My Struggle: Book 4

by Karl Ove Knausgård

Torture wasn’t so relevant really, not now, I thought, and continued to read. But this was a book you had barely glanced at before you raised your eyes again. The torture was extreme, the annihilation of the Jews extreme. But it was carried out by regular people! Why did they do it? Didn’t they know it was wrong? Yes, of course they did. Was this what they wanted, in their heart of hearts? While they were walking around in their elegant little picture-perfect towns, making sure that everyone was doing what they should and believing that they were so utterly good, was evil what they really wanted if they got the chance? Without realizing it themselves? Was it just something they carried within them, an evil without form, as it were, which emerged when the opportunity arose?

to be explored further in Vol 6