/lit/ - Literature

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I am interested in hearing lit on this matter.

I actually really liked it but morgues are in the basement because it is the coldest spot in a building

>>9800150
Have you read book 2 ? Worth continuing?

Loved it. Have read all five translated so far. It's like a huge documentary memoir-novel. Epic realism. Absorbing, addictive. Not much intellectually rigorous or profound, if you need that. Just daily modern life on the page.

Bump it's a /lit/ thread

>>9800150
Hitler was so much better, can't believe this cuck tried to compare himself.

>>9800150

I finished book 2, I'm waiting a bit to start on the others as book 6 isn't even in english yet.

I really liked it, I plan on finishing the series. I distinctly remember reading Book 1 and asking myself why I was still reading it: the plot was meh - it was his prose and his stream-of-consciousness structure that kept me in it.

And, besides that, it was fascinating to see this man lay himself completely bare, literally. Nothing remains private. It makes it relatable for almost anyone, and yet deeply intimate as well. It's raw honesty.

I'm also curious to here what people on /lit/ think of it.

>>9801525

Book 2 was even better, in my opinion. Beyond that, I don't know yet. It also gets a little more "intellectual" slash /lit/.

>>9800150
I heard book 6 has a long digression on Hitler. I'll probably get it at the library just for that. I'm not all that interested in overtly autobiographical fiction desu.

I read 5 of them and started the sixth a few days ago. I found my self sometimes fully absorbed and really enjoying the read (mostly when he reflects on his childhood/adolescence and the relationships to family and friends etc.), but then I also got really bored sometimes (mostly when he writes about his life as a father, which I often found quite dull and also his extreme focus on sexuality in his adolescence got tedious relatively fast).
Nevertheless I don't regret reading the books. His memories and reflections on life and writing were mostly entertaining or even illuminating.

>>9802932
Which language are you reading the 6th volume in? I haven't even been notified of an ARC for the Bartlett translation.

>>9802959
german

>>9801523
Is this a reference to something?

>>9800150
Proust is still better than you. Sorry, Karl Ove.

Modern life is similar all over the world but Proust lived in a different time and that is his biggest advantage i guess, at least for me.

>>9802980
If anyone knows this, it's Knausgaard.

Does he ever talk more about his life as a kid?

>>9802979
The book. His dad is in the morgue. He speculates about the significance of morgues being in the basement.

>>9801546
Agreed. IMO, 5>1>3>2>4. Looking forward to 6, but I think it's not coming out until like fall 2018 or something.

Fuck this guy. He had right exposing the privacies of his friends and family.

>>9803008
Dude, boyhood island was shit

>5>1>4>2>3

Very comfy to read, even though there is not much substance in these books. Pure entertainment and nice, clean prose. Very enjoyable.

>>9803016
You can say that about most novelists

>>9802983
yes

>>9800150
It's fantastic. I've read Vol 1-4 so far and am planning to read Vol 5 later this year after I finish Les Mis. His books are the definition of "comfy" to me. Thus far I'd say:

2 > 4 > 1 > 3

Although 2 and 4 are really close. 4 had such a great ending when he finally got laid and ended up fucking that girl while she was halfway out the tent and puking

>>9802932
See, to me the diatribes on being a father were some of the best parts because I had never really thought about what it means to be a father before that. Now I'm sort of interested in raising children. It seems like a novel experience and possibly the cure to existentialism.

>>9801525
Book 2 is the best in the series. I could reread the section where he goes to the coffee shop and zones out while reading Bros. K a million times. Not sure why it's so appealing, exactly, although I think because it somehow achieves total immersion.

>>9802983
Volume 3, Boyhood Island, is all about him growing up as a kid on a remote Norwegian island.

As long as we're ranking the books: 2 > 1 > 5 > 4 > 3 for me. Incredible to Not Bad.

Good to hear that people liked it and that the rest of the series is worth reading.

I loved book 1. It made me nostalgic as fuck for my youth. Also the description he had about why drinking is appealing and how it makes you focus on the present rather than past and future cut deep.

Is he a pedo?

>>9804370

Agreed, and while book 1 made you nostalgic, the books about him being married and beginning to raise kids etc, feel...not instructive, but like living through one's joys and mistakes - experience to learn from, an insight into the future. In that sense, it was illuminating and valuable.

I've liked 1, looking forward 2

definitely a comfy read

I only read no. 5 (the one where he details his time on the writing academy and after). I recognised myself a lot in his descriptions of how he kept trying and failing to write, which is to me both assuring and frightening.

How am I to approach this? Like, what am I to expect? What topics does it touch? I have a fixation with life on the first world (like Iceland, Norway, Sweden, etc), so I'm kind of interested, but other than that I don't know who this guy is or anything like that.

>>9806081
Just start with Volume 1 and work your way through, my man.