My Struggle - vol. 2

Winner of the Sørlandet Literary Prize 2010 (for MY STRUGGLE 1-3)

“When walking around town with the pram, taking care of my child, I didn’t feel like I was adding anything to my life, enriching it in any way– on the contrary, it lost something, a part of my being, the part that had to do with being a man. It wasn’t through my thoughts that this became clear to me, for my thoughts knew better, my thoughts knew that I was doing this so that Linda and I could be equals in the relationship to our child, but through my emotions, which filled me with desperation at pushing myself into being moulded so tightly and so closely that I could no longer move […] It was a choice, and the choice had been made. For me as well. If I had wanted it differently, I should have told Linda before she became pregnant; listen, I want a baby, but I don’t want to stay at home looking after it, is that ok with you? Of course, that means that you’ll have to be the one to do it. Then she could have said, no, it‘s not ok, or, yes, that‘s fine, and our future would have been planned accordingly. But I hadn’t, I hadn’t anticipated this, and now I had to live by the rules of play. In the class and culture that we belonged to, this meant that we both played the same role – what was previously known as the woman’s role. I was tied to this role as Ulysses was tied to the mast; if I wanted to break free, I could, but not without losing everything I had. This was the reason why I walked around, modern and feminised, in the streets of Stockholm, with a raging nineteenth century man in my heart.”

Having left his first wife, Karl Ove Knausgård is struck by an overwhelming urge to get away from it all, and settles in Stockholm. Lonely and depressed he strikes up a deep friendship with another exiled Norwegian, the Nietzschean, intellectual boxing fanatic Geir. He tracks down Linda, whom he first met at a writers’ course a few years earlier and who fascinated him deeply.

My Struggle 2 is at heart a love story – the story of Karl Ove falling in love with his present wife and the long, dramatic period before they become a couple. But the novel also tells other stories – of the earth shattering experience of becoming a father as well of the more mundane struggles of family life; of ridiculously unsuccessful holidays; humiliating antenatal music classes; fights with quarrelsome neighbours; the emotional strains of children’s’ birthday parties and of pushing a pram around Stockholm when what one really should be doing is writing a follow-up to an acclaimed debut novel.

The six novels of the My Struggle cycle can be read independently or as one hugely ambitious project. This breathtaking cycle has been the greatest literary sensation in Norway in decades, and the total print run has passed 400.000 copies for the first 5 volumes. The books have spurred a heated literary debate about the use of autobiographical elements in fiction, and about literary criticism in general. In addition to amazing reviews and several awards and nominations, this fascinating literary experiment has generated an enormous interest among journalists, critics and readers, resulting in hundreds of articles, commentaries, essays, blog posts and discussions.

Constantly wavering between megalomania and extreme self-depreciation, Knausgård writes about his present life, his teenage years, his childhood, his struggle to write his first book, his father’s death, the birth of his first child, his burning wish to write truly great literature, his boredom from changing his children’s nappies – relentlessly revealing his never-ending craving for his father’s approval, and his own endless talent for self-doubt.

Breaking his own life story down to its elementary particles, Karl Ove Knausgård embarks on a Proustian exploration of his past, creating a universal story of the struggles - big and small - that we all face in our lives. My Struggle is a profoundly serious, gripping and hugely readable work written as if the author's very life were at stake. A painfully honest confession, an unparalleled and shocking achievement, an addictive read, a literary suicide, an ambitious piece of hyper-realism , a stunningly original success.

Praise for MY STRUGGLE - SECOND BOOK:

“ Ruthless beauty… This whole idea seems incredibly risky, but here, this risk is translated into literary suspense of the finest quality… In my view, My Struggle is brilliant and irresponsible literature, both at once. And maybe this is the source of its strong appeal.”
(Aftenposten)

“I know it sounds unbearable. And throughout the book, you find everything you fear in a text like this: Whining and quarrelling, coffee-shop conversations from hell, moaning about the times we’re living in, loud assertions about the author’s pitifulness. Mixed with piercing exposures of other people’s secrets and stories. All the same, it feels impossible to stop reading. This is not only due to the literary form, the talent of portrayal, all the wisdom the text contains. But also because you understand that you’re witnessing an existential project, which, on one level, will meet challenges known to all of us.”
(Dagbladet)

“ My Struggle. Second Book confirms that Knausgård is about to create and publish a truly exceptional literary work”
(6 of 6 stars, Fædrelandsvennen)

“A bewitching novel. Just as autobiographical, just as challenging, and just as good as volume one”
( Bergens Tidende)

“ Second Book is a scream, a paradoxical cry for belonging. The life of a hermit-like, child-watching author pulls in many directions. No reason to stop here; I’ll continue reading.”
(Klassekampen)

“We have to do with an author who writes on a first rate international level, while exposing the most private and embarrassing things, something that most likely will go on for a couple of thousand of pages… There  is no getting around that My Struggle is great literature”
(5 of 6 stars, VG)

“ Impressive from Knausgård. There are tons of reasons not to write like Knausgård does. But when he does, the result is radiant literature… The trivial, the painful, the sublime, the original and the embarrassing are placed side by side… The raw urge to leave everything in order to do the one necessary thing – to write – is placed next to the tenderest description of a little child.”
(NRK)

”I’m reading. I’m reading the second instalment of My Struggle by the Norwegian writer, and indescribably thorough storyteller Karl Ove Knausgård, who lives in Sweden. I’m reading – hmm, the verb feels inadequate. I’m devouring… I can’t stop, I want to stop, I can’t stop, just one more page, then I’ll make dinner, just one more page…….”
(Västerbottens-Kuriren, Sweden) 

”Again and again what convinces me of the novel’s extraordinary quality is the generosity with which Knausgård tells the story. And his insistence on detail. The novels have a great formal and linguistic vigorousness. … But it is interesting that Knausgård succeeds in writing beautifully, raw, and dramatically about a modern man’s problems with being what a modern man should be.”
(litteraturnu.dk, Denmark)

First published: 2009, Forlaget Oktober
Karl Ove Knausgård: Biography and bibliography

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