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"My Struggle" series by Karl Ove Knausgård [1]. The whole series is 3600 pages in six books, and I read four of them this year. Why on earth am I reading ridicu

by marttt 5y ago

"My Struggle" series by Karl Ove Knausgård [1]. The whole series is 3600 pages in six books, and I read four of them this year. Why on earth am I reading ridiculously detailed reports on some Norwegian guy's personal life, I thought. His divorce, parenting struggles, creative aspirations as a writer, sexual aspirations as an adolescent, in-depth descriptions on how his dad became an alcoholic, etc. Why am I reading this? And yet, I did. Whenever I had a free moment, a household issue I didn't want to solve, etc, I grabbed after this book to simply get lost. I'm not sure if one can consider it a literary masterpiece, but it sure was impossible to put down. In one of the back-cover blurbs, a critic said something like that: this series makes it clear that a person's life is actually by no means a story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Struggle_(Knausg%C3%A5rd_novels) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Struggle_(Knausg%C3%A5rd_no...

AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
Sunk cost fallacy [1]? Or was there something actually interesting in the book? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
- marttt 5y ago
  Ha, great parallel, thanks for pointing to this, but I think not. More likely, since I've had literary ambitions myself, I was really curios to find out what exactly keeps me immersed in this book. Technically, how does the author accomplish this? I have some clues: simple, casual language with occasional to-the-point metaphors, lots of dialogues, then stream-of consciousness-sections and philosophical cross-references out of the blue, hundreds and hundres of pages with no chapters, etc. Knausgård sure knows how to keep a strong pace. It's somewhat a mashup of all sorts of things, and so is life, isn't it? In a way, it's like the Perl programming language, lol: often times impossible to read, and often times impossible to not read. Easy to get immersed in all that mess. But I'm not entirely satisfied with that answer. (Though, wow, man, grabbing in Perl -- this sure has to be the best ever metaphor used to describe the style of Knausgård's book.)
  - AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
    Comparing a book with a programming language is such a wonderful metaphor
- sixstringtheory 5y ago
  I'm finishing up volume 5 soon and in addition to marttt's description of how well it's written, I think I enjoy it simply because it resonates so deeply with my own experiences. Loss, self harm, substance abuse, complex relationships with family, making mistakes and having to live with them, talking about music, making friends and love, aimlessness. It's an existentially entertaining read for me, the stuff of life as I know it. He derives insights from even banal events. And still, plenty of surprises, shocks and laughs. It's all presented with clarity and bravery. I'm looking forward to reading some of his fiction–I'm interested to see what it's like to read the work of someone I already feel like I know so much about. Received The Morning Star as a gift this holiday season. I'm honestly a bit afraid it won't live up to what I've already read by him. The original reason I picked up his autobiography was simply that I saw a book review about it and it filled a spot in a larger goal I have: to read a book by an author from every country. I hadn't read Norway yet, and I also was on an autobiography kick.

by marttt 5y ago

AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago

Sunk cost fallacy [1]? Or was there something actually interesting in the book? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

marttt 5y ago
Ha, great parallel, thanks for pointing to this, but I think not. More likely, since I've had literary ambitions myself, I was really curios to find out what exactly keeps me immersed in this book. Technically, how does the author accomplish this? I have some clues: simple, casual language with occasional to-the-point metaphors, lots of dialogues, then stream-of consciousness-sections and philosophical cross-references out of the blue, hundreds and hundres of pages with no chapters, etc. Knausgård sure knows how to keep a strong pace. It's somewhat a mashup of all sorts of things, and so is life, isn't it? In a way, it's like the Perl programming language, lol: often times impossible to read, and often times impossible to not read. Easy to get immersed in all that mess. But I'm not entirely satisfied with that answer. (Though, wow, man, grabbing in Perl -- this sure has to be the best ever metaphor used to describe the style of Knausgård's book.)
- AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
  Comparing a book with a programming language is such a wonderful metaphor
sixstringtheory 5y ago
I'm finishing up volume 5 soon and in addition to marttt's description of how well it's written, I think I enjoy it simply because it resonates so deeply with my own experiences. Loss, self harm, substance abuse, complex relationships with family, making mistakes and having to live with them, talking about music, making friends and love, aimlessness. It's an existentially entertaining read for me, the stuff of life as I know it. He derives insights from even banal events. And still, plenty of surprises, shocks and laughs. It's all presented with clarity and bravery. I'm looking forward to reading some of his fiction–I'm interested to see what it's like to read the work of someone I already feel like I know so much about. Received The Morning Star as a gift this holiday season. I'm honestly a bit afraid it won't live up to what I've already read by him. The original reason I picked up his autobiography was simply that I saw a book review about it and it filled a spot in a larger goal I have: to read a book by an author from every country. I hadn't read Norway yet, and I also was on an autobiography kick.