The past five summers I’ve spent
a big chunk reading “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard.
For the uninitiated, Knausgaard’s
memoir is an eight-volume literary experience that has yet to be published in
its entirety in English translation. Given that my Norwegian is as proficient
as my Mandarin, I consume the English versions as they come out (in the paperback
variety, which has been the case the past five years). I am currently reading
Volume Five.
On a recent vacation I jotted
down a note describing just why I commit to this endeavor every year – Believe me,
it’s worth it:
“A note here about what it is
about Knausgaard that creates the fullness of a reading experience while mining
memory and the most basic human emotions – fears, anxieties – conveyed in the
most universal of sentiments where the Jamesian “doubt” meets the Danteian
death. Even in the childhood-adolescent passages the shadow – the angel of
death – never ceases to be apparent. She is in every scene (think of how the
book opens with the contemplation of personal end-times). He is the Mad Hatter
of our tea party. Be afraid, be very afraid but be enchanted, be swept
backward, forward, through the blood and loins and tissue of what it means to be
alive.”
Next: Running for Your Life:
Jasmine High
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