Too much information!

I am reading the fourth volume of the six-volume My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard. On the cover of the book there is a comment by New York Times Book Review. It reads: Why would you read a six volume, 3,600-page Norwegian novel about a man writing a six-volume, 3,600 page Norwegian novel? The short answer is that it is breathtakingly good and so you cannot stop yourself, and would not want to.

                                                            

As I am reading the fourth volume already I must have read close to 2,000 pages and I am asking myself the same question. I accept the short answer by New York Times but I am asking myself the next question what it that I like is? The answer is not that simple. I think I like the openness of Karl Ove telling his story. Warts and all. And there are many warts in his stories. Some belong to people in his life but most of them are he owns. Sometimes I want to scream – too much information!! I do not need to know all the details of his bodily reactions to the previous night over drinking. Maybe some of them I can cope with, but not all for God’s sake! But no, we really get it all, with colour, consistence and more. Is this what I particularly like about the book? In a way, yes, strangely enough. Maybe not necessarily post overdrinking bathroom details but the concept of telling it as it was, no make up applied. That makes the book really authentic and I feel like I really know young Karl Ove. He is eighteen in the fourth volume and for the next hundreds of pages will be trying to loose his virginity. Mind boggles. I will know the boy well by the end of the volume. Will I like him? Will I get the next book? I am not sure yet. But most likely, I will. They say that I will not be able to stop myself. Hmm… My knowledge of the men’s world will increase considerably.

I like the sincerity of the book, I also can relate to Karl Ove’s problems, interests and fascinations. And I come from a different world to his. I would say that my interests are very different to his preoccupations. This is one of the values of the book, it covers universal issues but it reads like a rather simple story. Deceivingly simple.

During one of management courses, I have attended in my life, my colleagues assessed me as sincere. Not a bad value or a characteristic but it bothered me somehow and I still, many years after, I ponder on that. While I consider sincerity close to honesty and I highly value both, I sometimes feel concerned that I disclose more than healthy and that it may turn against me. I know that at times it does. Knausgaard is painfully sincere and searching for his truths. Sometimes I shouted in my thoughts – too much information! Stop it! He has some court cases on the go as a result of writing as it was or as he remembered it was. He became also very famous, very fast. His sincerity of total disclosure is a great component to it. He is at times accused of too strong self-focus bordering on narcissism. I forgive him that.

After some research I found out that the book number 6 is not translated yet and that I will have to wait for it a while. The book contains Knausgaard thought on Breivik. This should be very interesting.

On reflection, I think I will keep reading My Struggle until it finishes, if it ever does. In the meantime I will read and write about two first books by Donna Tartt. I already have bought them.