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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
It. Is. Finished.
I've spent the last 27 months living in Karl Ove Knausgård's head so to turn the final page of Book Six fills me with both relief and sadness. Since I started Book One in February of 2017 it has been mostly Knausgård, most of the time. Even when I took time off between his books, there was always another one there, waiting for me, drawing me back. I've read other authors in the last two years, but it was Knausgård who occupied my thoughts. Or, to be more precise, it was his thoughts that occupied mine.
That's all over now. I can now turn to my bookshelf and pull a different author from the shelves. I can move on to an actual novel, of which there are many waiting for me.
But I'm also sad because this series is absolutely brilliant. And while each stands on its own, it's most rewarding to read them all and see the link they form. I've never read anything quite as original as this, and I'm having a hard time thinking of another author who is so masterful at conveying emotion.
"My Struggle" isn't particularly tight. It's free-flowing and events seem chosen completely at random. Another title might be "Scenes from a life", because that what these are — random scenes, random glimpses, of a seemingly normal life.
What Knausgård is so good at doing is describing emotions in such a way that you feel and relate to exactly what he's describing. These books are a sentimental education, a form of emotional therapy perhaps, that draw you inward and enable you to better understand your own feelings and emotions. I've learned a lot about Knausgård in these books, but I've also learned a lot about myself.
Book Six is the most challenging of the series, but perhaps also the most rewarding. That's almost entirely due to the massive 400+ page essay that Knausgård drops right in the middle of this 1,160-page book. Titled "The Name and the Number", the essay deals with Hitler and the Holocaust, and I found it to be perhaps the single greatest thing that Knausgård has written in this series.
Other themes are discussed too, such as the power of the name and the way the name makes the stranger familiar to us, the way it humanizes them. This essay casts "My Struggle" in an entirely new light. Knausgård's decision to change the names of many of the "characters", for example, and, most especially, his refusal throughout the books to refer to his father by name.
When Knausgård finally writes his father's name, towards the end of Book Six, the effect is like that of a very bright light flashing in a very dark space. His father's name, completely absent to this point, now finally given, puts what feels like a period at the end of the story of Knausgård's relationship with his father, the main reason Knausgård wrote the series in the first place.
It is strange and no doubt controversial to write, but Knausgård also succeeds on some level in humanizing Hitler or, more specifically, of making us relate to Hitler's early years — that is, before he became a crazed mass murderer. Those who have read all the way up to Book Six can no doubt recognize the points in Hitler's youth that eerily coincide with points in the life of the man we've been reading about for six books already. The feeling of isolation, the inability to masturbate, the predilection towards younger women — Knausgård has been hitting us on the head with all these things, and now he highlights those same characteristics in Hitler.
That said, I think drawing the conclusion that Knausgård has been writing these books from the very beginning as Hitler, as some have done, is completely misplaced. Knausgård isn't pulling the rug out from under us while shouting, "See? You've been reading about and feeling sympathy for Hitler this entire time! What did you think you'd get when you picked up a book called 'My Struggle'?", he's using these points in Hitler's biography to underline the fact that Hitler wasn't born a monster. By forcing us to relate to Hitler's difficult youth he's making the point that we all have evil, as well as good, inside of us, that we're each capable of wonderful as well as terrifying things.
This is emphasized in Book Six, which deals largely with the fallout from Knausgård's first two books, and Knausgård's admission that by writing these books, he's committed a sort of criminal act by stealing other people's privacy. He hates himself for what he's written, but he has to write it all the same. He's compelled to as a writer.
Writing isn't an occupation that Knausgård makes sound glamorous. Indeed, the final line in the book has Knausgård rejoicing at the fact that, having finished the series, he's no longer a writer. Writing is not something that Knausgård appears to enjoy doing. He's forced to do it, compelled by his restlessness, his "unfixed gaze", to do it.
In his essay, Knausgård also skewers historians like Ian Kershaw, who've written about Hitler's upbringing in purely sneering, contemptuous tones in an attempt to paint Hitler as having been born an evil psychopath instead of a flawed human being like any one of us but one who simply developed into an evil psychopath. That kind of logic is simple, though. It's too simple.
Knausgård would seem to warn that by claiming Hitler was born that way, we're letting him off the hook, essentially conceding that bad people are born bad and, oh well, nothing we — or they — can do about it. That no one emerges from the womb like Damien from "The Omen" seems obvious, but when you see what Kershaw has written about the young Hitler in the first of his two-part biography on him, [b:Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris|93996|Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris (Hitler, #1)|Ian Kershaw|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389660286l/93996._SY75_.jpg|138544], it's clear that Kershaw — whose sole source, August Kubizek's [b:The Young Hitler I Knew|54276|The Young Hitler I Knew|August Kubizek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1438644156l/54276._SY75_.jpg|1226607], is the only personal account we have of Hitler during the several years in which Kershaw is writing about — radically deviates from that source in an apparent attempt to have us believe that Hitler was quite simply always Hitler. (Or he was trying to score an easy layup by tapping us on the shoulder and letting us know that he believes Hitler was always bad. What a brave man you are, Sir! Such a belief requires real courage!)
But no, there's nothing "simple" about it.
If I had to rank the "My Struggle" series in order of preference, I'd do so this way:
1. Book 2
2. Book 5
3. Book 1
4. Book 6
5. Book 3
6. Book 4
But you should read them all, and you should read them all in the order set out.
And don't skip the essay!
Now onto the rest of my bookshelf.
I've spent the last 27 months living in Karl Ove Knausgård's head so to turn the final page of Book Six fills me with both relief and sadness. Since I started Book One in February of 2017 it has been mostly Knausgård, most of the time. Even when I took time off between his books, there was always another one there, waiting for me, drawing me back. I've read other authors in the last two years, but it was Knausgård who occupied my thoughts. Or, to be more precise, it was his thoughts that occupied mine.
That's all over now. I can now turn to my bookshelf and pull a different author from the shelves. I can move on to an actual novel, of which there are many waiting for me.
But I'm also sad because this series is absolutely brilliant. And while each stands on its own, it's most rewarding to read them all and see the link they form. I've never read anything quite as original as this, and I'm having a hard time thinking of another author who is so masterful at conveying emotion.
"My Struggle" isn't particularly tight. It's free-flowing and events seem chosen completely at random. Another title might be "Scenes from a life", because that what these are — random scenes, random glimpses, of a seemingly normal life.
What Knausgård is so good at doing is describing emotions in such a way that you feel and relate to exactly what he's describing. These books are a sentimental education, a form of emotional therapy perhaps, that draw you inward and enable you to better understand your own feelings and emotions. I've learned a lot about Knausgård in these books, but I've also learned a lot about myself.
Book Six is the most challenging of the series, but perhaps also the most rewarding. That's almost entirely due to the massive 400+ page essay that Knausgård drops right in the middle of this 1,160-page book. Titled "The Name and the Number", the essay deals with Hitler and the Holocaust, and I found it to be perhaps the single greatest thing that Knausgård has written in this series.
Other themes are discussed too, such as the power of the name and the way the name makes the stranger familiar to us, the way it humanizes them. This essay casts "My Struggle" in an entirely new light. Knausgård's decision to change the names of many of the "characters", for example, and, most especially, his refusal throughout the books to refer to his father by name.
When Knausgård finally writes his father's name, towards the end of Book Six, the effect is like that of a very bright light flashing in a very dark space. His father's name, completely absent to this point, now finally given, puts what feels like a period at the end of the story of Knausgård's relationship with his father, the main reason Knausgård wrote the series in the first place.
It is strange and no doubt controversial to write, but Knausgård also succeeds on some level in humanizing Hitler or, more specifically, of making us relate to Hitler's early years — that is, before he became a crazed mass murderer. Those who have read all the way up to Book Six can no doubt recognize the points in Hitler's youth that eerily coincide with points in the life of the man we've been reading about for six books already. The feeling of isolation, the inability to masturbate, the predilection towards younger women — Knausgård has been hitting us on the head with all these things, and now he highlights those same characteristics in Hitler.
That said, I think drawing the conclusion that Knausgård has been writing these books from the very beginning as Hitler, as some have done, is completely misplaced. Knausgård isn't pulling the rug out from under us while shouting, "See? You've been reading about and feeling sympathy for Hitler this entire time! What did you think you'd get when you picked up a book called 'My Struggle'?", he's using these points in Hitler's biography to underline the fact that Hitler wasn't born a monster. By forcing us to relate to Hitler's difficult youth he's making the point that we all have evil, as well as good, inside of us, that we're each capable of wonderful as well as terrifying things.
This is emphasized in Book Six, which deals largely with the fallout from Knausgård's first two books, and Knausgård's admission that by writing these books, he's committed a sort of criminal act by stealing other people's privacy. He hates himself for what he's written, but he has to write it all the same. He's compelled to as a writer.
Writing isn't an occupation that Knausgård makes sound glamorous. Indeed, the final line in the book has Knausgård rejoicing at the fact that, having finished the series, he's no longer a writer. Writing is not something that Knausgård appears to enjoy doing. He's forced to do it, compelled by his restlessness, his "unfixed gaze", to do it.
In his essay, Knausgård also skewers historians like Ian Kershaw, who've written about Hitler's upbringing in purely sneering, contemptuous tones in an attempt to paint Hitler as having been born an evil psychopath instead of a flawed human being like any one of us but one who simply developed into an evil psychopath. That kind of logic is simple, though. It's too simple.
Knausgård would seem to warn that by claiming Hitler was born that way, we're letting him off the hook, essentially conceding that bad people are born bad and, oh well, nothing we — or they — can do about it. That no one emerges from the womb like Damien from "The Omen" seems obvious, but when you see what Kershaw has written about the young Hitler in the first of his two-part biography on him, [b:Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris|93996|Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris (Hitler, #1)|Ian Kershaw|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389660286l/93996._SY75_.jpg|138544], it's clear that Kershaw — whose sole source, August Kubizek's [b:The Young Hitler I Knew|54276|The Young Hitler I Knew|August Kubizek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1438644156l/54276._SY75_.jpg|1226607], is the only personal account we have of Hitler during the several years in which Kershaw is writing about — radically deviates from that source in an apparent attempt to have us believe that Hitler was quite simply always Hitler. (Or he was trying to score an easy layup by tapping us on the shoulder and letting us know that he believes Hitler was always bad. What a brave man you are, Sir! Such a belief requires real courage!)
But no, there's nothing "simple" about it.
If I had to rank the "My Struggle" series in order of preference, I'd do so this way:
1. Book 2
2. Book 5
3. Book 1
4. Book 6
5. Book 3
6. Book 4
But you should read them all, and you should read them all in the order set out.
And don't skip the essay!
Now onto the rest of my bookshelf.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Seven years ago, fresh out of a high school breakup, I bought a copy of Min Kamp 1. It would be some time before I finished it, five years, but this started a 3,600-page process of reading the remaining novels which ends here, with my finishing the sixth and final volume fresh out of a post-college breakup.
I'm sentimental, and giving Book Six a reluctant three stars partly for what this series has meant to me as an overthinking, self-absorbed, guilt-ridden, introverted man. Knausgård painstakingly revealed himself, and in his ugliness I saw mine.
Book Six is divided into three parts. The first deals with the harrowing leadup to the launch of Book One. It's partially a fascinating look into Karl Ove's creative process, but mostly a slow burn self-doubt fest, thanks to the litigious Uncle Gunnar. The constant agonizing grew tiresome pretty quickly.
The second part is a 475 page essay primarily about the rise of Hitler and how it relates to Knausgård's decision to name the books "My Struggle." There are some odd 100 interesting pages analyzing Hitler's upbringing, personality, and behavior over the years, but this is generally the slog to end all slogs, an intellectual wank-fest that meanders and makes few salient points. It boggles my mind as to why this was included. It feels like Knausgård was so addled with remorse over what he did that he needed to write a thesis project on the title of his book in an effort to absolve himself of its aftermath.
Speaking of which, part three is about the release of the book, Knausgård's launch into fame, and the breakdown of his wife's mental health as a result of reading what he had written. This was the most fascinating portion of the novel for me - at the eleventh hour, after regaling us with every folly and failing he'd committed in his life thus far, Knausgård reveals a stunning duty to his wife and family that had me floored. The empathy and self sacrifice he showed during this period is astounding to me. I understand he blames himself for what happened, but based on what is written here, Linda was clearly never cut out for parenthood and Knausgård was a single parent in all but the title. Add in his inability to express his frustrations with Linda, and his need to take care of her on top of the children, jesus... part three is positively brimming with the inner turmoil that kept us absorbed and engaged in Karl Ove's life from page one.
My general issue with Book Six is that it lacks the hindsight and inherent structure of the previous books. This is inevitable. Try writing a novel of your life as it is lived. Now try writing a novel about a period of your life which occurred ten, twenty years ago. In the second scenario, your mind will more easily pick out the salient memories, the moments of serendipity, the turning points.
The memories of one's life have structure upon reflection; life as it is lived is utter chaos. Thus, Book Six is more or less a flaming mess stuffed to the brim with pages to make up for a lack of clarity on the part of the author. But, given the grand experiment and spectacle that is the My Struggle series, it makes sense that things have to end in a chaotic clusterfuck. I don't regret reading this, and I'll never regret getting to know Karl Ove over these past seven years, because it's through him that I got to know myself.
I'm sentimental, and giving Book Six a reluctant three stars partly for what this series has meant to me as an overthinking, self-absorbed, guilt-ridden, introverted man. Knausgård painstakingly revealed himself, and in his ugliness I saw mine.
Book Six is divided into three parts. The first deals with the harrowing leadup to the launch of Book One. It's partially a fascinating look into Karl Ove's creative process, but mostly a slow burn self-doubt fest, thanks to the litigious Uncle Gunnar. The constant agonizing grew tiresome pretty quickly.
The second part is a 475 page essay primarily about the rise of Hitler and how it relates to Knausgård's decision to name the books "My Struggle." There are some odd 100 interesting pages analyzing Hitler's upbringing, personality, and behavior over the years, but this is generally the slog to end all slogs, an intellectual wank-fest that meanders and makes few salient points. It boggles my mind as to why this was included. It feels like Knausgård was so addled with remorse over what he did that he needed to write a thesis project on the title of his book in an effort to absolve himself of its aftermath.
Speaking of which, part three is about the release of the book, Knausgård's launch into fame, and the breakdown of his wife's mental health as a result of reading what he had written. This was the most fascinating portion of the novel for me - at the eleventh hour, after regaling us with every folly and failing he'd committed in his life thus far, Knausgård reveals a stunning duty to his wife and family that had me floored. The empathy and self sacrifice he showed during this period is astounding to me. I understand he blames himself for what happened, but based on what is written here, Linda was clearly never cut out for parenthood and Knausgård was a single parent in all but the title. Add in his inability to express his frustrations with Linda, and his need to take care of her on top of the children, jesus... part three is positively brimming with the inner turmoil that kept us absorbed and engaged in Karl Ove's life from page one.
My general issue with Book Six is that it lacks the hindsight and inherent structure of the previous books. This is inevitable. Try writing a novel of your life as it is lived. Now try writing a novel about a period of your life which occurred ten, twenty years ago. In the second scenario, your mind will more easily pick out the salient memories, the moments of serendipity, the turning points.
The memories of one's life have structure upon reflection; life as it is lived is utter chaos. Thus, Book Six is more or less a flaming mess stuffed to the brim with pages to make up for a lack of clarity on the part of the author. But, given the grand experiment and spectacle that is the My Struggle series, it makes sense that things have to end in a chaotic clusterfuck. I don't regret reading this, and I'll never regret getting to know Karl Ove over these past seven years, because it's through him that I got to know myself.
This is a dangerous notion because no one apart from ourselves has responsibility for what we do, we are humans, not creatures subject to forces that drive us hither and thither without offering any resistance. Unless of course being under the sway of others is part of the human condition, and being a good person is the same as being a lucky person.
This closes almost four years of reading the saga for me. I started this book in 2018, when I got it on the email, but I only read around 200 pages then. I barely touched it again until the quarantine began in my country in mid-march. I've read non-stop since. At times it was daunting, specially when there's the long essay focusing on Hitler, but I set a goal of 50 pages a day and I committed myself to finish the book on April 12, right before classes officially began for me.
It's been a great ride, all along. Sometimes it was ridiculous how much I could understand this man and how much his need to be alone resonated with my own. I've cried and laughed and I've been frustrated and irritated and bored and very entertained. It's just life really, but no life is ordinary when examined this close. The last part of this book was superb, with everything that happened to his wife and how he had to cope on his own and how utterly despairing and maddening mental illness can be.
I've been touched so many times with these saga. I'll miss it, just like I miss every feeling evoked by a good book. I'll forget most of it soon, as I always do with everything I read, I watched, I hear, because nothing seems to last inside of me. I'm fine with it. I know I'll remember how I felt and that's the only thing I truly strive for when it comes to art: feeling.
I resonated with this the most and this was the real jewel of the whole thing, the finally saying of what he had always been thinking of and I have done so myself, every day of my existence: "The only thing I don't want life for is to live it."
It's been a great ride, all along. Sometimes it was ridiculous how much I could understand this man and how much his need to be alone resonated with my own. I've cried and laughed and I've been frustrated and irritated and bored and very entertained. It's just life really, but no life is ordinary when examined this close. The last part of this book was superb, with everything that happened to his wife and how he had to cope on his own and how utterly despairing and maddening mental illness can be.
I've been touched so many times with these saga. I'll miss it, just like I miss every feeling evoked by a good book. I'll forget most of it soon, as I always do with everything I read, I watched, I hear, because nothing seems to last inside of me. I'm fine with it. I know I'll remember how I felt and that's the only thing I truly strive for when it comes to art: feeling.
I resonated with this the most and this was the real jewel of the whole thing, the finally saying of what he had always been thinking of and I have done so myself, every day of my existence: "The only thing I don't want life for is to live it."
Mən əvvəlcə son kitabı, sonra ilk kitabı oxuyan biri olaraq onu deyim ki, bu son kitabı bəyəndim. Işarələdiyim yerlər çox oldu. Ilk kitabı alıb peşman oldum sonra. Ona görə də tək bu kitabl oxumaq belə bəs edə bilər. Düzü, ortadakı kitabları oxumamışam və kitabları ingiliscə oxumuşam. Bəlkə türkcə oxusaydım, ilk kitabı da bəyənər və davam kitablarını da alardım. Amma belə alındı ki, ilk kitaba heç cür isinişə bilmədim.