My Struggle: Book 1

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By Karl Ove Knausgaard and Don Bartlett

Publisher Description

A New York Times bestseller, My Struggle: Book 1 introduces American readers to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard.

It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues—death, love, art, fear—and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature.

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6 Reviews

4.5

Clara Mundy

Created 10 months ago

“I first heard of Knausgård’s six-volume autobiographical series when doing thesis research on Elena Ferrante and the boundaries between fiction and autobiography. And, certainly, there’s a lot of blurring between fiction and reality happening here: Knausgård repeatedly claims to remember nothing from his childhood, then fills hundreds of pages with the minutia of his early years (sprinkled with a few essay-like tangents). When in the meat of Knausgård’s story—reading about his high school years, his complicated relationship with his father and brother—I was deeply engrossed. Knausgård also does a wonderful job displaying the coldness that patriarchy can engender in male relationships. The book overflows with moments when he cannot stop crying, yet the men around him do not offer a hug, a shoulder, a consoling word. It’s heartbreaking. Yet large swaths of My Struggle: Book 1 do not focus on these impactful moments, but veer into abstract observations on the nature of cities and Western burial practices. Some of these digressions work, but others pulled me too far from the narrative. More than once, I felt like he was trying (and failing) to be like Proust. Still, with all the reading and research I’ve done with autobiographical stories, this felt like an important one to add to my repertoire. Knausgård’s portrayal of himself is unique in that he’s unafraid to come across as a jerk, nor to show his family members in their lowest states. Which, considering his books have led to his uncle suing him and his wife having a psychotic break, opens up an entirely different discussion on the responsibility of the autobiographical writer to the people they portray…. “You know too little and it doesn’t exist. You know too much and it doesn’t exist. Writing is drawing the essence of what we know out of the shadows. That is what writing is about. Not what happens there, not what actions are played out there, but the there itself. There, that is writing’s location and aim.” “Sometimes I mused that if all soft feelings could be scraped off like cartilage around the sinews of an injured athlete’s knee, what a liberation that would be. No more sentimentality, sympathy, empathy …””

Ben Heins-Daniels

Created almost 8 years ago

Kristi Jo

Created 7 months ago

bookofcalm

Created over 3 years ago

Josefvaloff

Created about 3 years ago

About Karl Ove Knausgaard

Karl Ove Knausgaard was born in Norway in 1968. My Struggle has won countless international literary awards and has been translated into more than fifteen languages.

Don Bartlett has translated dozens of books of various genres, including several novels and short story collections by Jo Nesbø and It's Fine by Me by Per Petterson. He lives in Norfolk, England.