Post by Grubb.
Before coming to Norway I read my Knut (Kah-noot) Hamsun and my Karl Ové Knausgård. Hamsun in “Hunger” was struggling with just that. Karl Ové, Norway’s most acclaimed living author, has written six lengthy volumes about his life. The title of his opus is called “Min Kamp”. Yes, that’s right, “My Struggle”. Same as Adolf’s autobiographical screed. Karl Ové has a fluid style describing a rather fluid life about the challenges of becoming an author. His father has a middle-age crisis, becomes an alcoholic and leaves his family. Karl goes to school, chases girls. Goes to college, drinks a lot. Teaches at a mid-school, chases women. (There’s a Lolita flirtation of no consequence.) Excels at writing workshops, meets another writer. Falls in love. She plays hard to get; he takes a knife to his face to show her he is nuts about her. The scars, which turn out to be scratches, heal. She has no confidence in her own writing, but thinks he’s the real deal. He gets published. They marry. Move to Stockholm. Have kids. He publishes, wins a prize. They move outside of Stockholm to a bigger house. He travels, wins more prizes. If you’re nodding off by now, I don’t blame you. No matter how smoothly written, to document the minor trials of everyday life as “My Struggle” seems a tad histrionic. But maybe I’m missing something, a Norwegian sense of life that I can not grasp. I simply Knut. My Norwegian moniker should be Knut Sēoot.
Knut looking for signs of struggle in Oslo:
