My Struggle is a great title for this novel. Because while the main character Karl Ove is without a doubt, a big Momma's Boy, and an even bigger cry baby. He is just a little kid, and thanks to the brilliant writing of Karl Ove Knausgaard we get behind him right away. We all like to think of kids as sweet innocent little things; but let's face it, they can be really cruel to each other. If someone shows weakness, the other kids are usually ready, willing, and able to pounce on it. And pounce on it they do. But the biggest struggle little Karl Ove has to deal with is by far, his heartless domineering father. The most harrowing moments of the novel almost all involve the cruel punishments bestowed upon Karl Ove by his father. The novel deserves all the praise and accolades it has received and while Karl Ove's childhood is a struggle; there are also lots of happy moments that any typical Norwegian kid growing up in the 70ies would have experienced. A wonderful novel ! ( )

Bei diesem Buch fing es mir zunächst schwerer als bei anderen Büchern aus Knausgårds Feder, Zugang zu finden. Die ersten paar hundert Seiten, in denen es um seine Kindheit geht, sind seltsam leblos, viel weniger interessant und mitreißend als das, was sein Erzähltalent sonst produziert.
Vielleicht liegt das daran, dass viele Inhalte notwendigerweise eher zusammengereimt als erinnert sein müssen, dass der Autor selbst beim Schreiben weniger Zugang zu dieser Zeit hatte als zu späteren Phasen seines Lebens. Vielleicht liegt es auch daran, dass diese kindlichen Erlebnisse in mir als Leser einfach weniger auslösen als Dinge, mit denen ich mich als Erwachsener viel besser identifizieren kann.
Spätestens ab der Hälfte des Buches jedenfalls fühlte ich mich wieder aufgehoben in Knausgårds gewohnt genialer Erzählkunst.
Auch wenn jetzt erst einmal etwas anderes dran ist, das Buch war letztlich doch wieder Spitzenklasse, und ich kann es nur wärmstens empfehlen. ( )

L'autor narra la seva infantesa fil per randa, ell arriba a viure a l'illa al 1969 en cotxet quan encara els seus pares s'estan fent la casa i en marxa als 13 anys, quan el seu pare canvia d'institut. La vida a Noruega des dels ulls d'un infant, els petits detalls del dia a dia, els sentiments i les sensacions, les variacions climàtiques, les oscilacions de la primavera a l'hivern. El més impactant és la relació amb el seu pare, la por que li té, un pànic exagerat, justificat a causa de la rigidesa extrema amb que el tracta. Però com que només ho coneixem per boca del protagonista ens costa entendre el perquè d'una intransigència i d'una duresa tan exagerada. La extensió de la narració fa que la valoració final no sigui del tot favorable, és molt llarg per les poques coses que ens explica.
De fet el que ens conte és una descripció acurada de tot el que l'envolta, la seva família, la seva casa, l'escola, els companys, el paisatge, les relacions veïnals... ( )

I had hoped to get in ahead of the backlash with a backlash to the backlash kind of thing, where I defend KOK against people who are tired of hearing about him. Well, too bad. Not only are the reviews of this volume uniformly positive (hence, no backlash yet), but I found it overwhelmingly boring. So, I am doubly stymied.

At the start of the book, KOK calls his childhood a ghetto-like state of incompleteness. He suggests that childhood is meaningfullish, but not really meaningful, because (yawn) memory distorts the past and anyway, the child is a developing self, not a self intact (well said). This is followed by 400 pages of anecdotes about being a pre-pubescent and pubescent boy who suffers greatly at home (his father, whom we already know to be a monster, is a monster here too) and at school (where his sufferings seem to be more of the 'everyone feels like they were unpopular in middle school' kind). He plays with his anus. He plays with his penis. He reads books. Dad gets angry. Repeat.

Only around page 250 do we get a glimpse of the narrator rather than the character. He laments the absence of his mother from his memories and, by extension, from this book. I lament it too. This lasts for a page and a half before we're back to reportage.

The key to this volume comes around a hundred pages later. A teacher neglects to read KOK's essay aloud, because you have to give the other young children time to exhibit. He decides to get his revenge. "Next time I would write as badly as I could." That is precisely what we have here. A book written about an 8-13 year old, in the head of an 8-13 year old, with the syntactical, linguistic and philosophical sophistication of an 8-13 year old. I know KOK's better than that; I know he's choosing to do this. He is choosing to write as badly as he can. It's pretty bad.

And then at the very end there's *one* moment of adult level art. After a hundred pages of young men playing with their willies and looking at porn (not judging, just describing), [spoiler alert], young KOK comes across a picture of a naked woman--a holocaust victim. Suddenly sex is thrown into question. Then he sees a teacher ogling a 13 year old girl just as young KOK, too, is ogling her. Again, sex is thrown into question. It's a reminder of what he can do when he's not busy pretending to be very young. ( )

Loved this, Knausgaard's early years up to about 13 and probably a good place to start the series for newcomers. It lacks some of the more philosophical introspection that is peppered throughout the preceding volumes owing to being from his perspective as a child, but it's extremely readable and for me at least, very relatable at points to my own childhood (although I was nowhere near as successful with girls as him sadly). Still nothing much happens but I found it every bit as compelling as the previous novels, albeit lacking anything matching the sustained brilliance of the 2nd half of the first novel.

I love how important the layout of the house is to the young Karl Ove, especially in relation to avoiding his tyrannical father e.g. knowing that if he leaves a room within a certain time from hearing a door close downstairs he can remain unseen. I can remember all that kind of stuff vividly from my own youth; being able to differentiate parent's from the heaviness of their steps - even if they were in a good or bad mood. There's stuff like that throughout, I was completely transported back.

This is the first of the series I've experienced as an audiobook and it's fantastic, the narrator Edoardo Ballerini enlivens the text and works perfectly with the heightened language Knausgaard uses. Looking forward to listening to the rest of the series. ( )