It's not that I'm not enjoying my current DDR book, The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's just said that when I was pondering what to read after Anathem, I happened to think of Karl Ove Knausgård's magnum opus, and the bug that put up my butt has been flapping its wings ever since. So I thought, Maybe I'll just have a little taste of My Struggle Book One. Which I have...but which I couldn't find, of course. The LFPL has two copies...one real and one e-...but both of them are out at the moment. Hoopla came through for me, though, so....
Day 1 (DDRD 2,547) October 21, 2024
Read to page 50 (of 456).
"Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it."
Well...distance from the world I've got. In spades. So Understanding, here I come.
And btw, this
is the 1669 Rembrandt self portrait that KOK refers to on pages 29 to 30.*
Also, shortly after that (⬆), KOK refers to a band named Dungen, and you can check them out HERE. They have an interesting sound. I was bracing myself for heavy metal (just a Nordic stereotype at work, I suppose), but this is more like a combination of Yes and Alice in Chains' weird vocals than Megadeth. Try it, you'll like it.
No, no, no...thank YOU.
Oh...and there's lots of Dungen available on Bandcamp, where you can get several free listens before they cut you off.
The first 50 pages of this book were a breeze. KOK writes in a way that makes you feel like you're talking to your best friend of twenty or thirty years, and his honesty is like a blast of hot air that hits your face when you open the oven door for a peek at the lasagna. I doubt that I can maintain a regular pace anywhere close to this, but it sure made for a fun reading day today.
* It's hard to give page numbers that are helpful, as the page count increases or decreases with the font size. I tried to get my count to equal what Amazon quotes for the hardback version of the book, but I couldn't get it there (440), so everything is going to be a little off.
Day 2 (DDRD 2,548) October 22, 2024
Read to page 104. Oops, I did it again. I'm pretty sure that I wrote some notes on this 54 page stretch yesterday, but they've disappeared. Drugs were involved.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,549) October 23, 2024
Read to page 164. What??? And I think I'm going to read a bit more, to. Its just so easy to slip into this book. It makes you feel like you're re-living your own life. First times getting drunk. First kisses. First bare breasts. Lying to parents. Speaking out. Being in love. Hating school. Listening to Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Reading Jean Genet. Yep, I'm going to go read some more now.
ADDENDUM: read to page 176*. And...might read a little bit more when I get into bed.
ADDENDUM 2: to 182.
* Hmm. Halfway point is 228. Thinking I might could hit that tomorrow. (If not sooner 😘.)
Day 4 (DDRD 2,550) October 24, 2024
Read to page 208. A bit short today...just didn't have quite enough time.
"...true laughter and true desire are incompatible." (209)
Day 5 (DDRD 2,551) October 25, 2024
Read to page 246. Might read a few more after I check out the World Series Game 1 ⚾
The Constable painting KOK was so enamoured of...I think. Apparently, Constable painted two similar paintings on September 6, 1822, so it could be "the other one."
Deep breath. Go:
"Art does not know a beyond, science does not know a beyond, religion does not know a beyond, not anymore. Our world is enclosed around itself, enclosed around us, and there is no way out of it. Those in this situation who call for more intellectual depth, more spirituality, have understood nothing, for the problem is that the intellect has taken over everything. Everything has become intellect, even our bodies, they aren't bodies anymore, but ideas of bodies, something that is situated in our own heaven of images and conceptions within us and above us, where an increasingly large part of our lives is lived. The limits of that which cannot speak to us -- the unfathomable -- no longer exist. We understand everything, and we do so because we have turned everything into ourselves. Nowadays, as one might expect, all those who have occupied themselves with the neutral, the negative, the nonhuman in art, have turned to language, that is where the incomprehensible and the otherness have been sought, as if they were to be found on the margins of human expression, on the fringes of what we understand, and of course, actually, that is logical: where else would it be found in a world that no longer acknowledges that there is a beyond?" (229)
Speaking of page 229...I just passed the halfway point. 🎉
KOK is talking about how he carries his heavy suitcase by the handle, even though it has wheels, then says, "I detested the tiny wheels, first of all, because they were feminine, thus not worthy of a man...." (239)
Well. THAT was unexpected. And to think that this guy is younger than me. 'Course he IS Nordic. That Viking Blood, y'know.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,552) October 26, 2024
Read to page 295.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,553) October 27, 2024
Read to page 336.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,554) October 28, 2024
Read to page 380.
Speaking of Adorno, of whom I've never heard, KOK says, "What enriched me while reading Adorno, for example, lay not in what I read, but in the perception of myself while I was reading. I was someone who read Adorno! And in this heavy, intricate, detailed, precise language whose aim was to elevate thought ever higher, and where every period was set like a mountaineer's cleat, there was something else, this particular approach to the mood of reality, the shadow of these sentences that could evoke in me a vague desire to use the language with this particular mood on something real, something living...for it was not the case that language cloaked reality in its moods, but vice versa, reality arose from them. (336)
First off, that's some heavy shit. Second off, what a beautiful piece of writing, especially the cleat bit. Sometimes I wonder about the person KOK...who can be cruel...but there's no doubt that he's a wonderful writer.
KOK describes a crane as a "mechanical provisorium." I'd never seen one of those words before, so I Wikipediaed.
Here's what I got:
Which looks like this:
 |
| Public Domain |
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astralium_provisorium
Doesn't look much like a crane to me, but hey, I'll give any man his argument.
Also, this: "I had just eaten one apple - seeds, stock, and all...." (370) Just like my Jacqueline ❤️.
And now, the Bunny Nutshell Library Edition of My Life:
"...there had been days when I had cared, days when I had been on the outside and had suffered. Now I was only on the outside." (383)
Day 9 (DDRD 2,555) October 29, 2024
Read to page 448...The End. So an average just shy of 50 pages per day. And this wasn't even my primary DDR. I think that speaks to the power of this book, of KOK's writing. Need I add that I'm planning on starting Book 2 tomorrow? And I actually have a book book version of that one, so thanks for Book One, hoopla, but I'm going full paper jacket in this one.
The final sentence of Book 1:
"...death, which I have always regarded as the greatest dimension of life...was no more than a pipe that springs a leak, a branch that cracks in the wind, a jacket that slips off a clothes hanger and falls to the floor." (448)
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