A review by amolotkov
The End by Karl Ove Knausgård

5.0

"A memory is a ledge on the mountainside of the mind; there we are, drinking and chatting, and on the ledge below us my dad sits in his chair, dead, his face smeared with blood. And on a ledge below him we are sitting in a rest stop somewhere in the Agder region, Mom, Dad, Yngve, and I, we’ve been picking berries all morning, now we’re eating our picnic, and next to us is a river, its waters green and white and icy cold…" I started the series in fall 2015 - I'll miss these three and a half years of getting into Karl Ove's mind. Maybe a 400-page essay on Hitler and an in-depth analysis of Paul Celan's "The Straightening" are not the components one expects in a memoir amidst the narrator's family struggles - but they flow compellingly in Knausgaard's reverent, self-deprecating style. The pages on Hitler the Holocaust are deeply felt and feel fresh and relevant to our ongoing understanding of the so-called "evil", and the relationship between the "we" and the "I". Some reviewers mention the author's narcissism - that's not how I see it. I'd rather say it's the opposite, a deep suspicion for one's validity in the world. Whatever the magic mix is, this is a voice I have found sincere and compelling. And now, on to Knausgaard's fiction!