Rumpus Exclusive: “Crumbs of Life”
I understand this impulse to tighten and make resistant.
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Posts Tagged: my struggle
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Faith Adiele
Faith Adiele discusses what it means to be a good literary citizen, the importance of decolonizing travel writing, and how she wants to change the way Black stories are being told.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec
Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing.
...moreA Tough Elevator Pitch
HELLO. I was hoping I would run into you on the elevator today. Here, this scene would be perfect for you: A young man takes an orange from the bowl in the kitchen. He sits on the couch in the living room and peels it. He eats the orange. He gets up and puts the […]
...moreThe Sacred and the Profane in Knausgaard
Is it possible to separate Knausgaard the author from Knausgaard the protagonist? At the New Republic, Tess Crain asks this question, taking a look at the series from a woman’s point of view. By her estimation, Volume 5, just out in English, explains some of Knausgaard’s problematic views on women by framing him as “a […]
...moreI Wanted to Be Seen
Check out highlights from a conversation between Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard at the Chicago Review of Books that range from the question of whether real literature must “burn” to be written, to why there’s no therapy in My Struggle. Heti pursues cultural differences, and Knausgaard speaks about the Nordic code of collective solidarity […]
...moreWhere Are All The “Good” Guys?
For Electric Literature, Liesl Schillinger reflects on his struggles to find examples of “good” men in contemporary fiction, and shares his joy in finding one in Lauren Groff‘s Fates and Furies. Further, he argues that despite the self-deprecating narrator in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle, the six-volume epic captures an “everyman” whose goodwill helps him to succeed: There is room […]
...moreYou Write Like A Girl, Knausgaard
Domestic duties are regarded as feminine in popular culture. Karl Ove Knausgaard’s enormous three volume tome, My Struggle, is full of descriptions of domesticity, and he has been showered with highbrow literary praise for them. But would the same be true if he were a woman? What if it were a woman moaning about motherhood […]
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Against Realism
What is it Ferrante has that American fiction lacks?
...moreWhich Norwegian Author Is Your Favorite Beatle?
I think of the four elder statesmen of Norwegian letters as a bit like the Beatles: Per Petterson is the solid, always dependable Ringo; Dag Solstad is John, the experimentalist, the ideas man; Karl Ove Knausgaard is Paul, the cute one; and Fosse is George, the quiet one, mystical, spiritual, probably the best craftsman of […]
...moreLost in Translation
Last Thursday, Charlie Rose tried to talk to Karl Ove Knausgaard about My Struggle. Or Karl Ove Knausgaard tried to talk to Charlie Rose. They tried.
...moreThe Scatology of Karl Ove Knausgaard
Finally, the Paris Review answers the question we’ve all been wondering about Karl Ove Knausgaard and his mega-novel My Struggle: what’s with all the shitting? That gratuitous attention to detail may explain why these scenes jump out at readers, but it doesn’t explain Knausgaard’s minor obsession with shit. To be sure, the inclusion of these […]
...moreThe Joy of Knausgaard
For Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon works to define “contemporary” literature and wonders where Karl Knausgaard’s My Struggle fits into the mix. What he ultimately argues is that contemporary literature is often “project based,” and that Knausgaard’s self-exploratory novel is the most definitive example of this kind of work in recent times: Not only does the title My Struggle claim for Knausgaard the […]
...moreStranger than Fiction
The death of the novel has been argued and rebutted and argued again. Drawing from David Shields‘s book of literary criticism, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, Alexander Nazaryan wonders whether the essay might do a better job: Reality Hunger argues that to survive, the novel must become less like itself, to just stop with the whole […]
...moreThe New Proust
I’m a Proustian in that sense, I believe in memories outside of consciousness, and this is just a way to find them. Writing is a way to get access to them. The thing you feel if you smell something, or hear something, if you hear music from the ’80s, and then you are back there […]
...moreCritics vs. Copies
Have you actually read Knausgaard or have you only read about Knausgaard? The sales numbers don’t seem to support the phenomenon that this Norwegian writer has become. For the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks tries to understand the correlation between the critics and the copies. Well, as of a few days ago UK sales […]
...moreKnausguaard as a Lady
Katie Roiphe of Slate has some ideas about what Knausgaard’s critically acclaimed work would be like if, instead, he was a woman. I imagine to this committed Knausgaardians would say that they are responding to the quality of his writing and thinking. But I’m convinced that even if Carla Krauss were writing and thinking on […]
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My Struggle Books One–Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Joseph Olshan reviews MY STRUGGLE (Books One – Three) by Karl Ove Knausgaard today in The Rumpus Books.
...moreStruggling with Titles
Karl Ove Knausgaard has been making waves with his six-part book My Struggle. The popular series shares a title with another famous book, Mein Kampf, Hitler’s treatise written from his prison cell. The New Yorker explores the reasoning behind Knausgaard’s choice of title: Knausgaard sometimes speaks in interviews and public appearances of an irony inherent in […]
...moreThe Writer’s Writer
Karl Ove Knausgaard, the handsome Norwegian writer, is traveling through the U.S. giving talks and readings and interviews. It’s as good a time as any to start reading his 6-part autobiography, My Struggle, especially if you are a writer. As the New York Times reports, Knausgaard’s American counterparts are all raving about this writer—Jeffrey Eugenides, […]
...moreThe Personal Becomes Public
Karl Ove Knausgaard’s magnum-opus, My Struggle, is an unflinching and exhaustive chronicle of a modern life. Interviews with the Norwegian writer are equally as vulnerable and exacting: It is too late to shield himself. For all the success of My Struggle, Knausgaard speaks of its impact with more regret than pride. Sitting in his rustic studio across the yard […]
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