My Struggle - vol. 3

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

“Of course, I remember nothing from this time. It is completely impossible to identify with the infant my parents photographed; this is in fact so difficult it almost seems wrong to use the word “I” when referring to it, lying in the baby bath, for instance, its skin unnaturally red, its arms and legs sprawling, and its face distorted in a scream no one remembers the reason for anymore – or on a sheepskin blanket on the floor, dressed in white pyjamas, still red in its face, with big, rather squinting, dark eyes. Is that creature the same as the one sitting here in Malmö, writing this?”

One mild August day in 1969, a young family of four moves into their new home on Tromøya, in the south of Norway. This is where their youngest son, Karl Ove, then barely eight months old, will spend his childhood years. We follow his life in the 70s through a vivid story filled with bicycle expeditions, girls, football, pyromaniac pranks and music in what may seem like a traditional, if brutal, coming-of-age novel. But more than anything, My Struggle 3 is a complex and naked depiction of a deeply sensitive but not always sympathetic child carrying all his emotions on the outside, formed, above all, by fear of his controlling, unpredictable and omnipresent father. Once again, Knausgård fascinates the reader with his merciless self-scrutiny – this time of the artist as a young boy.

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 - THIRD BOOK:

”In My Struggle. Third Book, sensuous descriptions of childhood are interwoven with reflections about time, memory and existence. This combination works brilliantly… this is extremely literary… My Struggle. Third Book is not only riveting and well-written; it is also thoughtful and intelligent. In short: Knausgård has done it again”
( Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation)

“a captivating read”
( Aftenposten)

“fascinating…. I am still breathlessly waiting for more… He recreates the seemingly grey everyday existence with a sensory richness which, at its best, is fabulous… In an outstanding manner, this book has a “pageturner” feel to it… Something sensational is about to happen to Knausgård and his boundlessly ambitious six-volume experiment. In my years as a professional reader, I cannot remember having experienced a similar enthusiasm for a literary project: My Struggle is being discussed in a way that is stimulating for the entire literary field. Equally important, Knausgård increaslingly emerges as an author whose novels possess the power and the qualities to challenge the hegemony of Norwegian fiction… The Solstad generation is finally about to have a worthy contender for the top positions in the Norwegian literary hierarchy”
( Dagbladet)

“a poignant novel… this coming-of-age novel flows with a lightness and sensitivity few others can copy”
(Dagens Næringsliv)

“Karl Ove Knausgård makes young and old, men and women, discuss pain, life and literature. The readers gather around Knausgård’s self-consuming, dark novel… He lays out his body, his pain, his defeats, as literature, with a power of persuasion similar to an act of Communion… In scale, this testimony of its time might beat anything that has ever been written in Norwegian. The work has indisputable qualities. And its power of fascination is formidable.”
(Klassekampen)

“ My Struggle. Third Book is supported by the same incredibly rich and supple language found in the previous [novels] –and in all of Knausgård’s books… Do I want to read more? Absolutely.”
(Fædrelandsvennen)

“a marvel of a novel… This is magnificent.”
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

“reading on becomes an obsession… [Knausgård’s] accomplishment as an author is that he can dig out his subjective truth and convey it in a manner that produces an existential echo in all of us”
(Agderposten)

“an exceptional description of childhood”
(Dag og Tid)

“It is its language and its novelistic qualities that make My Struggle a masterpiece… Knausgård writes about Karl Ove in the way Proust writes about Marcel… The novel My Struggle appears, at half time, as a masterpiece… Let it be Knausgård’s problem that he, as it says in Second Book, is about to lose faith in literature. For the rest of us, My Struggle is a confirmation of the power and possibilities of literature”
(Morgenbladet)

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

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