My Struggle, Book 5

Written by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

The fifth book of Knausgaard's powerful My Struggle series is written with tremendous force and sincerity. As a nineteen-year-old, Karl Ove moves to Bergen and invests all of himself in his writing. But his efforts get the opposite effect - he wants it so much that he gets writer's block. At the same time, he sees his friends, one-by-one, publish their debuts. He suspects that he will never get anything published. Book Five is also a book about strong new friendships and a shattering love affair. Then one day Karl Ove reaches two crucial points in his life: his father dies, and shortly thereafter, he completes his first novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781490650050

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Karl Ove Knausgaard was born in Norway in 1968. My Struggle has won countless international literary awards and has been translated into at least fifteen languages. Knausgaard lives in Sweden with his wife and four children.

Reviews for My Struggle, Book 5

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This volume focuses on Knausgaard's student years and his years trying to become established as a writer. We read of his time at university, his various love affairs, meeting and marrying his first wife, all in the midst of mammoth drinking bouts and occasional violent outbreaks. As a detailed exposition of a young man acting out, it frequently did not interest me, I will admit, although as in the other volumes the writing is excellent. It took me ages to read, and I frequently set it aside for long periods of time (which I don't often do with books I read), so it may have suffered due to period neglect. It ends where volume one started, with the death of his father. I'll be interested to see what he tackles in volume 6.3 stars

[stillatim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Airport literature for high-brows, and sometimes that's what you want. I enjoyed this one more than the first four, which is not to say it's better, but on the other hand, it's airport literature, so perhaps that is precisely to say it's better, but better for me. Four stars for how much I enjoyed it then, and two for quality. Basically, I'd much rather read about young KOK's days at university, hanging out with Jon Fosse and talking about Tor Ulven than another 80000000 pages about how his father wasn't the nicest guy, and the father's absence from this volume made that possible.

Is there any literary merit to this volume? Not really. Some striking scenes, but it's mostly kitsch. It's also impressive that he can remember any of this stuff, given how much booze and drugs he claims to have been taking. Which is a snide way of saying he must be making some of it up, or have written it down, or something.

But KOK is as good as anyone I've ever read on the bizarre experience of becoming an intellectual. On the one hand, you're pumped up with your own self-importance, because you're reading (e.g.,) Foucault while listening to Cecil Taylor and those around you aren't, but you're also terrified, because that's your first real jazz album and your first book of philosophy and what happens if that's not really the cool thing anymore, the cool thing now is to read Deleuze while listening to John Zorn? This volume lays out that to-and-fro between overwhelming self-importance and overwhelming self-doubt with almost Tolstoyan brilliance.

[alisony-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ah, Knausgaard - my unashamed literary crush. In this Book 5 he is at his archetypal bad boy best (or rather worst), and even though as a reader I regularly rolled my eyes at his behaviour it's impossible not to fall for him as protagonist just a little bit.This book is much more linear than many of the previous books in the series. It follows on directly from Book 4 (which made me regret not reading them a little closer together), starting with Knausgaard moving to Bergen to take up his privileged place at the Writing Academy there and continuing for almost a decade through his twenties up to his publishing debut with Out of the World. The youngest student on his writing course, Knausgaard's writing confidence is quickly squashed as he becomes horribly self-aware that his fictional writing capability and credibility pales significantly in comparison with that of his peers. As the years go by, he struggles to come to terms with his consistent writing failure, particularly as his friends' writing careers take off, drifting in terms of career, focus and general maturity. He falls in love, yet a pattern emerges of a struggle between his all consuming introspection and self-sufficiency and his partners' needs from the relationships. Socially, he suffers from a huge inferiority complex amongst work colleagues, friends and family, compensating with mortifyingly out of control drinking which made me want to hide behind a cushion.As always with this series, this book was pure reading joy from the first word to the last. As I galloped through this latest instalment (despite its humungous size) I found myself wondering yet again what is it about Knausgaard's writing that pulls us in. For me, I think it is his unsurpassed ability to put you directly inside his head. In this series he doesn't just recount these past years in his life - rather, you live them out as him, experiencing his every thought and emotion. It sounds so simple, yet I cannot think of another author who has pulled it off to this extent. It is as if he has plugged us directly into his very thought process, and to put us retrospectively into his fictionalised mind as a child, a teenager, a 20-something year old, a young father is an incredible feat. Who remembers at a detailed level exactly how they thought at different stages in their life? Yet in this work of autofiction Knausgaard makes us believe that he really does. Couple that with the fact that he lives in an intriguing part of the world that I know little about in terms of day-to-day life and you have something really special.Whilst this series is notorious for the backlash Knausgaard suffered from his family post-publication, I was conscious in this Book 5 that he was persistently respectful towards his friends and family, consistently shining them in a positive light which he largely used to illuminate his own shortcomings. He is brutal in his honesty about himself. If you have ever watched Jim Carrey's film 'Liar, Liar', you probably had a thought or two whilst watching along the lines of 'good job no one can get inside my head to know what I'm actually thinking most of the time'. If you've not read one of Knausgaard's book from this series yet, this is exactly what he does. He lets us into those deepest, truest thoughts that the rest of us keep us tightly locked away from everyone else.I read somewhere that Knausgaard said that he has no imagination and cannot write proper fiction. I suspect that this may actually be true, as in this book he includes the first few pages of some short stories he was working on at the time which I couldn't wait to skip past. However, who cares. His approach to autofiction is like nothing that's been done before. It doesn't need flowery literary descriptions. Who looks for that when they find someone's diary lying open?It's not often I say this about a large book, but I was so glad that he strung this Book 5 out for a delicious 663 pages. I'm sad that I have only one book left to go in the series, especially as the reviews have not generally been so kind given its 400 page segue into talking about Hitler. This series is a truly unique reading experience, and I suspect I'll have to come back to it as some stage despite my own general 'no reading twice' rule. 5 stars - I'm running out of superlatives for this guy. Still crushing.

[asxz-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Still utterly mesmerizing. This penultimate volume is funny, disturbing and sad. We revisit his father's death and dredge up old infidelities which can't have been pleasant reading for those involved. Karl Ove is as narcissistic as ever but he's also generous and reverent about art and literature and his friends who are artists. Weirdly, he finishes this volume by reading a couple of Ian Rankin books, so it's possible that his literary tastes aren't quite as refined as I imagined.

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The heavens were inexhaustible, it had rained every day since the beginning of September and except for a couple of hours I hadn’t seen the sun for what would soon be eight months.


Today was Norwegian in that respect. Yesterday was drizzle but today was rain. Our house was full of jet lagged family and I found myself reading 400 pages. Punctuating my reading of this volume was a series of correspondence with people I went to Uni some 27 years ago. Mnemonic specificity over such a time shocks me. Especially with respect to the newspaper staff, which is hardly a molding or poignant event of my character. Most memory is brittle paper. I retain more Nietzsche and Orwell than I do the quotidian.


Karl Ove is admitted to the prestigious writing program at the age of 19. He still drinks too much, has issues with fidelity and is teeming with self-loathing. As Hitchens once said about the Queen Mother, two out of three ain't bad. I admit I am starting to tire of this endeavor. There were ugly sections in this, some which strike close to home: Karl Ove works one summer with the developmentally disabled and appears to be the least equipped soul on record for the job.


The sections on the drudgery of daily writing were eloquent as was the inexplicable nature of inspiration. I am not sure we need to know any further per Dad and I don't really care about the blood.

[jphamilton-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Book five! Another long volume in Knausgaard world. I find myself living for these books and another chance to immerse myself in his writing. The last volume wasn't that strong, but this only pales in relation to the fresh and near perfect book one. Now, I'll have to wait another year for the final volume of this 3,600 page work to be published. I can only hope that some of his other work will get translated in the near future. I find myself unable to explain to myself, or anyone else, why I'm so captivated by these long, massively detailed accounts of Knausgaard's life, but I also find myself rereading previously released volumes of this huge story, while I await the next release. This has all been a wonderful experience in my reading life.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just find his writing so hypnotic, so calming. This was a more linear story than the other books, about his time in Bergen, falling in love (twice), getting married, betraying his wife (twice), and leaving her. Can't wait for the sixth and last book, but I will be so sad to finish.