What's so great about this guy's struggle? Anyone read it

What's so great about this guy's struggle? Anyone read it

I also want to know

"My struggle"

Isn't that Mein Kampf translated to English?

That's the joke

no , you're thinking of 'Infinite Jest'

I've read all five that've come out in English. They're great books, but maybe only the first time you read them. The first and second books floored me on my first read, but then recently I went back and read the first again and it didn't do much for me. The first time, what should have been boring was thrilling. The second time, what was previously thrilling was boring. Anyway, I love them for that first read, the whole thing is plotless, a recollection of episodes from his life in great detail, feels like a documentary, and if you're like me this window into everyday Norwegian life will thrill you. Highly recommend.

Say I'm short on time and would like to read one volume, which would you recommend

Just read the first one then. Unless "short on time" means rapidly dying, you'll probably wind up reading the second one straight after. They were written as one book.

Yeah but is the first one about his childhood cause who wants to read that lets be real

I must've read them in a previous life then. I'd rather read the phonebook or something. I'm just picturing some sleazy Hollywood style executive high up in the publishing world:

"You won't believe this Knausgaard, this foreign guy! He does this thing, it's like Proust, but not as good! How many thousand can I put you down for?"

My Struggle (at least what I read of Vol. I) seems more like the raw material of fiction rather than fiction itself. (In Search Of Lost Time, it should be noted, is far more fictional than most people think it is.) I'm all for post-modern formal exercises ("what if, like, life was fiction, man?"), but when the concept matters more than the execution it's best to keep these things short.

No, the first and second are about the death of his father, marriage, and fatherhood, and being a writer, with a flashback to adolescence in Book 1.

Read Proust instead. He did a similar thing with In Search of Lost Time, but better.

Thanks

Proust's writing is gayer than a rainbow flag pole

There's an ebert quote that could apply to books “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”

>the raw material of fiction

That's part of what thrilled me. To me, it felt like all the grime of 'fictionalization' where the author's best friend Mike is now the character's best friend Robert, and he's not a waiter like he is in real life, he's a car salesman! I thought it was great that in this novel, his dad's his dad, his best friend's his best friend, nobody's an 'amalgam of different people.' That rawness I thought was the book's best feature. Beyond that, I think they're just good books. The pleasures of storytelling and narrative are still there, even without any real plot. I wouldn't have read five "postmodern formal exercises." That stuff doesn't interest me. These books gripped me the first time I read them.

And Knausgaard doesn't have a photographic memory. There's a lot of fiction in these books too.

I think it's not so much the content as his technique. He's like an uncle that is good at telling stories, even if they end up being mundane or shaggy dog tales.

>The sixth book has a 400-page essay on Hitler's early life and autobiography.
wew

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Is it as good as A Man Called Ove?

Just started it, had my doubts cause come on is the life of a norwegean writyer how interesting can that be, but its turning out to be a quite a good experience

The books are shit and the guy is a hack.

Proust for trendy pseuds who cannot discern its pulp

...

Read the first book in high school. It's pretty dope because it's genuinely relatable in a far more direct way than anything else I've read, especially as a Norwegian. There's no way for him to pass off any hidden morals because he lays himself completely bare (well, from his own perspective anyways). He also portrays his memories of youth and teen angst with as much sincerity as the rest of his life.

Essentially, it feels like an exercise in authenticity. I don't think people obsess over it so much due to the autobiographicality of it, moreso because he forcefully includes actual people in his recollections, the way he sees them, without reshaping them in any way.
It's real, intensely meaningful mundanity.

>the way he sees them, without reshaping them
how do you know that?

rebranding is probably more accurate.