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Knausgaard fatigue might soon
be a diagnosable condition, listed in future editions of the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, if only readers failed to persevere
past the first few volumes of My Struggle. I was certainly moved to take some
time off between books, to recuperate and steel myself for the next onslaught.
But just what it is that so thoroughly drains is something of a mystery, when I
most certainly feel full and almost buoyant by book’s end. Is it the weight of
confession? Is it the exposure of thoughts I’d had and still have, thoughts I
believed were unique to me but were now laid bare for all to read? Some measure
of shame? Whatever it is, it makes for a tense time to be around me, that’s for
sure. It’s a strange thing to be bursting to talk about it but be too exhausted
to explain the context.
Anyhow, volume four sees
Karl Ove embark on his abortive teaching career, aged 18, in some far-flung
corner of northern Norway. What this comes down to in essence is a typically
brash and arrogant young person, not yet an adult, crashing into his own limitations
because of insecurity – he’s still a virgin and painfully aware of it – and an
over-fondness for getting smashed out of his tree. He’s a pretty despicable
knob too. He urinates on a tramp; he nearly gets stabbed by some guys he
insults; he trashes a hotel room on a football trip; he litters; and at one
point he describes his latent and atavistic impulse for violent rape. Because
of his various personal problems, hubris being the least, he runs into several
problems at school – awkward and uncommunicative students, what he considers to
be an interfering headteacher, and worse of all, sixteen-year-old girls
fluttering eyelashes and smiling coquettishly – all of which serve to
exacerbate his need for release which he then seeks in alcohol, believing
himself to be trapped in a paradox of desire and impotence. Indeed, he manages
to devote a large portion of the book to his problems with premature
ejaculation. He is, in short, a pretty typical teenager. Except for the
excruciatingly honest confessions – I don’t ever recall being quite so brutal
with myself.
And yet somehow he still
manages to win over the reader. His questionable reliability (I’m sure he’s
said elsewhere he barely remembers a thing from his childhood) and fetishistic obsessions
should really alienate but they don’t. We might not like what he does but
eventually, it’s hard not to like him. Or admire him. Or something. I’m not sure
what it is. And frankly, the resolution to his sexual crises is something many
readers might find hilarious, but others will certainly not. I don’t know if I’m
looking forward to the next volume.
I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
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