Since my last post I found myself in a different mood and have read a
couple of hundred pages of My Struggle more. I do not want to take back what I
have written but the parts of the book which I found confronting tell more
about me than the book. Sometimes I do not want to see un-esthetic realities of
life, so I did not like some too realistic description in the book. Not my kind
of literature. I confess one of my weaknesses.
There were only fragments that put me off momentarily and then my fascination and
admiration of the book continued.
My Struggle is an autobiography so by its nature a kind of a bildungsroman
and tells the story “of formation, of education and
coming-of-age” of Karl Ove who in the course of the book becomes a famous
writer. The man is obviously very talented and he was determined to become a
writer when he was very young. Writing starts with reading and the young Karl
Ove read an unprecedented number of books. There was no book at the town
library he would not have read. When he was sixteen, he already knew that he
wanted to be a writer. Mind you, when I was about that age I also started to
write my first (and the last so far) book. Such dreams do not necessarily
indicate promising literary future. But
it meant just that for Knausgaard, a great literary future.
He was a solitary child even if he had friends he got
into mischief with and he liked to hang around with them. But there was
something in him that he was on the outside. He did not like it and he did not
want to be known the fact that he was often left without a friend to spend time
with. He pretended that he waited for someone or looking for inexistent friends.
He did not have social skills and being good at many subjects at school and
talking about it did not bring friendship but competitive envy. It was not an
easy childhood also because of his father. Nevertheless it had many happy
moments. I found very touching the way he writes about his brother. There is so
much love there expressed in a Scandinavian way, without big words or long dissertations.
I was moved in a Slavic way.
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| Knausgaard brothers |
There is a lot written about getting drunk, for the
young boy who was not particularly popular at school, getting drunk was a way
of freedom to behave the way he felt like. Without a need to score points or
appear to others as one of them without feeling on the outside.
Amazing book. He writes about a boy and a young man
and I find in his stories and thoughts such relevance to some of my dilemmas.
