3.5 stars rounded down. Uneven, like life itself. No plot, like life itself.
I must say, though, I really hated his father. I understand that people are complicated and that his father wasn't all bad, but considering the outsize effect he had on Karl Ove's life . . . Yes, I know that ambivalent parents have a greater influence than the good or evil parent, but still . . .
Yes, it's personal. About my own father. Live with it.
I never thought I could be so gripped by so little as I was reading this gloriously Proustian autobiography by literary sensation Karl Ove Knausgaard (kuh-NOWSS-guard, allegedly).
Knausgaard's sentences pour across the page like a thick current of warm cream, punctuated rather unobtrusively by sobering moments of philosophical erudition.
To read this book means getting lost within the truthful minutiae of someone else's daily life. Maybe it's because I am close to the age of the author during the events of this first volume, but I found his descriptions of the most boring experiences and how he related to them and catalogued them, and used them as a springboard for internal excursions and, yes, struggles, to be absolutely riveting. I'm not sure why, but this is a supremely addictive read.
Karl Ove puts the frankfurter in the Frankfurt school. He is immediately relatable, quick with well drawn examples, and, although …
I never thought I could be so gripped by so little as I was reading this gloriously Proustian autobiography by literary sensation Karl Ove Knausgaard (kuh-NOWSS-guard, allegedly).
Knausgaard's sentences pour across the page like a thick current of warm cream, punctuated rather unobtrusively by sobering moments of philosophical erudition.
To read this book means getting lost within the truthful minutiae of someone else's daily life. Maybe it's because I am close to the age of the author during the events of this first volume, but I found his descriptions of the most boring experiences and how he related to them and catalogued them, and used them as a springboard for internal excursions and, yes, struggles, to be absolutely riveting. I'm not sure why, but this is a supremely addictive read.
Karl Ove puts the frankfurter in the Frankfurt school. He is immediately relatable, quick with well drawn examples, and, although there are lines that leap off the page, for the most part he is no prose stylist. It makes for a generous, ballpark read of a subject that should, in every way, be of interest to very few.
I highly recommend this first volume. I'll write what I think of the other 5 volumes as soon as they are all translated and I have read them... there's no question I will be reading them all.
