{"id":92923,"date":"2015-12-15T13:28:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T18:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92923"},"modified":"2015-12-15T14:29:31","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T19:29:31","slug":"after-my-struggle-an-interview-with-karl-ove-knausgaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/15\/after-my-struggle-an-interview-with-karl-ove-knausgaard\/","title":{"rendered":"After My Struggle<\/i>: An Interview with Karl Ove Knausgaard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

From the paperback edition of My Struggle, Book 2<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Readers in the U.S. await the fifth volume of <\/em>My Struggle\u2014but in Norway, Karl Ove Knausgaard has moved on. With the money from <\/em>Struggle\u2019s sales, he\u2019s established his own publishing house, devoted to promoting new talent and translating books by writers like Ben Marcus and Donald Antrim into Norwegian. Since his announcement, in 2011, that he would stop writing, he\u2019s gone to publish four books of essays, and this fall he launched a new series: his \u201cfour seasons\u201d quartet, <\/em>On Autumn, <\/em>On Winter, <\/em>On Spring, and (as you might have guessed) <\/em>On Summer. Presented as a \u201clexicon for an unborn child\u201d and dedicated to the youngest of his four children, the quartet comprises several hundred short texts about objects (boots, chewing gum, plastic bags) and concepts (love, sex, war).<\/em><\/p>\n

I recently caught up with Knausgaard in Oslo, where we discussed his new books and how he\u2019s moving past the success of <\/em>My Struggle.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve described your new series as \u201cpersonal encyclopedia of our close surroundings.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It started as a completely private project. When we were expecting our daughter, I wanted to write something for her, a diary or letter, for her to read when she was older\u2014about how things looked like around our home before she was born, what her family was\u00a0like, our thoughts and habits. Around the same time I got an assignment from an American magazine to write a short text for each issue for a year. I ended up writing about ten things that made life worth living and ten things that made me want to shoot myself. The editor quit and the project was canceled before I turned it in, but in that brief form I\u2019d found something that appealed to me. So I continued writing, about a new subject every day, and at some point the two projects merged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the narrator of My Struggle<\/em> stares uneasily into the mirror, seeing nothing but a stiff mask, there\u2019s a voice speaking calmly about lessons gleaned from gardening. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to be careful or afraid of anything, life is so robust.\u201d What happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really about where I <\/em>am right now\u2014but of course, a lot has happened over the past few years. Things I\u2019d always thought of as \u201cdangerous\u201d turned out not to be, when I experienced them firsthand. The whole process of publishing My Struggle<\/em> has probably played a role. But I\u2019ve also always had these thoughts about the vitality and sheer force of life. Anyone who has kids knows how robust they are. Then there are literary aspects that have to do with sensibility and being finely tuned to situations\u2014all that was just more important in My Struggle<\/em>. These new books aren\u2019t about psychological states. They\u2019re about things, material realities. Of course, when the birth of a child takes center stage, it automatically lends the whole project a tinge of optimism. That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m all positive and life affirming, because I\u2019m really not. But these texts are.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The distance between the observer and the observed is less of an issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. I wanted to escape myself, so I just turned my gaze outward. I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve moved very far, though. My radius is approximately fifteen meters around the house and garden. I just write about the things I see in front of me. The more personal aspects, how and what I think, come through in descriptions, but it\u2019s the physical, material presence of the objects that matters in these books. In a more fundamental way, there\u2019s something objective going on here.<\/p>\n

You write about everyday objects like chewing gum and soda cans, and you describe the toilet bowl\u2014rather poetically, I think\u2014as \u201cthe swan of the house.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I wrote my last novel, I discovered how much goes on outside the narrative, or just on the outskirts of the story\u2014objects and actions that aren\u2019t really stories but are still a part of everyday life. When I write, I\u2019m just as concerned with creating some kind of presence<\/em> as I am with narrating a story. It\u2019s not a stylistic trait, but a longing of some kind, and it\u2019s that presence I seek when I write and when I read. I\u2019m not really present in the real world, obviously. I\u2019m closed off inside myself. Ironically, the only way I can feel present, feel that I belong, is through writing, which is really about turning away from the world. In these texts I\u2019m not directing attention to my own presence but to the presence of objects. I\u2019ve wanted to look at everything in the same manner, whether it\u2019s high or low, ugly, bad, good, beautiful. A beer bottle receives the same attention as the concept of love\u2014as much space and as much care. I\u2019m interested in the idea of looking at things without hierarchy, in the world as it is before we start categorizing it.<\/p>\n

When we speak about the person narrating your books, I always want to say \u201cyou.\u201d Do you think that\u2019s okay? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. That\u2019s how it is. It\u2019s a part of the project, isn\u2019t it? I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m conforming to one particular genre. I don\u2019t write essays, but I also don\u2019t write fiction. I like my writing falling a little between genres. And I\u2019m not conscious about how I appear in the texts. That could easily have killed them, I think.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You ended My Struggle<\/em> by saying you would stop being a writer. You\u2019ve since published three books of essays and now these four books. Did you just mean you were going to stop being a novelist? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t know. That was the ending I\u2019d planned right from the start. <\/em>It was the perfect ending to an autobiographical project, wasn\u2019t it? Quite simply, the death of the author. To me it\u2019s about the relation between life and literature. When I was younger I used literature to escape the world. Then I became a writer, and to me that meant turning away from the world. I gave up a lot of things, behaved badly because of the writing, the ambitions and so on. So I had a real longing for that book to leave literature\u2014I hoped the book would end with me, on the final page, turning my back on literature and taking that final step into life. Another idea was to use all the material I had, to empty every reservoir I have as writer, so there would be nothing left. If I wanted to write anything after that, it would have to be something completely new, <\/em>written by someone different than the \u201cI\u201d who wrote My Struggle<\/em>. That\u2019s the idea. But I really do want to write novels, so if I am able to, I will certainly try.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to write more novels?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I believe it\u2019s possible to achieve more in that direction. But I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When you published My Struggle<\/em>, you spoke as if you found fiction dull.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was about the classical form of the novel, the traditional ways of telling a story. To me, those ways become untrue when you repeat them. You have to find new ways. That\u2019s the novelist\u2019s mission, I think. It\u2019s about things turning stiff again, becoming masks. When the novel becomes a mask it can be very entertaining, possibly even providing some insight, but it doesn\u2019t come close to life. It doesn\u2019t live.<\/p>\n

Your father was a dominant figure in your last novel. Here we meet him in a few anecdotes, among them a memorable passage in which you wear the Wellingtons you\u2019ve inherited from him\u2014walking in your father\u2019s boots.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the most obvious metaphor, me walking in his boots\u2014but I really do<\/em>! I do wear his boots. And that\u2019s what I wrote about. I never thought of it having any symbolic or metaphorical meaning. The father is the main trail I follow in the beginning of My Struggle,<\/em> of course, he exits and reenters, remaining always a dominant power. That\u2019s the way things have been in my life as well. But my father no longer has that power over me.<\/p>\n

In My Struggle<\/em>, you write mainly as your father\u2019s son. In these new books you write as someone who primarily identifies as a father himself.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Struggle<\/em> is kind of a midlife-crisis novel, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I thought!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was sort of considering my options\u2014should I buy a kayak or write My Struggle<\/em>? I wrote My Struggle<\/em>. When I started out, being a son was the most important part of my identity, even though I had long been a father myself. There\u2019s something not very dignified about that, isn\u2019t there? Being a son at forty? That\u2019s all changed for me now, but I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s because of the writing, or just finally growing up. In these books there is no father except myself. It\u2019s not about conquering anything or fighting anyone. It has to do with a feeling of having found one\u2019s place. All literature is written from the feeling of not quite being in the right place, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s in that dynamic, that tension, that things happen. In these new books, there\u2019s no such imbalance. There\u2019s hardly any conflict at all. I don\u2019t know if that makes it \u2026 well, I know it makes it worse, but I don\u2019t know how much worse, or whether there\u2019s any potential value elsewhere. Is it possible to write about something that\u2019s harmonic and affirming without it becoming dull or insignificant? <\/em>Where do you find the tension in such a project?<\/p>\n

Do you worry the tension may be gone?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Constantly. But all that leads to is, you start cutting yourself off, shutting yourself down, and in the end you can\u2019t really write, if all you ever think is, Is this any good? Or, Could I possibly squeeze even more of my own lifeblood into this? You just have to write and do what it is you want to do, for better or for worse.<\/p>\n

Did you write<\/strong> My Struggle <\/em><\/strong>with that same attitude?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, but in My Struggle <\/em>the starting point was aggressive, like, I don\u2019t give a fuck. There was a lot of aggression in that. It felt a lot more radical to me. It was really letting go of what little sense of security I had, because my only sense of safety is the fact that I can write. So that was a different project. This time I\u2019m back to writing good sentences. And there are many good sentences in these books. When I say that, it\u2019s not really something I pride myself on. Good sentences are not what I want.<\/p>\n

So why did you fill these books with good sentences?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They just came to me.<\/p>\n

In On Autumn<\/em>, you call Madame Bovary<\/em> the world\u2019s best novel, and you describe the effect of Flaubert\u2019s sentences\u2014\u201cas if a window muddled by dirt and smog, that you had become accustomed to seeing the world through, had been wiped clear with a wet towel.\u201d Does that describe your goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read the novel many times, and its details are so vivid\u2014the world is clear and crisp as a landscape after a heavy rainfall. And it has that incredible torrent of emotions and dreams and desires that gain even more force by being so fundamentally misplaced. I think it\u2019s better than In Search of Lost Time<\/em>. Proust doesn\u2019t have that kind of concentration. Flaubert is interesting. I just read his letters, and they really go backstage. He writes about everything<\/em>! The most obscene things, sex, prostitutes, what have you. They\u2019re as chaotic as life itself. And then you see that perfectly constructed facade of the novel, which in a way contains it all, but indirectly\u2014it\u2019s highly controlled and composed. That made me realize the value of Bovary<\/em> is much higher, a thousand times higher than the letters, even though the letters are livelier and closer to life. It\u2019s about creating a universe that\u2019s entirely self-contained and not just true, but actually valid<\/em>. It\u2019s that validity\u2014which, in the best books, is endless\u2014<\/em>that is perhaps the true nature of literature.<\/p>\n

Karl Ove Knausgaard and Ane Farseth\u00e5s appeared in conversation at Litteraturhuset in Oslo, on October 28. This is a condensed and edited version of their discussion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ane Farseth\u00e5s is a critic and editor at <\/em>Morgenbladet, a\u00a0Norwegian newspaper, and the author of a book on contemporary Norwegian literature,\u00a0<\/em>From Here to Reality.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers in the U.S. await the fifth volume of My Struggle\u2014but in Norway, Karl Ove Knausgaard has moved on. With the money from Struggle\u2019s sales, he\u2019s established his own publishing house, devoted to promoting new talent and translating books by writers like Ben Marcus and Donald Antrim into Norwegian. Since his announcement, in 2011, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":914,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[20590,19536,189,364,12709,71,20592,870,8952,1132,8542,15213,20593,8543,2165,6122,747,17167,20589,20591,7733,16309],"class_list":["post-92923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-beer-bottles","tag-boots","tag-children","tag-essays","tag-fatherhood","tag-fiction","tag-first-person-narration","tag-gustave-flaubert","tag-identity","tag-interviews","tag-karl-ove-knausgaard","tag-metaphors","tag-midlife-crises","tag-my-struggle","tag-nonfiction","tag-norway","tag-novels","tag-objects","tag-on-autumn","tag-ontology","tag-oslo","tag-seasons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat\u2019s Next for Karl Ove Knausgaard?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a new interview, the author of My Struggle discusses his next project: a quartet based around the seasons.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/15\/after-my-struggle-an-interview-with-karl-ove-knausgaard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"After My Struggle: An Interview with Karl Ove Knausgaard by Ane Farseth\u00e5s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 15, 2015 \u2013 Readers in the U.S. await the fifth volume of My Struggle\u2014but in Norway, Karl Ove Knausgaard has moved on. 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