Welcome to Litsy!

6 books, 3,600 pages, & many months: I‘m finally done. Scroll down for my review of book 1; this will have to serve for the rest. It was a worthwhile trip. He made the banalities of quotidian life valuable, while exploring the costs & sacrifices of the “I” & its freedom in the artist and the “we” of social community and its regulation/constraints. 50 pages analyzing Celan‘s poem “The Straightening” & 450 on Hitler‘s “Mein Kampf” worked well.

My Struggle is complete! I finished the last book today. I don't know how I feel, relieved and a bit bereft. It's like I've broken up with a self-absorbed but beguiling boyfriend. I don't know what I think of the work: brilliant, gutsy, dull, solipsistic.
I do feel for his now ex-wife.
But wow. It really is a unique reading experience. And now it's over.

You guys, he is STILL talking about Hitler!! 🙄🥱😰🥴

About halfway through this tome and in the midst of a deep dive into Hitler's childhood and youth. I guess that's inevitable if your book has the same title as Hitler's.
And so goes my own struggle.

Had to go to Colorado Springs today for work. Stopped at Garden of the Gods for the first time. It was a beautiful day and not too crowded.
Spent the two hour drive down there with Karl Ove. Even as I roll my eyes at his solipsism, I can't help but be captivated his struggle.

Inspired by #progressitNovember, decided to hang out with Karl Ove and read the final book of My Struggle. Only 43 hours on audio. 😳

It‘s the most I‘ve ever underlined in any book, by far. There‘s this incredible section in the middle when it actually becomes quite demanding, way more than most stuff I read (because I don‘t read tough philosophy texts, like ever), but I don‘t mind that...; I learned a huge amount from it.

It‘s easily one of the best modern novels I‘ve read. 1,200+ pages—wow—can‘t believe I actually finished that—can‘t believe I finished the series!

Connecting home with a landscape and not a state of mind was my most reactionary feature, but it was also the most deeply rooted.

“I read something in Gombrowicz yesterday that I‘ve been thinking about,” I said. “It‘s about why we don‘t allow ourselves to be surprised by anything.... That‘s what my problem is. Do you understand? I take everything for granted. And it‘s a poison. I don‘t look down on you, I think you‘re wonderful, but when I take everything for granted and there‘s no reaction it gets on my nerves. That‘s what I mean. It gets on my nerves.”

In the Third Reich the voice of human conscience did not say it is wrong to kill, it said it is wrong not to kill ... This was made possible by a shift in the language, displayed in its purest form in “Mein Kempf,” which contains no “you,” only an “I,” and a “we,” which is what makes it possible to turn “they” into “it.” In “you” was decency. In “it” was evil.

But it was “we” who carried it out.

The Jew-hatred of Hitler and the Nazis, however, was new in the sense that it was related to modernity, to the cities and the mass human ... Racial theory was new as well, and provided the mind-set with a legitimacy that removed it from the mythical and placed it firmly within the realms of the rational and the modern.

the traits parents tend to be most implacable toward in their children are often those most similar to their own, and in acts of brutality toward children there is always an element of self-loathing even if one is unaware of its existence...

The question posed is this: how to name that which is nothing without making it something? This is the very negation of religion‘s great puzzle: how to name what is infinite without making it finite? Even the “all” is finite. How do we name what is beyond humanity without drawing it into the human domain, given that language in itself is human? How do we refer to God?

400 pages in—

This book is a total doozy. Intimidating in a way where it‘s like, once I finish it, what can I possibly have to say about it? I will read some Goodreads reviews, but likewise: what can they possibly say about it?

Did red and white blood cells exist in the seventeenth century? Yes, they did, but not to the human mind. They were in other words a part of the world but not of our reality.

The fact that we nevertheless think all our opinions and beliefs to be personal and individual, reached by way of our own mature consideration, completely ignoring the role played by time, is one of the most important social mechanisms of all, since without it the apparent relativity of morality and science would dissolve all imperative and we would be destroyed in a chaos of independence.

I have just finished all 6 parts, all 3 000 pages. So glad I did. A book I could not compare with anything I have ever read. An experience of its own.

Definitely my struggle, I raised my Goodreads goal to 95 & I am only at 88.There is a #24B42020 readathon Dec.27th to 31.🤔At a normal pace I think I may finish 3 more..maybe a readathon in my future cuz I would love to meet my goal.

Done! I‘m paraphrasing a review that stated It‘s like taking a peak at a strangers diary & finding all your secrets there.Not for everybody but I loved it.My progress was slow on volume 6 ,it was hard to read about Hitler during the holidays.This volume takes place after the 1st book is out,fallout & confrontation comes to pass as a relative calls him out on his memory of events.Glad I took the journey.challenging for some in his life ,I bet.

Mount TBR got a little taller this year.

If you wish to do the deep dive into the human experience from one mans point of view, you need to read Knausgaards 6 volume saga.I‘m not half way through the 6th book, wish I was starting the series again.

Karl Ove talking to a guest in his home library. I can relate!😀📚📚📚📚📚📚

Awaiting our flight to Rome and can‘t decide what to read. Mr flaneurette is reading the Dan Brown and I‘ve since finished Certain American States but there are 100 plus books on my kindle I want to get to soonish...this is MY struggle.

I finally, officially ,joined the #DeweysReadathon I have started all these books, I hope I finish a couple and that a morning commitment tomorrow doesn‘t take too long. Anyone else in?

My husband is almost at the end of The End. He loves Karl. Any ideas what he should read next?

Somehow I almost forgot to share with you all: dreams do come true!

The event started enormously late due to disorganization getting everyone into the venue, but I had a VIP ticket which included a priority spot in the signing line so I didn‘t leave too too late— but it was SO worth it.

Maggie Nelson was a great moderator and Karl Ove is just.... exactly who I thought he‘d be. 😍

PS this book is a brick and I couldn‘t be happier. 📚📚📚

You know , I might feel a lot better if I had just read today, instead of watching 9 hours of that hearing.A little sick to my stomach right now.

My hold came in!! 🎉🎉 (From Les Mis to My Struggle . .lots of light reading this fall! 😜)

My Struggle indeed!When Karl Ove decided to write a fiction that more or less seems to be real life , well ,it has its complications.I mean there is so much time writing ,editing, book deal , finally publication.It postpones that thought , how will the people in my life react ?Early in this 6th volume , the enormity of how his loved ones may react begins with his brother,Yngve.In the age of e-mail, the reaction comes fast.

1.I‘m always in a bookstore.Should stay home and read what I have.
2.Martin Sexton
3.Procrastination
4.Loved Handmaids Tale, watched Castle Rock , not sure what I thought of that.I loved “Love “ the 3 season series on Netflix starring Paul Rust, L.A. dysfunctional romance a Judd Apatow production,Showtime Ray Donovan,Shameless,and Patrick Melrose.
5.Tagged
#humpdaypost Join in anyone!

So this happened.Actually, I think I started the series when 2 were already in paperback and volume 3 was nearly out in paper.Have all the others,in paper.Waited SO LONG for this one, had to have it right away.Wish I had nothing to do but read,only 22 pages in, oh ,that voice!

Final installment received today. Now let the real struggle begin. Book Six is a 1000-pager. #karloveknausgaard #thousandpager #ilovebigbooksandicannotlie

I don‘t usually preorder books, and this one is only 2 weeks from publication, and I usually don‘t like to pay inflated prices for Kindle books ($16.99!!), but I did it—preordered the final volume of Knausgaard‘s massive autobiographical novel. In the meantime, I need to read Book 5, which I‘ve been saving for just this time!
Full confession: I also splurged on a couple of books on the Booker Int‘l Long List.

And so the holiday ends 😭😭😭

You better believe I bought seats in the front row barely a minute after Community Bookstore posted this event!!! 😄Can it be September already?? I was so disappointed last year when he was in NYC and I couldn‘t get to the event.

In 2015 I was in a years-long slump, reading maybe 12-20 books per year, and then I picked up the first of My Struggle and I seriously rediscovered my passion for words & reading. 💗