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Mary Ellen Gembolis asked this question about My Struggle, Book 1:
Has anyone out there read the whole series? I just finished Book 1 and found it a little naval-gazing, too self-absorbed. Does it get any better? Mary Ellen
Maya Jurt Jake and MaryEllen: I read 1 to 4, and I am waiting for 5 to become available in pocket format.

You mean navel-gazing? Yes, it is. And that is the whol…moreJake and MaryEllen: I read 1 to 4, and I am waiting for 5 to become available in pocket format.

You mean navel-gazing? Yes, it is. And that is the whole point. I think no writer has ever given such a total insight into his psyche and his development from boy to adult, and into his family background. Total honesty. No self-aggrandizement. It is life as it is in literary form, a social study of Norwegian and later Swedish society. I can't judge the Norwegian original, only the English translation which I find with less flaws than other translations of books from famous writers.
The title: the version I have is called "My struggle". If the Norwegians have no problem with "Min Kamp", that's fine with me.

Some passages are even poetic, and quite often humorous. There are difficult pages, most difficult his senseless drinking described in Dancing in the Dark (book 4). What he describes took place in 1986 when Knausgaard was 18 - a time when getting stone drunk on weekends was a favorite pastime for the youth of Scandinavia. I guess that has changed.
Karl Ove a very naive youth lacking confidence? Exactly. Even in 2016, we have boys growing up and feeling what he describes. It all depends on if we want to know about it.
If you have not found book 2 (A man in Love) more satisfying, then you should stop reading Knausgaard. Book 3 (Boyhood Island) is difficult to stomach - a father mistreating his child, and a child hating his father - and Book 4 (Dancing in the Dark) is indeed very dark.

Fortunately, Knausgaard is no Proust. Who reads Proust today? I read "À la recherche du temps perdu" in French (7 volumes often translated as "Remembrance of Things Past") You would be more bored than with Knausgaard. Proust is a man of the past, totally overrated today because of his influence on the literati of his time. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date". Fiction it was. But what Knausgaard describes is stark reality. And that is - for me - a rough diamond in the glittering world of fiction.(less)
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My Struggle, Book 1
by Karl Ove Knausgård
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