My Struggle: Book 4

by Karl Ove Knausgård

“Not everyone here has heard of Heidegger,” Yngve said in an unexpected lull. “Surely there must be other topics we can discuss apart from some obscure German philosopher.” “Yes, I suppose there are,” Kjartan said. “We can talk about the weather. But what shall we talk about then? The weather is what it always is. The weather is what existence reveals itself through. Just as we reveal ourselves through the mood we are in, through what we feel at any given moment. It’s not possible to imagine a world without weather or ourselves without feelings. But both elements automate das Man. Das Man talks about the weather as though there is nothing special about it, in other words he doesn’t see it, not even Johannes,” Kjartan said, nodding toward Grandpa, “who spends an hour every day listening to the weather forecast, and always has done, who absorbs all the details, not even Johannes sees the weather, he just sees rain or sun, mist or sleet, but not as such, as something unique, something which reveals itself to us, through which everything else reveals itself in these moments of, well, grace perhaps. Yes, Heidegger is close to God and the divine, but he never fully embraces it, he never goes the whole way, but it’s there, in close attendance, perhaps even as a prerequisite for the thinking. What do you say, Sissel?”