I tend to hold off reading introductions to novels until after I finish it. Academics don't give a flim-flam for spoilers and will ruin the entire endeavor if you're not careful. (Do they actually 'read'?) That said, I'd advise that one actually DO read the intro to this novel because had I known going into it what I learned only after the fact, I would've received it a little more graciously.
A strange young man, we'd probably call him 'emo' today, spends a summer in a little town of Norway acting, well, strange. He woos a few townspeople, makes friends with the local crippled midget, and generally comports himself in bizarre fashions. That's the plot, simply put.
Now, yes, yes, Hamsun was a filthy Nazi sympathizer, but he wrote some good shit before he got all reichy. "Growth of the Soil" and "Pan" are both great novels and should be up there. This one is a little more hit and miss more because it's a little more psychologically engrossing, with long-winded dialogue spells and the plot itself tends to wander. Apparently this was all intentional and the dude's supposed to be a modern day parallel to Jesus. Fine. But had I known that from the get-go, I wouldn't have almost put it aside three or four times.
Nice payoff at the end though