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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This is one of the better books I’ve read in a while. I think I could read Knausgård write about anything for hours — which I did, consider sometimes he’d just talk about nothing for pages — but it never dragged. He wrote this story of one day in his life with such suspense written into the banalities of life. I was on edge, devouring this book every page.
Seldom read a book where the last sentence in such a way lifts the whole story. Just wait for it. And what a way Knausgård has of creating himself as an unheroic anti-hero.
I highly doubt I will ever read My Struggle by Knausgard (6 books in total!!) but I thought I could manage Spring, which comes in at a slender 192 pages. Here, Knausgard writes an extended letter to his youngest, who is three months old at the time of writing.
Knausgard describes everything with exacting detail, from how he spit a glob of mucus into the sink in the morning and the objects in the bathroom, to his conversation with the neighbour. It is with this same exacting detail that he describes his wife's - the children's mother - struggle with bipolar disorder. How she would spend most of the day in bed, unable to find the energy for the most basic of activities. How bitter and angry he felt when he had to cancel a much-anticipated family trip to Brazil when she was in one of her low states. His blunt refusal of her request that he help her get treatment and his explanation that only she could help herself by taking responsibility for her condition and treatment. How he called an ambulance when she was unresponsive from taking too many sleeping pills. I wondered how his family, his wife and his children, felt about how Knausgard laid their lives bare in this book.
In some ways, Spring reminded me of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, which details a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. In Spring, Knausgard flits between the present - where he gets his children ready for the day, sends the older kids off to school, then drives his youngest to visit his wife in hospital - and Knausgard's reminisces of the past. It is full of vivid descriptions and crisp observations. Like:
"Someone once told me that heroin is so fantastic because the feelings it awakens are akin to those we have as children, when everything is taken care of, the feeling of total security we bask in then, which is so fundamentally good. Anyone who has experienced that high wants to experience it again, since they know it exists as a possibility."
Or: "my insight [is] that life is made up of events that have to be parried. And that the moments of happiness in life all have to do with the opposite....The opposite of parrying is creating, making, adding something that wasn't there before."
Or: "...what we think of as our lives, in which the decisive moments are crowded close together, is to reality as a map is to the terrain, or the stars to the starry sky: viewed from here, the distance between them appears insignificant, from here one would think the stars in the universe are as closely packed as a shoal of herring, but if one were to travel out to them, one would realise that the truth about the universe is the space in between."
Spring is part love letter and part family history. But it is perhaps also part mea culpa as Knausgard mentions on two occasions the very human instinct to engage in self-deception:
"Self-deception isn't a lie, it's a survival mechanism. You too will deceive yourself, it's just a question of to what degree, and the only advice I can give you is to try to remember that others may see and experience the same things as you in an entirely different way, and that they have as much a right to their viewpoint as you do."
Knausgard describes everything with exacting detail, from how he spit a glob of mucus into the sink in the morning and the objects in the bathroom, to his conversation with the neighbour. It is with this same exacting detail that he describes his wife's - the children's mother - struggle with bipolar disorder. How she would spend most of the day in bed, unable to find the energy for the most basic of activities. How bitter and angry he felt when he had to cancel a much-anticipated family trip to Brazil when she was in one of her low states. His blunt refusal of her request that he help her get treatment and his explanation that only she could help herself by taking responsibility for her condition and treatment. How he called an ambulance when she was unresponsive from taking too many sleeping pills. I wondered how his family, his wife and his children, felt about how Knausgard laid their lives bare in this book.
In some ways, Spring reminded me of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, which details a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. In Spring, Knausgard flits between the present - where he gets his children ready for the day, sends the older kids off to school, then drives his youngest to visit his wife in hospital - and Knausgard's reminisces of the past. It is full of vivid descriptions and crisp observations. Like:
"Someone once told me that heroin is so fantastic because the feelings it awakens are akin to those we have as children, when everything is taken care of, the feeling of total security we bask in then, which is so fundamentally good. Anyone who has experienced that high wants to experience it again, since they know it exists as a possibility."
Or: "my insight [is] that life is made up of events that have to be parried. And that the moments of happiness in life all have to do with the opposite....The opposite of parrying is creating, making, adding something that wasn't there before."
Or: "...what we think of as our lives, in which the decisive moments are crowded close together, is to reality as a map is to the terrain, or the stars to the starry sky: viewed from here, the distance between them appears insignificant, from here one would think the stars in the universe are as closely packed as a shoal of herring, but if one were to travel out to them, one would realise that the truth about the universe is the space in between."
Spring is part love letter and part family history. But it is perhaps also part mea culpa as Knausgard mentions on two occasions the very human instinct to engage in self-deception:
"Self-deception isn't a lie, it's a survival mechanism. You too will deceive yourself, it's just a question of to what degree, and the only advice I can give you is to try to remember that others may see and experience the same things as you in an entirely different way, and that they have as much a right to their viewpoint as you do."
Das 1. Buch in diesem Jahr auf Norwegisch beendet. Erfolgserlebnis! ;)
Für das Lesen im Original war das Buch einfach perfekt geeignet.
Dass ich inmitten der Jahreszeitenbände begann, tat dem Verständnis keinen Abbruch. Mir war bereits bekannt, was das Ziel der Reihe ist und es hat mir definitiv Lust gemacht, die anderen Bände ebenfalls noch zu entdecken.
Knausgård beschreibt unfassbar viel Alltag mit seinen vier Kindern, erzählt seiner jüngsten Tochter davon, wie es ein Jahr vor ihrer Geburt im Haus aussah, was die Familie gerade beschäftigt und was ihn für Sorgen plagen als vierfachen Vater. Dabei rückt er nach und nach immer mehr die klinische Depression seiner (mittlerweile Ex)Frau Linda Boström ins Zentrum, was ich einerseits gut geschildert, auf der anderen Seite aber als viel zu "nah" empfand. Im Endeffekt versucht der Autor seinen Kindern ein normales Familienleben zu bieten, gleichzeitig ist Lindas Krankheit wesentlich schwieriger als er vermutet. Dass er überfordert ist mit ihren depressiven Phasen, zeigt sich in seiner Handlungsunfähigkeit und seinen Gedanken, dass sie allein sich da raushelfen müsste. Ein paar Mal wollte ich den guten Mann dann doch schütteln.
Das "Frühlingsthema" empfand ich nicht als arg präsent. Naturbeschreibungen und veränderte, nordische Landschaft tauchen auf, sind aber eher schmückendes Beiwerk.
Für das Lesen im Original war das Buch einfach perfekt geeignet.
Dass ich inmitten der Jahreszeitenbände begann, tat dem Verständnis keinen Abbruch. Mir war bereits bekannt, was das Ziel der Reihe ist und es hat mir definitiv Lust gemacht, die anderen Bände ebenfalls noch zu entdecken.
Knausgård beschreibt unfassbar viel Alltag mit seinen vier Kindern, erzählt seiner jüngsten Tochter davon, wie es ein Jahr vor ihrer Geburt im Haus aussah, was die Familie gerade beschäftigt und was ihn für Sorgen plagen als vierfachen Vater. Dabei rückt er nach und nach immer mehr die klinische Depression seiner (mittlerweile Ex)Frau Linda Boström ins Zentrum, was ich einerseits gut geschildert, auf der anderen Seite aber als viel zu "nah" empfand. Im Endeffekt versucht der Autor seinen Kindern ein normales Familienleben zu bieten, gleichzeitig ist Lindas Krankheit wesentlich schwieriger als er vermutet. Dass er überfordert ist mit ihren depressiven Phasen, zeigt sich in seiner Handlungsunfähigkeit und seinen Gedanken, dass sie allein sich da raushelfen müsste. Ein paar Mal wollte ich den guten Mann dann doch schütteln.
Das "Frühlingsthema" empfand ich nicht als arg präsent. Naturbeschreibungen und veränderte, nordische Landschaft tauchen auf, sind aber eher schmückendes Beiwerk.
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
A really emotional and profound read. Overall I thought the writing was pretty stunning, however there were points when it all became slightly too mundane and I struggled to stay focused. Despite this, overall I really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed that, despite the brutally realistic and honest depiction of familial trauma taking up majority of the book, the book did not have an ultimately sad tone or message. I don’t think this was a book aimed at telling his daughter about his mums depression; instead it was about the acknowledgment that sometimes life sucks and it’s hard, but ultimately, challenges are to be overcome. Whilst I still felt at times a little distant from it, this was incredibly straight forward, incredibly raw, and really quite beautiful at points.
"Sometimes it hurts to live, but there is always something to live for." A stunning book, which was even more delightful after the somewhat insubstantial "Autumn" and "Winter". Among the very best of Knausgaard's nonfiction.
Aww, very sweet ending.
He totally just goes back to writing like he always has, but thats ok. He always pulls that style off.
He totally just goes back to writing like he always has, but thats ok. He always pulls that style off.
3.5 ⭐️
My quarterly book written by a man. I mostly enjoyed this one. A really interesting concept and some of the prose was stunning. But I just haaaaaaate it when authors use like 200 commas in one sentence. I beg you use a full stop sir
My quarterly book written by a man. I mostly enjoyed this one. A really interesting concept and some of the prose was stunning. But I just haaaaaaate it when authors use like 200 commas in one sentence. I beg you use a full stop sir
I am a big fan of Knausgaard's work, having read most of his "Struggle" and the previous seasonal quartets. As so many people have described, reading him a strange experience -- his writing is very simple and straightforward, not terribly lyrical, and what he describes (often in excruciating detail) can be mundane, but when I am absorbed in one of his books, I am all in, "living" in that world.
I had a hard time finishing this book though. It is less philosophical than the others and not nearly as absorbing. The spell was broken, and though I can't describe exactly why, I still look forward to "Summer."
I had a hard time finishing this book though. It is less philosophical than the others and not nearly as absorbing. The spell was broken, and though I can't describe exactly why, I still look forward to "Summer."