Karl Ove Knausgaard anyone ?

[Flowers111]

Has anyone read this series of autobiographical books ? On book 3, I read about 1 a year so as not to overdose, and others in between obv.
I really enjoy his writing.

Hey @Flowers111 sorry you got no responses and hope I’m not too late!
I love his work and I’m (roughly) in the same place in the sequence as you are, I read parts 1 and 2 a few years ago now and have saved up 3 and now just started it. Just! Only on page 16 so far.

I’m hoping I can get into it because I do think his work requires a bit of commitment and if you don’t connect it’d be harder to plough through.
Also (shamefully) I’m less of a reader than I was (internet’s fault!) but I’m trying to row that back.
I do have covid at the mo and I’m not firing on all cylinders so not sure how much progress I’m going to make…
I saw him live at the Hay Festival a few years ago. I really liked his manner – he’s very serious with the occasional flash of humour, but really tried to answer people’s questions thoughtfully. Lots of obviously worshipful fans there!

Where are you up to in volume 3? 🙂

Half way through now ! Motivated by wanting to read something else ! I think this one is difficult because he's reverted back to early childhood.
I love how he makes the ordinary so fascinating...

Read volume 1 and really liked it. Would definitely read more. I love the writing style, the scene about the gig at the shopping centre was LOL hilarious.

Like heldinadream my reading attention span has been destroyed by my iPad, and I'm trying to reverse that. (Which is why I'm currently looking at Mumsnet and not reading my book ).

@TonTonMacoute it sucks that reading is so much harder with the internet's instant gratification taking our attention. I'm fighting back.
I've read 130 pages of volume 3 now in 48 hours-ish - yay me!

I find all the unemotionally expressed descriptions of little-boyness very interesting. Apparently he does this by literally not thinking that anyone will ever read anything he writes, so that he's not censoring himself out of embarrassment and can say anything. I've just read a scene where he and friend Geir shit in the woods and examine each others' shit and discuss it. I'm thinking - why am I enjoying this specifically? 😂

I really want to commit to reading all the things I don't read because mumsnet internet.

I also read (finally) volume one of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels a few weeks ago. I've long thought the comparison between Knausgaard and Ferrante is a interesting one. (I read one of her other books.)

I'll write a post on it sometime if anyone's interested!

@heldinadream

ha ha, yes he's that sort of writer, yet it works!

I read the first of the Ferrante Neapolitan series and just didn't get it at all I'm afraid. They do seem to be real Marmite books.

I've never heard of the Ferrante series ! I'm trying to alternate fiction with non fiction, next on my list is "why we eat too much" and after that "the promise" by Damon Galmut.
I find if I am tempted to doom scroll I set a timer for 10-15 mins to read instead and so far working ok ! Also trying to read on my phone kindle when out and about (though it's a bit small !)

Flowers I love Damon Galgut but haven't read 'The Promise'. Be interested to know what you think.

Ok I’m putting together rudimentary but long-fermenting thoughts about Ferrante and Knausgaard.
Why do I think they are interesting to compare? Both of them have produced at about the same time long multi-volume works that attracted considerable serious attention.
The consensus on both is that their work is really neither truly autobiography nor truly fiction, so although K is generally classified as autobiographical and Ferrante as fiction, they are both seen as genre breaking.
K male F female.
K is Northern European and F Southern, Norwegian and Italian respectively.
Some of the things their detractors say about them that I feel highlight the interesting contrasts K – boring, longwinded, gets bogged down in endless detail, is probably autistic, cold, slow.
F - florid, melodramatic, irrational, heated, fast.
Often people like one or the other but not both.
I like both but hey!
I think they are like two archetypes – masculine and feminine – and speak to how men and women are/have been differently socialised by a generation of oppressed post-war parents, so within their very personal work they say big things re gender development in society.
This plus the kind of opposite psyche expressions of a cold Northerner (how much does the actual physical climate we are brought up in shape our psyche?) and a hot Southerner makes the comparison fascinating IMHO.
That’s it in a nutshell and why I mention her in the context of him.
One more bit – K loves being interviewed and talking about his work and says that he can write so openly by never thinking anyone will read it, so he kind of cuts off from the chain of awareness as to people thinking about him via his work, whereas F for a long time refused even for anyone to know who she really was, it was a huge secret, won’t give interviews, thinks her work is completely separate from who she is and no-one has a right to know anything about her or be interested in her – so a different sort of cutting off I suppose.
Speaks to me of types of psychological/emotional boundaries.

Nice to get all that out of my head in some kind of coherent way.
Here's an article about Ferrante.

italoamericano.org/the-mystery-of-elena-ferrante/