A review by kirsten0929
My Struggle, Book Six by Karl Ove Knausgård

5.0

[2011 - translated to English, 2018] So sad, it's over. Just finished probably the longest book I’ve ever read, 1160 pages. In this book, Book 6, the final of the My Struggle series, Books 1 and 2 are out and he’s dealing with the fallout of its success, his family, primarily his father’s brother, and the struggles of his wife, Linda. Mostly the book is about the day to day of his life during this time, but there is a section of about 400 pages that go in a different direction - an exploration of Hitler and his book Mein Kampf. His youth and rise to power, the idea of “I”, “you”, and “we”, charisma, language, and threaded throughout this exploration of Hitler, the question of identity, literature, poetry, painting, philosophy, how art and politics are closely linked, the universality of life and death and how we experience it, and so much more. All his books dip a toe into the philosophical and existential questions, but this section went a little deeper. Some of his points I would need to go back and reread to fully understand but what I could grasp I found fascinating. And now it is all over, and it wasn’t a struggle at all; it was a pleasure.