Lit Bits-8/6/2014 Karl Ove Knausgaard vs. Proust, Mary Oliver

John Says,

I’ve never been able to get through Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.  I’ll admit it.  I’ve tried on several occasions.  Mostly recently I tried making it through all of Proust in 2012.  It was to be my “summer of Proust.”  As always I got through all of Swann’s Way and one-half of Within a Budding Grove before giving up to read something else.  I don’t know when I’m going to try again.  I thought about doing it this summer.  But it’s already August, and to be honest, 600 plus pages of Of Human Bondage is wearing me down in terms of novels big in scope.  I wish that I knew what a beach read was.  I wish I enjoyed the beach.

I was curious if my failure to read Proust had anything to do with simply not being able to sustain a multi-volume novel set in which nothing much happens.  I was pretty sure of that fact.  Until I came across this guy….

This is Karl Ove Knausgaard.  Knausgaard is the author to the 6-volume Norwegian novel, My Struggle (Min Kamp), of which the first three volumes have been published in the U.S.A.  The first of the three volumes centers on Karl Ove as a teenager and then as adult dealing with the passing of his alcoholic/abusive father.  The second volume deals with Karl leaving his first wife and meeting his current wife, and the two of them setting out on having a family.  The current volume, subtitled Boyhood Island, focuses once again on Karl’s childhood, delving more into the relationship with his old man. 

As with Proust nothing much happens in Knausgaard’s novels.  Well, life happens, I guess.  But I’ve found myself drawn to them in a way that I never could with Proust.  Perhaps it is the time the books were written.  There is a considerable difference between reading about Paris salons and reading about some kid fixated on Rock’n’Roll and dealing with his dad.  In many circles My Struggle has been hailed as a masterpiece.  In some it is seen as inflated and dull.  The novels are not without their share of criticism as well considering Karl Ove Knausgaard, at 45, is contemporary, is writing about people whom are still living, and, in some circumstances, are still intimately involved with the author.....and, you know, the book is called Min Kamp...which in German is Mein Kamph (if you haven't made the title connection yet I can't help you).

But for whatever reason I dig them.  The translation is fantastic and while some of the writing can be plodding it’s worth it for the insight one man's search to understand himself and the life given to him.  Knausgaard excels at his own personal philosophy.  Reading Min Kamp is, in a way, reading a version of your own life.  I fully admit to looking forward to each successive volume, and that I have a small envy against the people of Norway for having all six books at the ready.

Aleathia says:

When I first moved to Seattle I was amazed by the amount of book stores at my disposal.  Oddly, I felt blanketed most in the University of Washington book store.  It was always lively and full of young students and tourists.  Being new, it made me feel like I belonged there at the time.

I was unsure about my poetry at the time.  I was afraid to write it, afraid to show it.  I figured I was out of my league in the big city.  I picked up a book of poetry by Mary Oliver and it changed my life.  She spoke of nature.  She brought it alive and gave it personal character.  She made it human when it wasn't.  From that point forward I have loved her work.  It is clean and simple while retaining a deepness that sneaks up on you.

Here is a video of her reading her poem "Wild Geese":

 Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.