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A review by charliekusiel
My Struggle, Book 5: Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgård
5.0
It is clear that Karl Ove Knausgaard has written - and achieved - a sort of ‘mega-novel’ by his fifth volume of My Struggle.
In books 1 and 2, Knausgaard writes from his conscience. The words flow straight from him onto the page, unbound. In books 3 and 4, he develops a more precise approach: the text takes on a strictly chronological form, recalling instances not as they come to him in his study but as sequences of events, recalling everything that he can and ordering them. He lays out a storyboard in the narrative and emphasizes the minute. It is incredibly effective.
In reading My Struggle: Book 5 Some Rain Must Fall, one may say that it is in agreement with this form of the last books, following the same logical pattern. In many ways, this is absolutely correct. As more and more pages are added to his project as a whole, the scope becomes increasingly Proustian: he is tackling the mundane.
Why then does Karl Ove Knausgaard insist that he set out to write something that he calls an “anti-Proust experiment?” This is a difficult question to tackle. One may argue that, if this is the case, then no, he did not accomplish his goal. Perhaps this is true. How is it then, that, despite keeping his form the same, continuing down the same path as books 3 and 4, this fifth volume seems to turn the entire project on its head? At no point does he stray from the microscope he so carefully holds over his life, painstakingly digging up the most inconsequential details in this prison that he writes himself into.
It is in this fifth book that the volume of what he has written, literally the sheer quantity, becomes large enough that the true purpose of the project as a whole begins to come to fruition. Knausgaard’s close examination of the micro is not to create a study of the micro itself, as it would seem in each of the previous books, but instead a cumulative and meticulously constructed study of the macro, crafted sentence by sentence, over several thousand pages.
What is, he forces his readers to ask, a struggle, a life? Big question for a big book…
“I waited outside in the warm dusk smoking and watching the lights along the road that were beginning to become more and more distinct as evening fell, surrounded by the drone of traffic, occasionally interrupted by the brief but heavy slamming of doors, the sudden voices of people crossing the parking lot on their way to or from the service station. Inside, people sat silently eating on their own except for a few families who swamped the tables they sat around. I was filled with an inner exaltation, this was precisely what I loved best, the familiar, the known - the motorway, the gas station, the cafeteria, which weren’t familiar at all actually, everywhere I looked details differed from the places I knew.”
Karl Ove Knausgaard bridges these massive books together one moment at a time, like sewing a tapestry thread by thread. The micro, very slowly, becomes a large picture of the macro. And is this not the picture of a life as it really is? We’re all human, we can only comprehend the present, one moment at a time. When time has passed, all we can ask is “where did the time go?”, but, like he does, all we can do is retrace it, one scene, one memory at a time, until the whole thing is simply a blur.
No, My Struggle is surely not a study of the mundane. It is the replica of a life, built word by word, so that at great length, it becomes terrifyingly real and honest.
Knausgaard encapsulates his own life on paper to offer the raw human experience, and in order to do that, must be completely self-centered, searingly anti-Proustian. He relies on his own shame, guilt, solitude and beauty to uncover this truth: that every individual experience, however profoundly lonely, everything from the death of his father to his feelings of sexual inadequacy, is a shared experience.
By deceiving his readers for 2,500 pages, Knausgaard achieves a monumental feat in his fifth volume. What does this all mean? He answers it, completely, in my opinion, in a way that is as deeply meaningful and complex as any human life can be.
Looking forward to reading his sixth and final volume.
In books 1 and 2, Knausgaard writes from his conscience. The words flow straight from him onto the page, unbound. In books 3 and 4, he develops a more precise approach: the text takes on a strictly chronological form, recalling instances not as they come to him in his study but as sequences of events, recalling everything that he can and ordering them. He lays out a storyboard in the narrative and emphasizes the minute. It is incredibly effective.
In reading My Struggle: Book 5 Some Rain Must Fall, one may say that it is in agreement with this form of the last books, following the same logical pattern. In many ways, this is absolutely correct. As more and more pages are added to his project as a whole, the scope becomes increasingly Proustian: he is tackling the mundane.
Why then does Karl Ove Knausgaard insist that he set out to write something that he calls an “anti-Proust experiment?” This is a difficult question to tackle. One may argue that, if this is the case, then no, he did not accomplish his goal. Perhaps this is true. How is it then, that, despite keeping his form the same, continuing down the same path as books 3 and 4, this fifth volume seems to turn the entire project on its head? At no point does he stray from the microscope he so carefully holds over his life, painstakingly digging up the most inconsequential details in this prison that he writes himself into.
It is in this fifth book that the volume of what he has written, literally the sheer quantity, becomes large enough that the true purpose of the project as a whole begins to come to fruition. Knausgaard’s close examination of the micro is not to create a study of the micro itself, as it would seem in each of the previous books, but instead a cumulative and meticulously constructed study of the macro, crafted sentence by sentence, over several thousand pages.
What is, he forces his readers to ask, a struggle, a life? Big question for a big book…
“I waited outside in the warm dusk smoking and watching the lights along the road that were beginning to become more and more distinct as evening fell, surrounded by the drone of traffic, occasionally interrupted by the brief but heavy slamming of doors, the sudden voices of people crossing the parking lot on their way to or from the service station. Inside, people sat silently eating on their own except for a few families who swamped the tables they sat around. I was filled with an inner exaltation, this was precisely what I loved best, the familiar, the known - the motorway, the gas station, the cafeteria, which weren’t familiar at all actually, everywhere I looked details differed from the places I knew.”
Karl Ove Knausgaard bridges these massive books together one moment at a time, like sewing a tapestry thread by thread. The micro, very slowly, becomes a large picture of the macro. And is this not the picture of a life as it really is? We’re all human, we can only comprehend the present, one moment at a time. When time has passed, all we can ask is “where did the time go?”, but, like he does, all we can do is retrace it, one scene, one memory at a time, until the whole thing is simply a blur.
No, My Struggle is surely not a study of the mundane. It is the replica of a life, built word by word, so that at great length, it becomes terrifyingly real and honest.
Knausgaard encapsulates his own life on paper to offer the raw human experience, and in order to do that, must be completely self-centered, searingly anti-Proustian. He relies on his own shame, guilt, solitude and beauty to uncover this truth: that every individual experience, however profoundly lonely, everything from the death of his father to his feelings of sexual inadequacy, is a shared experience.
By deceiving his readers for 2,500 pages, Knausgaard achieves a monumental feat in his fifth volume. What does this all mean? He answers it, completely, in my opinion, in a way that is as deeply meaningful and complex as any human life can be.
Looking forward to reading his sixth and final volume.