My Struggle (Knausgård novels)

My Struggle

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Author	Karl Ove Knausgård
Original title	Min kamp
Country	Norway
Language	Norwegian
Published	2009–2011
No. of books	6

My Struggle (Norwegian: Min kamp) is an autobiographical series of six novels written in the late 2000s by Karl Ove Knausgård. The books cover his private life and thoughts, and unleashed a media frenzy upon its release, with journalists attempting to track down the mentioned members of his family. The series has sold half a million copies in Norway alone and has been published in 22 languages.

Overview

File:Karl Ove Knausgård.jpg

The author, Knausgård

My Struggle is a six-book autobiographical series by Karl Ove Knausgård outlining the "banalities and humiliations of his life", his private pleasures, and his dark thoughts; the first of the series was published in 2009. It has sold nearly 500,000 copies in Norway, or one copy for every nine Norwegian adults, and is published in 22 languages. The series is 3,600 pages long, and was finished when Knausgård was in his forties. The English translation of the fourth book in the series arrived in the United States in April 2015.

Though categorized as fiction, the books situate Knausgård as the protagonist and his actual relatives as the cast, with his relatives' names mostly unchanged. The books have led some of those relatives to make public statements against their inclusion in Knausgård's novels.

History

As he struggled to write a novel about his relationship with his father, Knausgård set upon a new project in early 2008: to write less stylistically and deliberately and instead, to "write plainly about his life". He wrote mainly to break his block with the other novel and thought that there would not be an audience for the work. Knausgård would call his friend and fellow writer Geir Angell Øygarden daily and read the work aloud. Angell Øygarden felt that Knausgård needed encouragement to continue, and Knausgård felt that Angell Øygarden was essential to the project. Angell Øygarden eventually listened to 5,000 pages of the novel and proposed the series title, which he felt was perfect. The novel's Norwegian title, Min Kamp, is very similar to Hitler's Mein Kampf. The book's editor, Geir Gulliksen, originally forbade Knausgård from using the title, but later changed his mind. Knausgård's British publisher at the time was not interested in the book, and Knausgård did not protest the German translation publisher's decision to change the title in that region.

The difficult thing for me is that I want basically to be a good man. That’s what I want to be. In this project, I wasn’t. It is unmoral, in a way.

Knausgård, to The New Republic, April 2014

In writing the first book, Knausgård reflected that he did not consider the consequences of writing so candidly about his close relations until he paused on the passage about his grandmother. He circulated the first book to about ten of the largest figures in the book before its release and offered to change their names. His brother and mother did not object, but Knausgård's father's family attempted legal intervention and wanted to block publication, calling the novel, "a book full of insinuations, untruths, false personal characteristics and disclosures". Knausgård was scared, but fixed some errors, changed some names, removed a single person, and published the book without acquiescing to all requests. He later acknowledged that he had a choice and chose to publish "no matter what", and referred to this admission of guilt as "cowardly". Knausgård's wife relapsed into depression upon reading his first book. He added that he would not be able to publish the book again now, but was previously able due to his desperation.

Knausgård had finished two volumes when the first book was released. He had been planning to finish the six volumes within the year, preferring to work under harsh deadlines to combat his writer's block. The book's release began a media frenzy as reporters tracked down the novel's characters, which was simple because his family were the only Knausgårds in Norway. Knausgård went into hiding and shut out the media exposure to write daily. Working almost all day aside from chauffeuring his kids, he could write 20 pages in a day. The 50-page section on his first days with his wife was written in a 24-hour spurt.

Knausgård felt that the third through fifth volumes suffered for the influence of the ongoing controversy that followed the original publication. He wrote the 550-page fifth book in eight weeks. The sixth book has a 400-page essay on Hitler's early life and autobiography. He wanted "unsparing honesty" in the last book "to save the project", and so discarded 400 pages, delayed the book, and wrote about the fallout from the publication of the previous five volumes, including a breakdown suffered by his wife during which she was hospitalized. Knausgård described his portrayal of his wife as "the most painful thing" he has done. His wife, although hurt by portions of the series, did not ask to be rewritten and has publicly taken his side.

Though he wrote at the end of his series that he is finished with writing, he plans to write a new and fantastical novel not about his life, and influenced by Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

Themes

Though the book's protagonist is conflicted between his commonplace needs and his longing to make monumental art, the novels show that the main functions of his life are not the latter art work but the former family life. The series is centered around family and relationships, not the writer's relationship with his work.

Titles

The books have different titles depending on country and translation. In the native Norwegian they are simply known as Min kamp 1, Min kamp 2, etc..

The first volume in English has been published under various titles such as My Struggle: Book One or A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1. The second volume has been published as My Struggle: Book Two: A Man in Love or A Man In Love: My Struggle Book 2. The third volume has been published as Boyhood Island: My Struggle Book 3. The fourth volume has been published as Dancing in the dark: My Struggle Book 4. The fifth volume has been published as Some rain must fall: My Struggle Book 5.

The title of the series, of both the English translation and the original Norwegian, is a translation of “Mein Kampf” and is thus a clear reference to Hitler. In an essay for the New Yorker’s website, Evan Hughes explains how Knausgård, in interviews, “has argued that a frightening characteristic that connects Mein Kampf to the writings of Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Utøya massacre, is that in the mind behind both texts there seems to be an ‘I’ and a ‘we’ but no ‘you,’ reflecting a dangerous blindness that allowed an otherwise impossible evil.” The sixth book of the series includes a meditation on the Breivik attacks.

The title of the first volume of the German translation is Sterben, which means “to die" or "death.” At the insistence of the publisher, the work was not published as Mein Kampf in Germany. Knausgård says that he understood and did not protest this decision.

Reception

The New Republic's Evan Hughes wrote that Knausgård's followers feel like he writes about them, that the book is "like opening someone else's diary and finding your own secrets". Hughes called Zadie Smith and Jonathan Lethem admirers of Knausgård's. Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides said that Knausgård "broke the sound barrier of the autobiographical novel".

Knausgård has been criticized over the way he exposes other people in the book. A girlfriend he had for four years, anonymized under the name «Gunvor» in the fifth volume, said to the newspaper Bergens Tidende: “It was as if he said: Now I'm going to punch you in the face. I know it's going to hurt, and I will drive you to the hospital afterwards. But I'm going to do it anyway.”

Awards and honors

• 2009 Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, nominated for Volume 1
• 2009 Norwegian Booksellers' Prize, nominated for Volume 1
• 2009 Youth Critics' Prize, nominated for Book 1
• 2009 Brage Prize for Book 1.
• 2009 Morgenbladet's Book of the Year for Volume 1.
• 2009 NRK P2 Listeners' Prize for Book 1.
• 2010 Nordic Council's Literature Prize, nominated for Volume 1
• 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for Book 1
• 2012 Believer Book Award, nominated for Book One
• 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, longlisted for Book 1
• 2014 Best Translated Book Award shortlist for My Struggle: Book Two, translated from the Norwegian to English by Don Bartlett
• 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, shortlisted for Book 2
• 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, longlisted for Book 3

References

Additional sources