Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle v.5

A rush of happiness surged through me.  It was the rain, it was the lights, it was the city.  It was me.  I was going to be a writer, a star, a beacon for others.

--Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle Book Five, Archipelago Books 2016 (translated by Don Bartlett).

I have written about the first four volumes in Knausgaard’s novel (I almost wrote “epic novel” but My Struggle is only epic in its attention to detail).  The first volume, dealing with his teenage years, I wrote about on April 6, 2015; the second volume, about his second marriage and later life, I wrote about on May 7 ,2015; the third volume covers ages 6-12 and I wrote about it on June 7, 2015 and the fourth volume, about ages 16-19, I wrote about on July 18, 2015.

Volume five covers Knausgaard’s life from the age of twenty to thirty-five, during which Karl Ove goes to writing school, works at psychiatric facilities when he runs out of money, gets drunk regularly, has several different lovers, marries, publishes his first book and leaves his wife.  The moments of happiness are few and at one point Knausgaard says “I had never imagined that happiness could hurt so much.”  One might ask how much of the detailed narrative is “true” and I would say that it has emotional truth, if not literal, i.e., he captures details and feelings beautifully.  He reminds one of Jean Shepherd’s monologues, in the 60’s and 70’s, about Shepherd’s boyhood in Indiana and his time in the army, which were true in a similar way.  And Knausgaard’s ability to portray the quotidian details of existence is comparable to two of my favorite authors:  Nabokov and John D. MacDonald.

Getting drunk in the middle of the day was a good feeling, there was a lot of freedom in it, suddenly the day opened and offered quite different opportunities now that I didn’t care about anything.

The way Knausgaard spends his times sounds in many ways typical of a man in his twenties, whether in Norway or elsewhere:  listening to music, chasing girls (and looking at paintings by Rubens, Delacroix and Ingres for stimulation), reading literature and poetry, going out drinking alone or with friends. He’s not even happy after his first novel is published, because he can’t get anywhere on the next book.  He goes on a book tour and says:  What was the point of all this?  Flying all over Norway to read for ten minutes to four people?  Talking smugly about literature to twelve people? Saying stupid things in the newspapers and burning with shame the day after?  Had I been able to write then this might not have mattered.

Meanwhile the light is beautiful:  The dense cloud cover over the town was grayish white, and the light in the streets around us was gentle, though not so much that it veiled or enhanced, it was more that it allowed whatever there was to appear in its own right.