Dear Knausgaard: Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle

by Kim Adrian

Literary Nonfiction. In a series of warm and often funny letters, essayist and memoirist Kim Adrian delivers a compelling feminist critique of the 6-volume autobiographical novel My Struggle, by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. Adrian's book of letters begins as a witty and entertaining response to a seminal work and transforms into a fierce and powerful interrogation of the darker social and cultural forces informing Knausgaard's project. Through an examination of the curious operations of intimacy demanded on both sides of the page by all great literature, DEAR KNAUSGAARD ultimately provides a heartfelt celebration of the act of reading itself.

"Kim Adrian's DEAR KNAUSGAARD isn't just for everyone who reveled in or fought with My Struggle, it's for everyone who reads--period, everyone who struggles with the profoundly complicated act of engaging with another mind. It is both a love letter to Knausgaard and a feminist critique of his work, a celebration and deconstruction of the act of close reading, and a meta-commentary on the relationship between writer and reader. Smart, funny, intimate, and erudite, this marvelous book is a powerful argument for the potential of reading to change us, to alter the trajectory of our lives."--Peter Grandbois

"DEAR KNAUSGAARD brings together two notions of what it means to be good, two kinds of writerly indulgence, two versions of the casualness and self-attentiveness of our era. In these imaginary letters, Kim Adrian faces down her hero and unwitting oppressor, a man whose novels have helped her see the world anew, but whose blind spots give pain and spark anger. Adrian's crushing honesty, her unusual forbearance: these make the book a moving and intimate one. Her long attachment to My Struggle makes the critique an essential read."--William Pierce

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, Essays, Memoir

186 pages, Paperback

Published August 25, 2020

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karl Ove Knausgaard turned his pretty ordinary life into thousands of pages of autofiction that many readers have found addictive. Adrian valiantly grapples with his six-volume exploration of identity, examining the treatment of time and the dichotomies of intellect versus emotions, self versus other, and life versus fiction. She marvels at the ego that could sustain such a project, and at the seemingly rude decision to use all real names (whereas in her own family memoir she assigned aliases to most major figures). At many points she finds the character of “Karl Ove” insufferable, especially when he’s a teenager in Book 4, and the books’ prose dull. Knausgaard’s focus on male novelists and his stereotypical treatment of feminine qualities, here and in his other work, frequently madden her.

So why is My Struggle compelling nonetheless? It occupies her mind and her conversations for years. Is it something about the way that Knausgaard extracts meaning from seemingly inconsequential details? About how he stretches and compresses time in a Proustian manner to create a personal highlights reel? She frames her ambivalent musings as a series of letters written as if to Knausgaard himself (or “KOK,” as she affectionately dubs him) between February and September 2019. Cleverly, she mimics his style in both the critical enquiry and the glimpses into her own life, including all its minutiae – the weather, daily encounters, what she sees out the window and what she thinks about it all. It’s bold, playful and funny, and, all told, I enjoyed it more than Knausgaard’s own writing.

(I myself have only read Book 1, A Death in the Family, and wasn’t planning on continuing with My Struggle, but I think I will make an exception for Book 3 because of my recent fascination with childhood memoirs. I had better luck with Knausgaard’s Seasons Quartet, of which of I’ve read all but Spring; Autumn, Summer, Winter reviews are linked.)

[Lavinia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dear Knausgaard, I've read this book only because it's about you. It was ok, but it would've been more interesting to me to read something written by you, about changing a diaper or something like that. I gather there's plenty of events in your life for My Struggle 7 to 10, so what are you waiting for?

[Matthew Gallaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should start off my saying that I'm not a fan of Knausgaard. I read the first volume of My Struggle and HATED it. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to spend five *more* volumes with a misogynistic, homophobic, pretentious poser (like he actually lists philosophy books he read in college -- who does that?). I found the prose clunky, the dialogue wooden, and his many digressions tedious, arrogant, and (often) superficial/uninformed. It kills me to see him compared to (gay literary genius) Proust given that the only thing they have in common is that that each wrote a super-long work of 'autofiction.' Knausgaard reminds me of kids I knew in my teens who used to buy all the records but, when pressed, couldn't really say what they liked about the music. All of that said, I LOVED spending time with Kim Adrian. Her book isn't quite the 'takedown' I was hoping for before I started reading, but -- and this I quickly realized -- it doesn't try to be (and doesn't need to be). Adrian is patient and kind. She listens to him and praises him even when she disagrees. She read all six books AND the ones that followed. She's a fan for reasons she can't quite elucidate, although she tries, which might seem like a flaw but -- because she admits it -- is not. Her doubts make the book endearing in ways that the underlying Knausgaard work is not. Occasionally she gets frustrated (like when Knausgaard describes certain activities or things as 'masculine' and 'feminine,' the latter including luggage with wheels ugh), but she genuinely admires the scope of his ambition and his capacity to render thousands of mundane details in a way that (for her, and, I guess, him) allows daily life to transcend fiction. What's ultimately great about this book is that Adrian's observations about her own life -- she's married with a teen son of her own -- are so much more interesting than anything Knausgaard wrote about his life. She's funny, she likes naps and cookies and talks with her friends. She's incredibly well read but (unlike Knausgaard) doesn't brag about it. I will not be reading more Knausgaard, but I would happily read anything by Kim Adrian. The only regret I felt reading this book was something I associate with being gay, which is the regret of watching amazing women devote their time -- and, all too often, their lives -- to less-than-amazing men.

[Christiane Alsop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This small book makes for a profound reading experience. Even if you've never read Knausgaard or only dipped into the first volume of his elaborations (like me), go for this one. It is so rich, vivid, and despite the profoundness and the depth of the author's thoughts, they are so lucid, I could hardly put it down.
What is is about: the reading life, the writing life, life. Really.
I will return to its pages many more times.
P.S. If you are a fan of the Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann, here's a take on her novel Malina you don't want to miss.
P.P.S. If you are a fan of Marcel Proust, here's a take on his In Search of Lost Time you don't want to miss.
P.P.P.S. ... and the list goes on.

[Hibou le Literature Supporter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short perfect companion. Such a playful response (which Karl Ove needs more of) to My Struggle. Love her comic shifts from philosophy and empathy with Karl Ove, the person, as well as the narrator, to impatient hand-wringing and cries of basically "Oh, c'mon" and "what the hell are you talking about." Wonderful comparisons to Proust, Ferrante, Cusk, and many others. Her friend Julie's analysis of the entire project is one of the best I've heard. Think 9/11...

[Angela Woodward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the book I wanted to read. Adrian engages Knausgard's work and persona with great warmth, while investigating all I've always wondered about the man--how do you take up so much space?

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing. A tiny, epistolary book of contemporary lit crit. Nothing super revelatory, but this is a valid, well written critique of a man (and the personae of a man) whose works I STILL have not read because of my frustration around his mythology. Adrian is immensely likable and her complex feelings towards sometimes problematic male authors is relatable. Read if you love Knausgaard, hate him, hate the idea of him, feel a strange rage towards cis white men writing thousands and thousands of pages of autofiction, or a mix of all of these.

I’ll still probably read the dude someday. Not yet though. And I’m not reading the 400 page Hitler essay he apparently drops in the middle of Book 6 (somehow that screams PEAK narcissism to me - who has time for that?)

[Jack M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya Knausguaard, you give us what we want, or we’ll critique the LIVING SHIT out of your work!

God I loved reading this, even though I couldn’t agree with a lot of sections, the references to My Struggle brought back beautiful memories, and it was a true pleasure to get someone else’s interpretations. Adrian highlights many beautiful passages, with some new themes and perspectives not only on the work, but the man himself. She reinforced the feeling that later on in my life, I will recall that along with my place and being in life at the time, the reading and Knausgaard experience will be something of an apex. And if I have a deep admiration for the man and his work, this book, written in epistolary form (love letter, perhaps is the more apt term) demonstrates someone with at times damn near unhealthy infatuation. In fact, if I’m Knausgaard and have seen or read Stephen King’s Misery, at this point I might be breaking a sweat.

Occasionally she tries to pretend she doesn’t like him, but no one is buying that. There are moments when she accuses Knausgaard of misogyny, which I think are real, and here I feel I must defend him. The man is from the most world’s foremost egalitarian country and raising five kids, often on his own. I think the author conflates the fact that we view this as an achievement is somehow Knausgaard fault. She gets terribly upset when Knausgaard describes, once, only once, in his massive tome something as feminine. Surely that is not his fault, that is, culture and language.

The author tries her hand and at ‘doing the Knausgaard’, that is, writing about some details of her day-to-day life. And to me that falls terribly flat, in no way shape or form because she is a woman, it’s the fact that she’s from the upper classes of North America (eating lobster in Maine). See, what I’ve done here is project my own gripe with society onto the author – and while it does feel nice, it is not right.

Sidenote: I had to ask myself about this disdain – and probably it’s because it was something that was entirely denied to me during my upbringing, hell, even now. And Knausgaard (again to emphasize, could have been any gender) allowed me to live a life in a socialist utopia; allowing a person to fully develop on their own, not only the select few, and eating lobster in Maine, let alone conspicuously writing about it, or your Aspen ski holiday, doesn’t sit right with me when you’re in a country that doesn’t provide healthcare to its own citizens.

In one letter, the author and her friend muse whether the My Struggle project would have been a monumental achievement had a woman penned it. Absolutely, for me. In fact, the Elena Ferrnate hype, surrounding a work published around the same time and equally heady, while more so of a fiction genre, received equal, if not more fanfare, and that is a body of work comprised entirely from a woman’s perspective. The affect those novels had me in were on par with My Struggle. I might add that I have yet to see the HBO series of My Struggle.

To close, while I too have teenage like dreams of what it would be like to read a continuation of My Struggle, instalment seven and onwards, I worry it may be tainted by Knausgaard going Hollywood – leaving his wife, marrying someone 20 years younger, moving to London with its entrenched class system. The ordinariness of his life was what drew me to a lot of him and I don’t think it would be the same. Maybe Knausgaard knows it too, but if I’m him or a publisher, knowing this pot of gold is bubbling inside my brain, the seduction is probably too great of a draw. It’s ok Knausgaard, you’ve already proven himself as an artist and intellectual, so cash in and make everyone happy, or like I said, you will feel our wrath.

[Andrew Bertaina]

Into it. I want to send the author some e-mails. I read the whole six-volume monster and the quartet. I get this book :).

[Jonathan Wright]

Unusual and stirringly close

[Hyacinth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads giveaway. Adrian writes beautifully was my thought as I read this book. I had never heard of My Struggle so I Googled it. Although curious, I had no desire to read it. It was too big and from reading Adrian, he sounds a bit archaic in regards to his views about women, child rearing and such. You don't get brownie points for doing what you've committed to do in marriage. I thought of how much Adrian was impacted by this man that she wrote a series of letters that turned into a book. She speaks of him with familiarity and with respect with equal doses of sarcasm and shade. It was a very different read for me but I enjoyed it.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

For fans of KOK only.

[Paul H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is 100% possible to write an interesting feminist critique of Knausgaard, and I went into this book with high hopes, but holy **** dude -- I feel like this has to be a performance art project where she intentionally wrote the laziest possible version of that critique to somehow meta-undermine feminist critiques as such, or something? She writes in a terrible, terrible 'version' of Knausgaard's conversational style (letters instead of Karl Ove's quasi-diary entries), and the theory piece is a lazy, unoriginal version of Twitter hashtag-feminism circa 2019.

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This does a really good job of folding you into the thought processes and emotional responses this author goes through as they encounter Knausgård, negotiating her position vis-à-vis the literary giant through conversations with friends and personal reflections. At once enamored and repulsed, she mulls over the inherent misogyny of the project, while formulating theses for why the work still grips her nevertheless. I'm interested in the connection between autotheory and "women's writing," and Knausgård's works occupy a very curious place in that conversation, though this work increases my curiosity in it. The variation in the sign-offs is an interesting twist on the epistolary form, as it presents the notion of speaking in different "voices," which adheres with Adrian's considering the author Knausgård as separate from the person, extending this assumption to herself in this self-splitting gesture.