A Death in the Family (My Struggle #1)

by Karl Ove Knausgård

These changes in the first hours occur so slowly and take place with such inexorability that there is something almost ritualistic about them, as though life capitulates according to specific rules, a kind of gentleman’s agreement, to which the representatives of death also adhere, inasmuch as they always wait until life has retreated before they launch their invasion of the new landscape. By which point, however, the invasion is irrevocable.

Nonetheless, there are few things that arouse in us greater distaste than to a see a human being caught up in it, at least if we are to judge by the efforts we make to keep corpses out of sight. In larger hospitals they are not only hidden away in discreet, inaccessible rooms, even the ways there are concealed, with their own lifts and basement corridors, and should you stumble upon one of them, the dead bodies being wheeled by are always covered. When they have to be transported from the hospital it is through a dedicated exit, into vehicles with tinted glass; in the church grounds there is a separate, windowless room for them; during the funeral ceremony they lie in closed coffins until they are lowered into the earth or cremated in the oven. It is hard to imagine what practical purpose this procedure might serve.

So ethnographic. But also silly because of the millions of diseases born from gore? Writing this from my kindle xoxo

A town that does not keep its dead out of sight, that leaves people where they died, on highways and byways, in parks and car parks, is not a town but a hell. The fact that this hell reflects our life experience in a more realistic and essentially truer way is of no consequence. We know this is how it is, but we do not want to face it. Hence the collective act of repression symbolised by the concealment of our dead.

Lowkey truism. Hes not an anthropologist (to my knowlege) but hes making me wonder if im really fit for the field bc i just find this annoying. Reminds me of jeremy strong while were on the topic...

I could see dad. When I could see him I felt safer with him, and in a way that was what mattered most. I knew his moods, and had learned how to predict them long ago, by means of a kind of subconscious categorisation system, I have later come to realise, whereby the relationship between a few constants was enough to determine what was in store for me, allowing me to make my own preparations. A kind of meteorology of the mind … The speed of the car up the gentle gradient to the house, the time it took him to switch off the engine, grab his things and step out, the way he looked around as he locked the car, the subtle nuances of the various sounds that rose from the hall as he removed his coat – everything was a sign, everything could be interpreted. To this was added information about where he had been, and with whom, how long he had been away, before the conclusion, which was the only part of the process of which I was conscious, was drawn. So, what frightened me most was when he turned up without warning … when for some reason I had been inattentive … How on earth did he know I had been running? This was not the first time he had caught me out in a way I found incomprehensible.

This 1 real as fawk

We chatted away about anything that occurred to us; she was interested in what we had to say, and if we spilt a few drops of milk or forgot our manners and put the used tea bag on the table cloth (for she made us tea as well) it was no huge drama. But if it was our participation in the meal that opened this sluice gate of freedom, it was the extent of my father’s presence that regulated its impact. If he was outside the house or down in his study, we chatted as loudly and freely and with as many gesticulations as we liked; if he was on his way up the stairs we automatically lowered our voices and changed the topic of conversation, in case we were talking about something we assumed he might consider unseemly; if he came into the kitchen we stopped altogether, sat there as stiff as pokers, to all outward appearances sunk in concentration over the food; on the other hand, if he retired to the living room we continued to chat, but more warily and more subdued.

Omg

The trick was to eke out the milk, because if you came to the last slice and there was none left it was nigh on impossible to swallow. Best of all, of course, was to save a drop until everything was eaten, the milk never tasted as good as then, when it no longer had to fulfil a function, it ran down your throat in its own right, pure and uncontaminated, but unfortunately it was rare for me to manage this. The needs of the moment always trumped promises of the future, however enticing the latter. But Yngve did manage it. He was a past master at economising.