My Struggle: Book Three

Book 3 of Knausgaard six-book "autobiography" is as strong as the first two - 3 focusing on his childhood. Critiquing his books is new territory, as "My Struggle" is not a traditional autobiography in the least. (I've noticed that the big-time critics' blurbs tend to comment on "My Struggle" as a set rather than on individual volumes.) Are the details all "real," for example? Can anyone's memory be that extraordinarily complete and precise? However one answers...his books are "tediously mesmerizing." They are not for everyone - but for me they have been exquisitely hypnotic. Details pull you into his experience and keep you there: no matter what he does or describes, this reader wants to follow along, caught up in the author's every move, thought, explanation, reaction, description. The clarity of the writing is in some fashion "simple" (translated beautifully from the Norwegian) but powerful and evocative - you have to stay fixed on everything that unfolds: his rigid and unpredictable father, his generous mother, his brother, all throughout his unendingly rich imagination.This history of his struggles are not chronological, but each book deals with a segment of his life, and reads as much - far more? - like a novel as an autobiographical story, dipping so deeply into detail that the reader is within inches of being present with him. His relationships with family members and friends are explored with rich psychological meaning - but also with the kind of child-memory that gives his book/s such engagement for the reader.In some ways, My Struggle - Book 3 as well as 1 and 2 - could be seen as a vast (all six books are apparently close to 3,600 pages) confessional outpouring, a way for Knausgaard to cope with the dynamics of his less-than-cheerful life. At the same time, they have connected with readers so successfully that something like 20% or more of all Norwegians have read them! (Amazon is currently pre-selling Book 4 - in translation of course - due in May '15 I believe.) The author has also lectured/read in the United States, and his notoriety is appropriately growing.Do not expect big, blockbuster events to happen, as Knausgaard's life (historically accurate, so to speak, or 50% fictional?) is dominated by the events that happen to many of us, and that may be the key to why his books appeal to so many readers. The majority are not in the least upbeat, but they resonate deeply for those whose day-to-day events revolve around the ups and downs of family struggles, or school-day conflicts, or identity crises, or sibling hassles, or work problems. But Knausgaard takes these ongoing human activities and writes about them in such a detailed, honest, and blunt way that, while they are not always redeemed, they are transformed into the potential for meaning. These books are not enlightened by hope and sunshine - but by gray Scandinavian skies, shot through with sunbursts of occasional love and joy and euphoria, and once again subdued down by a much-too-early sunset.

I read the prior two Knausgaard books and liked them a lot though I would go through some stretches where they seemed tedious to me. This one is of his boyhood years, from when he started school up into adolescence, ending when he is 13. He lives in Norway and I was living on the US east coast during those years of my life. Yet it is truly eye opening to me, there is so much similarity. His writing sheds light on so much that I've never thoroughly revisited yet felt so strongly then and here it comes alive in my feelings now.I was not a boy much like him, yet here we share a very similar situation all through those years. And the very difference awakens me to what others must have experienced. From that comes feelings of shame at how I treated others of different makeup as well as some compassion for myself at how blind and immature I truly was. The writing must be very good because I feel so strongly for him and cringe as I read some of what befalls him. It's truly painful from time to time. Yet he goes right ahead and shrugs off the hurts and carries on with what's still good as youth can do. Yet we know that the marks are there forever.More specifically, he's in a household with an older brother, a very competent yet strict disciplinarian father, and a caring and supportive mother who is an important backstop for him yet not overtly involved nor a strong figure herself. He's fearful of his father who is consistently rough with him and cuts him no slack at all. His brother and mother are both positive influences but most of what occupies his life and feelings are his relationships with his peers. (Aren't most of us like that at that age?)In his pre-puberty years he's mostly outdoors doing things with his friends, the usual mischiefs as well as the camaraderie of sharing with the friends. Still there is the pecking orders and the self doubts and social setbacks throughout.Once the world of girls comes alive for him and his friends then it predominates. He's trying to belong and be accepted yet he's as clueless as most are at that age. Underlying it all is his sensitivity and what would commonly be called feminine characteristics (that are strengths when seen in retrospect yet get squashed). Propensity to crying is one important example.This is terrific stuff, I was most strongly engaged in the second half of the book, yet perhaps that was just my receptiveness at that time while reading. If you are a parent of a young boy or girl then you'd do well to read this. I think it is extremely important and valuable writing.

Certainly the weakest of the volumes published thus far in English, but sets context for the Karl Ove we meet in the other volumes. As a memoir of childhood it is not especially striking, although many people will see parallel with their own childhood. I think I am about four years younger than the author, and was brought up in 1970s Northern England, and I see an uncanny similarity in many of the events and experiences of my own childhood.The opening is rather worrysome, as Karl Ove narrates events he could not have witnessed being only a baby. Mercifully this is conscious on the part of the writer, seeking to underline the fallability of this kind of endeavour. I am reminded of the first line of Andre Gide's autobiography, Si le grain me meurt: 'Je naquis le 22 novembre 1869. Mes parents occupaient alors, rue de Médicis, un appartement au quatrième ou cinquième étage, qu’ils quittèrent quelques années plus tard, et dont je n’ai pas gardé souvenir' [I was born on the 22nd November 1869. Back then my parents lived in an appartment in the Rue Medicis on the 4th or 5th floor, which they would leave several years later and of which I have no recollection.'. Gide, like Karl Ove, questions whether autobiography can be reliable, regardless of our intentions, from the word go.Still, as Karl Ove grows, so too does the pace of the narrative and it becomes compelling. We miss the self conscious narrator of the other books quite a bit however. In the rest of 'my struggle' it is Karl Ove's desire for self knowledge which is so gripping, and his desire to understand the meaning of his life through his experiences, both active and passive. There is simply less depth and ambiguity to a child's sense of self.Of course, it is probably a deliberate choice to present this volume more about the the surface of things, as that is truer to the experience of a child, and feels more authentic.As such however, we experience his tyrannical father rather two dimensionally - how he was perceived or existed for the young child, rather than speculating about his motivations and seeing him through the eyes of others who might be more illuminating.We do however get an idea of Karl Ove's sense of self awakening - his sense of his superiority based on his intellect being worn away, insight into the introverted, emotional, and intuitive character who, especially as a boy/man, is rather different from the masculine archetypes around him, and which creates a feeling of isolation and alienation. We also see the romantically impetuous Karl Ove which characterises later relationships.In 'A man in love' the writer opens up his inner world to us and has the courage to present the self doubt and flaws which typically go unexpressed in all of us - for example, the relationship with his young children and his second wife. Rightly, as a book of childhood this perspective is not open to us. It is less rich as a result, but does contextualise Karl Ove, the adult. It is judiciously placed third in the series In that case, rather than at the beginning. As with many of us in Western culture and Karl Ove, so few of our childhood relationships persist into adulthood, and it is right we only learn about the child once we know the man.

As the title suggests for the 3rd volume in the 'My Struggle' cycle Knausgaard revisits childhood. 'Boyhood Island' opens with the family arriving on the island of Tromøya in August 1969, when Karl Ove is a baby and ends as they leave the island with Karl Ove now a teenager. I defy anyone who reads this book not to think of their own childhood, the successes and failures, fears, times of embarrassment, friends and enemies,not to mention your first boy/girlfriend and broken heart.If you have read 'Death in the Family', the first volume, you will already know that Karl Ove had a very difficult relationship with his father and this one paints the picture of this relationship in detail. Knausgaard writes with complete honesty and makes the most mundane events and situations interesting and compelling, leaving me - and I am sure many published authors feel the same - wondering 'how does he do it?'I found this volume the easiest to read and it would be a good starting point for anyone who hasn't read the other books. It is a continuous narrative and there are, as I expected, long paragraphs but 'Boyhood Island' is more of a straight narrative, with very little moving around in time and only on a couple of occasions does the Karl Ove of the present make an appearance. It is hard not to become completely absorbed by the story, reading time extended as I thought 'just another page or 2 and then I will do the ironing, cook dinner, or whatever'.As I finished 'Boyhood Island' I immediately wanted to read the next book, but as there is about a year before I will be able too I returned to 'A Death in the Family', even though I had another couple of novels on the go at the time.For anyone who hasn't heard of 'My Struggle' before the first 2 voumes are 'A Death in the Family' and 'A Man in Love'. They read like an autobiography but are actually novels. How much is fact and how much is fiction? Only the author and those close to him really know but he did upset quite a few family members by publishing the cycle.I bought the Kindle version as it meant I could carry it around to read but couldn't resist getting the HB as well to go with the others!

This is my first Knausgaard. I liked the lucid prose and was pained by the childhood knots and embarrassments and Karl Ove's fear of his bullying father. And then there are the fresh, as-if-it-happened-yesterday descriptions of romps in the forest, the friendships interwoven with pre-teen complexes to do with acceptance/rejection, the landscape of a Norwegian island, holidays on his grandparents' farm, the first, awkward sexual experimentations. And the question which nags as you read - his mum was so nice, why couldn't she rescue him from his dad's rages? (The father did keep his more sadistic outbursts for when she wasn't around). But then isn't this why childhood can be so painful - you don't disclose your deepest fears to anyone? But with the immediacy of childhood, Karl Ove can be feeling stuck and deeply despondent and then suddenly he is out there on his bike looking for discarded porn mags with his friend Geir, very much in the moment. Excellent writing in many ways.Why not five stars? Well, I have to admit that there were a few paragraphs which interested me less, with their detailed long descriptions and I skim-read them. But when I focused back in, it was always worth it and the scenes came alive. The final impression is of a most vivid portrayal of this boy's childhood, his acute sensitivities and his resilience, and it cannot but resonate with many aspects of any reader's childhood too.

Karl Ove's early life, through to around the age of 13, recounted in the style that will be familiar from the first two volumes of My Struggle. As ever, he is brutally honest about himself. He is a child who is bullied by his father, but who is also always ready to burst into tears, when his essays are not read out in class, when he is substituted on the football pitch, when he loses the sweets he has bought to an attack by girls, or indeed has a one to one fight with a girl towards the end of the book, where he loses yet more face.But it brings to life with exceptional vividness a period of life when small things matter enormously, when we start to find our way in the world of school, of friendship and with the opposite sex, and when the traumas we suffer will mark us for life.Anyone who liked the first two volumes is unlikely to be disappointed.And this US hardback edition is a pleasure to read….

This book is a wonderful insight into childhood depression. It should be studied by analysts and psychotherapists or anyone who is interested in childhood experience with trauma and abuse. He captures the push and pull of feelings for an abusive parent; the child's love and hate and the parent as child. It is of course also a wonderful piece of writing as it stands. The way he captures the mind of a seven year old and the love between brothers. I was struck though by the emptiness in the feelings about the mother. Was he simply protecting her from the reader? Or maybe something far deeper. Great Book. Thanks.