ŷ������

[continued from here]

At 12%. Karl Ove Knausgård. Here we go again! I started the fifth book right on schedule this time, but had to pay almost the same price for the Kindle version as for the hardcover. With my luck the paperback will come out any day now, and the price for the Kindle will drop too. Aargh! Or better Ååååååååå! (to paraphrase from Manny’s review)
The letter Å, by the way, is pronounced similar to aw in the English “law�� and caused some trouble one time: Members of my family live in Norway, in a town called Ås, and when they moved to Canada for a year the passport scanner at the Canadian airport refused to do its work. Apparently Å wasn’t in its character set. It took several hours, and a call back to Norway, to convince the officials to let the family in. Ååååååååå!
                                        ·•●•��
At 33%. Karl Ove recites the entire poem Todesfuge by Paul Celan to his girlfriend, instead of actually talking with her. A peculiar guy at 19. In my German edition of the book the original poem is printed, of course. I wonder how the Norwegian version sounds to Norwegian ears? I found this other poem (a school friend of Celan) which was written before Todesfuge. This poem really sounds like the basis on which Celan has build his fugue.
In other news: The recently published critical edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (which I added to GR), has been combined with the other editions of this infamous book, even though I added a librarian note saying not to do this for obvious reasons. In my opinion a high rating of a critical edition usually means a low rating of the original work, and vice versa, so the average rating and rating histogram will lose all validity (what’s left of it anyway). But apparently keeping the two works speperated would have been a violation of the holy rules and regulations of GR and who am I to argue that. At least I won’t spend any more of my precious time on fixing glitches in the GR database. He he he.
                                        ·•●•��
At 50% Knausgård is talking and talking and then he talks some more. This narrative seems like an endless stream and it suits the mood in Bergen nicely where all it ever does is rain, it seems. He studies literature. But talking about is not his main focus. Only sometimes, for brief moments, when the cloud cover ruptures, he mentions his own writing. What seems more important is telling us how often and how hard he gets drunk.
His name is not in any book yet, not as the author anyway. But he discovers it in the novel called Ut by Else Karin Bukkøy; at least I’m fairly sure it’s this book he mentions in his novel. The description of the cover fits, but I didn’t find a blurb or anything. Just a cover. And it’s not on ŷ������ either (as if!). Quite obscure.

                                        ·•●•��
At 78%. Tonje enters Knausgård’s life. But the individual stories in his “Struggle�� volumes are not told in a linear fashion. Far from it. So at this point we already know a great deal about Tonje and their relationship from books one and two. I wonder if the books would make an entirely different impression if they were told chronologically. Probably so, even though we would end up with the exact same amount of information. But the overall impression would be different, I’m sure. In other words: How we build up our world view also depends on the order in which we receive information. Somewhat crazy, if you think about it.
                                        ·•●•��
At 94%. Oh no! KOK starts cleaning his father’s house again! Enough said.
                                        ·•●•��
At 100%. Five down, still one to go. The book deserves its stars for the last quarter which is really great. But perhaps this is only because the other three quarters where kind of straining. A clever construction �� if it was intentional.
After two thirds of the whole novel series (based on the page count of the original Norwegian hardcovers) I’m still here, poor fool, with all my lore and stand no wiser than before. I don’t believe all his stories in the book (and the other four I read so far) to be entirely true, because if they were, and I were a shrink, I could easily diagnose Mr Knausgård with several psychological disorders, and have him admitted to an institution, maybe one of those he mentioned in this book. For instance this scene in which he, his girlfriend Tonje, and his brother Yngve are sitting in a bar and Tonje and Yngve start talking to each other and enjoying themselves while Karl Ove drinks and gets jealous? This scene show strong indications for acute alcohol intoxication (), delusional jealousy (), and intentional self-harm (). This guy really should stop drinking!
Or maybe it’s all made up? This whole thing is a hoax, some fabrication of his mind. In this case, one might speak of pathological lying (there is no ICD-10 code for this, it falls under the code F69 “unspecified personality disorder��), if it weren’t for the word NOVEL on the cover of the books.
Knausgård is first and foremost a novelist, and novelists tend to take the truth (of their own biography in this case) and then bend and twist it to their needs until it fits their purpose. I guess taking Min Kamp at face value is not the way to go.

[to be continued here]



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