These days every bestselling author writes novels about how their dad was too strict and they got bullied for bringing stinky indian food to school etc.

But Karl Ove Knausgaard walked so millennial narcissists could run.

This week we get absorbed in part 1 of his epic six-part autobiographical novel My Struggle, published in 2009.

The big central question: what makes a book which spends five pages describing the author making a cup of coffee so good? The prose is nice but prosaic, there are few major insights, and no plot beats or narrative tension. But we (mostly) agree that it is in fact a good or even great book.



On the performance art aspect to Knausgaard's project, the barriers to being truly sincere and honest, pathological self-awareness, why early memories are so often dominated by shame, nostalgia for premature ejaculation, and MORE.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00 ) intro


• (00:00:56 ) patient zero for the autofiction disease


• 00:11:40 ) My Struggle as performance art


• (00:20:20 ) Shame and pathological self-consciousness


• (00:30:38 ) what is it exactly that makes Knausgaard so good?


• (00:40:12 ) next book announcement

WRITE US:

We love to share listener feedback on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or add your own or just say hi.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Lolita - Nabokov

The Moviegoer - Walker Percy