(np) Knausgaard

[John Bailey]

After reading so many raves I skimmed over the first few chapters with
a foot dangling from my aquaplane - barely touched the surface, got a
sense of the temperature but not the tide - and was impressed that
such apparently quotidian material was getting such, I dunno,
'hysterical realist'? treatment. It did make me consider diving in
properly.

But I'm interested in the frequent comparisons to drug addictions that
the linked review raises. What I read of Knausgaard made me think that
the series might be a great ride, but it'll take up a huge amount of
time and brainspace and I won't be able to do much else of worth at
the same time and others will be annoyed if I keep trying to bring it
up and when I'm done I'll be forlorn that there's no more and then,
when enough time has passed, I'll wonder why I spent so much time on
something and have so little to show for it.

Which got me to thinking about how drugs and addiction are not exact
synonyms, and that Knausgaard seems more of the latter - Zadie Smith's
comment suggests this. Addictive, ok, but affecting? Other writers
offer mind- or mood-altering experiences you'll never forget but won't
feel the desperate need to relive. I'd cautiously suggest that
Pynchon's most memorable works are both, or at least can be to a
certain set of readers, and that might be why the P-list is around
when so many elsewise fine writers don't develop rehab groups in their
wake. We sure do fight over the quality of the produce.

But whenever I catch scent of a massive commitment such as
Knausgaard's I hear Pynchon's stack whispering from the shelf.

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 8:48 PM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/ben-lerner/each-cornflake
>
> Do P-listers have experience with Knausgaard? The first 100 or 150 pages of
> volume one I really liked because of the wild heterogenity of the text, then
> it becomes more and more conventional. But the story of his father's dying
> was still interesting enough to make me finish. Volume two, the copy from
> the public library is still in the house (btw, the Luchterhand publishing
> house does not use the childish general title from the original), bored me
> too much and so I stopped. "Even when I was bored, I was interested," James
> Wood says. And Zadie Smith: "I need the next volume like crack." Really? To
> me these statements sound as if they were made about one's daily telenovela
> (nothing wrong with that), not about literature. Neither regarding style -
> the promising chaotic beginning, which reminded me of the later writings of
> Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, gets completely lost before page 200 of volume one -
> nor regarding content - Knausgaard knows some things about art history,
> though - the statements by Smith and Wood do make much sense to me. The
> emperor wears no clothes. Anyone for disagreement?
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l