Karl Ove Knausgård

This book was sitting on my shelf for a while before I got around to it, for two reasons. One was the fact that it is over 400 pages and I was nervous about my ADD kicking in at some point, and the other is because of the title. There was another book with the same or very similar title that ranks among the most disgusting books ever written. But I ended up picking it up anyway, mainly because I'm trying to clear the mess that my “to read” pile has become.

I ended up really liking this book. It's long, and it's the first of six volumes of Knausgaard's autobiography, which seems absolutely bonkers. The story keeps bouncing around between the present, when he was a small child, and everywhere in between; but somehow it makes sense and flows exactly how it should. It also makes sense that it is so long because he makes sure to share every single detail—every facial expression, thought, sound, smell, and descriptions of everything around him all the time. Normally this would annoy the pants off of me and feel like filler, but there's something about his style that not only makes it ok, but an actual pleasure to read. And his memory is beyond comprehension; he remembers songs that were playing and what clothing people we were wearing seemingly at every moment of his entire 40+ year life. He must be inventing at least some of it.

He talks about his childhood and his distant and verbally abusive relationship with his dad, the general closed-offness of his family and consequently himself, his struggle to become an artist, and a lot about the death of a family member (no spoiler here). Although his ego shines through here and there, it mostly feels like an open, honest account of a regular dude's life, and I appreciate that.

I had never heard of Knausgaard, though apparently he's won a lot of awards and is a pretty big deal in Norway or wherever he's from. I don't know if I'll ever get around to any of the other five volumes, but I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent reading this one. If what he writes is true, he's not really someone I'd want to hang around or be friends with, but if a future therapist sends me the second volume I'll definitely check it out at some point.… (more)