actually this seems quite riveting compared to a lot fo other stuff in the book
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 12 March 2014 11:01 (ten years ago) link
i don't find that tension frustrating. it provides momentum, so that each incident and digression seems to flow necessarily from the previous, and afterward i don't feel i've wasted my time with any of them, so far anyway (near the end of book two.) and then when significant things do happen, they appear suddenly and unceremoniously, but aren't any less joyous or sad or humiliating for it.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 12 March 2014 17:00 (ten years ago) link
I'd like to draw out my Proust comparison a bit further, but I fear that it would become increasingly obvious that I haven't read Proust. So instead, allow me to substitute a Sun Kil Moon comparison. His new album "Benji" is kind of the sonic equivalent of "My Struggle" - seeming artlessness, the piling up of small inconsequential details ("Spent the day with my dad and his old friend, Jim Wise/He's on house arrest and he sits around inside./We brought him food from Panera Bread"), over-sharing of personal information about oneself and one's relatives, fearlessness in the face of taboo subjects (sex, death, insecurity). Perhaps these are harbingers of a new "reality hunger" style for the TMI generation.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 12 March 2014 21:16 (ten years ago) link
That's where any comparisons with Proust don't make sense. He uses a complicated set of metaphors as a way to say what can't be easy to say and at the same time obscure meanings.
I see a desire to live through an ambitious novelistic project in a lot of the reviews. After all we've only had Harry Potter in the last 30 years and that doesn't seem to be good enough for many people.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 13 March 2014 13:24 (ten years ago) link
For the record:
The final book (yet to appear in English) contains a 400-page essay on the Nazis and ends with a discussion of the anti-immigrant mass murderer Anders Breivik.
I think in the FAP earlier in the wk I said this section was 1000 pages. Sorry for the mistake but still I haven't read much from what I can only describe as 'middle class guy w/kids watches terrorism on TV' type stuff. I have to say I can't wait.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 16 March 2014 10:54 (ten years ago) link
A newly translated essay (written last year, after Knausgaard had finished "My Struggle") on writing and editing:http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2014-04-03-knausgard-en.html
― one way street, Friday, 4 April 2014 15:39 (ten years ago) link
Awesome!
― waterbabies (waterface), Friday, 4 April 2014 15:42 (ten years ago) link
Volume 2 has really picked up since I got past about the 150-page mark and he's finally talking about meeting his wife. I'm getting riveted sometimes now. I just passed a bit where they went to the theatre and saw a play with a terrible Act I, but which opens up into something wonderful later. I hope it's just coincidence, I'd be annoyed at having slogged through that for conceptual neatness.
― Ismael Klata, Friday, 4 April 2014 16:29 (ten years ago) link
Another hundred pages and this is getting really good now. Some very good episodes - a trip to Norway, a drunken night out, a dinner-party conversation - which don't add up to a great deal but are fascinating in themselves. The accretion of details by the end should be very satisfying.
I like his frustration with the Swedish liberal consensus - but there are a couple of places where he's declined to give his thoughts on certain aspects of it. I'm wondering if that might foreshadow the rumoured Brevik monologue being quite unpopular/uncomfortable reading?
― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 10:59 (ten years ago) link
lol i hope it was just for conceptual neatness!! i really like how almost everything can be read as another lens through which to examine karl ove's project. i really dug book one, waiting for my so to finish book two
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Tuesday, 15 April 2014 17:54 (ten years ago) link
oh look, we have a thread
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/books/karl-ove-knausgaards-my-struggle-is-a-movement.html
― markers, Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:43 (nine years ago) link
Have seen the name Knausgaard over the last few days, finally decided to investigate, and whoa: just put vol. 1 on hold at the library. Weird that I missed the narrative until now.
― jaymc, Friday, 6 June 2014 04:28 (nine years ago) link
A recent essay on necks and the body: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/05/28/the-other-side-of-the-face/
― one way street, Friday, 6 June 2014 12:05 (nine years ago) link
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/karl-ove-knausgaard-brings-his-struggle-to-brooklyn/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
― famous instagram God (waterface), Friday, 6 June 2014 13:12 (nine years ago) link
has anybody read this.... whats the deal.... i just got book 2
― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Tuesday, 10 June 2014 20:46 (nine years ago) link
I took a little photo to give you guys some idea what you're getting into here ...http://i.imgur.com/TYia23G.jpgFor reference — vol 1 is about 430 pages, vol 6 1110.
(I've still not read a page of this stuff, fwiw.)
― Øystein, Tuesday, 10 June 2014 21:31 (nine years ago) link
Wow
― famous instagram God (waterface), Tuesday, 10 June 2014 21:41 (nine years ago) link
I'm about halfway through the third volume (Boyhood) at the moment; Karl Ove's terror of his father, the main recurring motif in most of this volume's episodes, was already suggested pretty thoroughly in the first volume, and I find myself missing the essayistic passages from the first two volumes, but Knausgaard is very effective at maintaining a tone of naive immediacy.
― one way street, Tuesday, 10 June 2014 21:54 (nine years ago) link
lol v good use of props øystein
― j., Wednesday, 11 June 2014 00:00 (nine years ago) link
Oystein - can I ask why you haven't read a word of it. Too much conversation about it? Too near it?
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 08:39 (nine years ago) link
I admire øystein's ambition - getting all the volumes first, before sitting down to take them on?Me, I'm still stuck miway volume 1, can't imagine ever reading them all
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 09:35 (nine years ago) link
was just thinking about this again and how I'm not going to read it
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 10:19 (nine years ago) link
Yet another recent essay, this one on fame and the childish desire to be seen: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/karl-ove-knausgaard-on-fame-my-struggle/
― one way street, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 13:26 (nine years ago) link
xyzzzz: yeah, too much hype made it all very tiring, and I wanted some distance to find out if people still thought highly of it once things have settled down. Apparently the last two or three volumes sold a lot less than the first lot, but I guess that's not too surprising, considering just how many copies were sold of the first few.
licorice: ha, yeah, I feel kinda ridiculous, but stores here have been flooded with the books, so with a little patience I could get them all for next to nothing. Figured I might as well pick them up, since I am pretty curious about them. They're far less intimidating than, say, The Tale of Genji.
― Øystein, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 15:17 (nine years ago) link
my mind still boggles as to how volume 1 could become a bestseller
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 15:44 (nine years ago) link
http://observer.com/2014/06/actually-hes-doing-pretty-o-k-karl-ove-knausgaard-arrives-in-new-york/
― famous instagram God (waterface), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 19:06 (nine years ago) link
because it's Proust as if written for the masses. for better and worse.xpost
― nostormo, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 19:11 (nine years ago) link
I've nothing on Knausgaard-as-book (read a few pages, may read more but life is short), but thought this was interesting on his being a bestseller – basically, he isn't in the anglophone world: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jul/19/raise-your-hand-if-youve-read-knausgaard/It's a bit off in that it doesn't address Europe at all (except for Denmark, where he's incontestably a bestseller, right?) but I was interested to see the US/UK stats.
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 09:27 (nine years ago) link
You mean Norway?
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 09:36 (nine years ago) link
genre authors like John Le Carré or Isaac Asimov were justly noted for their literary qualities
Is this true at all, in Asimov's case? I always thought that even his fans admitted he was a pretty horrible prose stylist
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 09:44 (nine years ago) link
I think the Norway figures are remarkable - Parks is really good on these issues, but here it is off to give short shrift because Norway is a small country. In terms of proportion this is staggering.
For something 'literary' to actually have any wider cultural impact anywhere in Europe is amazing. Nothing in the UK in the last 25 years (or more) has that and the likelihood of that ever happening again is next to nil. Zadie Smith, Ian McWean etc. sounds like a smaller level of conversation.
And then to use the impact on another country (and the parochial English do not care about Norway) to push a translation too. Again, it would've taken 20 years for this kind of work to be fully translated if it hadn't generated the conversation in the first place.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 09:48 (nine years ago) link
25 years is about right - The Satanic Verses had quite an impact, and I doubt anyone's got the guts to try that again any time soon.
I'll be finishing volume 3 tonight. Volume 4's not out until March :o( I've been careful in looking it up, for fear of spoilers, but even so I'm surprised not to be able to find out even when it's set. I don't know if I could take another round of thirtysomething petty domesticity.
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 10:21 (nine years ago) link
Oh yeah, Norway, sorry (to both Norway and Denmark), hasty and not quite awake.
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 10:38 (nine years ago) link
I'm old enough to remember when Milan Kundera was the talk of the town
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 10:39 (nine years ago) link
Yes – and I'd make a blind guess that there'd be impressive figures across Scandinavia (that's not an attempt to excuse my earlier confusion…), then maybe into Germany (though ok the overall title might put them off).
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 11:14 (nine years ago) link
FWIW, Knausgard's appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August sold out pretty quickly
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/karl-ove-knausgaard
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 11:20 (nine years ago) link
Nothing in the UK in the last 25 years (or more) has that and the likelihood of that ever happening again is next to nil.
tbh I wouldn't write it off – UK is definitely not where the literary action is, but if we fluked up a talent or two, and they hit the right fault-line, then things could kick up to the level of international discussion.
(But ok this is basically some 'winning the world cup' idle speculation & probably ignores institutional structures and cultures that make the UK so 2nd division)
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 11:52 (nine years ago) link
not that satanic verses = winning the world cup.
26 years of hurt.
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 11:55 (nine years ago) link
woof dissing Norway like Gazza
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 12:47 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, Knausgård is a star in Denmark, and I asume in Sweden as well. My Swedish uncle was reading part six last time we visited. The toppoint of hysteria was a reviewer in Danish newspaper Politiken writing that My Struggle would mean as much for the youth of today as The Sufferings of Young Werther did back in the day. Which is absolutely ridiculous and wrong.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 13:00 (nine years ago) link
actually realised that I'm stupidly parochial so I don't really have the perspective to see UK lit in an international perspective & that in my head I've put Knausgaard in the 'one non-Anglophone author that serious people talk about for a bit' category.
This is not like the world cup because the tournament is held every 6-8 years (Knausgaard '13 - Bolano '07 - Murakami '00 - 1994 championship cancelled due to Britpop - Kundera/Marquez shared title '86)
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 13:42 (nine years ago) link
There was a 1994 tourney - Jostein Gaarder should've won, but Louis de Bernieres sneaked in and snatched it with his funny-sounding name.
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 13:55 (nine years ago) link
that's the separate and more regular 'everyone is reading this slightly literary book' tournament! Open to anglophones, doesn't generate much critical discussion.
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 14:00 (nine years ago) link
everyone is reading this slightly literary book tournament!
New board description!
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 14:28 (nine years ago) link
Irvine Welsh seemed like a big deal for a while there?
― Stevie T, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 15:19 (nine years ago) link
Yeah – I was trying to remember what was going on then – as an undergrad I was in a studenty bubble so 94-6 did seem to be a lot of people reading Trainspotting.
I cannot remember if there was an ISO Serious Author Worth Discussing for that period. Saramago, Sebald, Murakami, Houellebecq all break a bit later iirc.
― woof, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 15:27 (nine years ago) link
94-01 seemed like a lot of people reading trainspotting tbf
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 19:32 (nine years ago) link
haha i just don't know if i trust the figures in the nyrb article, though i guess that's one of those 'but i've read it ... and two people i know have read it ...' arguments
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 19:35 (nine years ago) link
bought the first volume, but haven't cracked it open yet
― markers, Wednesday, 23 July 2014 19:36 (nine years ago) link
But Freedom did sell, 68,236 in hardback in the UK, rather fewer in paperback, about half of what The Corrections sold. Rushdie’s Joseph Anton, a memoir telling of his years in hiding after the fatwa, commanded enormous column space in the press, understandably given the subject matter, but UK sales were just 7,521 in hardback and only 1,896 in paperback. However in these cases, as soon as the wave doesn’t happen the critical buzz quickly subsides.
kind of amazed, cheered at how few people read freedom though
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Wednesday, 23 July 2014 19:37 (nine years ago) link