has a group of central characters, but no distinct main character. Among the characters is "The Suicide", who entered the sanatorium following the discovery of his wife’s infidelity and threatens constantly to take his own life. Another guest is the lovely Julie d'Espard. She enters into a relationship with the bogus Count Flemming and gets pregnant. When Flemming disappears one day she turns to Daniel Utby, who runs a small farm near Torahus and who represents the novel’s ideological norm. The Last Chapter is one of Hamsun’s darkest novels. It was written at a time when he was much preoccupied by death. The novel is often compared with Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, which was published the year after.