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Min Kamp 1 (2009)

by Karl Ove Knausgård(Favorite Author)
4.09 of 5 Votes: 1
languge
English
publisher
Forlaget okober
series
Min kamp
review 1: There's not a lot I can say about this book that hasn't been said or written somewhere else. So I'll just say that, while reading it, I enjoyed all those moments when my youngest daughter (she's 7) walked into the room, saw the cover of the book I was reading, and bellowed, "MY STRUGGLE!" as if it were a declaration of war. Otherwise, I enjoyed the book and found the last 250 pages or so an effective set piece about grief, memory, death, and the way these Big Ideas intersect with the ordinary. I think Knausgard does a lot to break down the barrier between the experiences he's describing and the literary artifice that is the usual means of expressing experience, which is perhaps a needlessly wordy way of saying that I felt like I was there, in the moment, observing what Kna... moreusgard observed and thinking what he thought. Of course, this sensation of "feeling like you're right there with the author" is an effect that can only be achieved through some successful construction of literary artifice, an irony that isn't lost on me. I did get used to the comma splices after a couple hundred pages.
review 2: Really compelling. The description of life's minutia contrasted against momentous autobiographical events is a new experience for me. This could be the memoir of any person, an "average" life; but set down by a professional author, an artist, who has given profound thought to the artistic meditations (e.g. Flemish/Norwegian painters and other artists) and makes that equally profound as the incontinence of his grandmother. I plan to reach a book each November and finish the volume in 5 more years. less
Reviews (see all)
raikou2992
I heard Knausgaard speak before I'd read anything by him - then I read this and was hooked.
pamrr2003
Difficult, meandering, navel gazing. Can't see myself ever reading rest of the series.
johnglen
Astonishing how so little can be so absorbing. Or is it that nothing is little?
alak
took some time to get into it - first 200 pages - but then I loved it.
hiya
As good as the most rabid reviews.
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