My Struggle, Book 6

Written by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

My Struggle introduces American readers to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues-death, love, art, fear-and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Translator: Don Bartlett and Martin Aitken
• Release date: Sep 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781490650067

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 6

[iffland · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bad naming of the german titles makes it nearly impossible for me to remember which parts of "Min Kamp" i´ve read and which not. I guess I read four of them and i think now it´s also enough. Even if i enjoyed all of them but there are so many other books to read :D

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

Noooooo!!!!! I can't believe the My Struggle series is finished for me. This is beyond the usual book hangover - someone get an IV drip line set up.So this final instalment was the biggest yet (1,153 pages), but was also a change in many respects from the form of the previous 5 books. As Knausgaard is writing Book 6, the previous books are now at various stages of being published, so this volume feels more like a real-time memoir as opposed to the novelised form of an embellished memoir that was typical of the previous books. In many senses, Book 6 feels like mental closure for Knausgaard on the series - his opportunity to come full circle on the project, setting the record straight on the truth and intent of it amidst members of his wider family are becoming embittered and litigious on what has been written as the books start to be published.Divided into 3 sections, the first section is very much centred around the stress of Knausgaard's uncle Gunnar's reaction to Book 1 when he receives a copy before publication. As he faces the reaction of those who are detailed in his books for the first time, self-doubt begins to surface. Does he have the right to write about his own past? Has he remembered the key aspects of the past truthfully?As Gunnar pushes for anonymity for himself and his brother (Knausgaard's father), the second section becomes a complete departure from form, taking the topic of the importance of a name into a 400 page philosophical essay segue on the topic of the critical differences between I, we and they, and the impact of anonymisation on the perception of someone as an individual. Some 70 pages of this were devoted to a line-by-line, word-by-word analysis of a Paul Celan poem, which acts as a prelude to an examination of Hitler's rise and anti-semitism in Nazi Germany, interwoven with biblical analysis. At a high level in this section, Knausgaard is examining the interplay between art, politics and religion, but the subtle subliminal message is his argument for not anonymising his father in the book.Section 3 then brings us back to usual Knausgaard writing style. Time is further accelerated with more books published, and as he begins to focus on the completion of Book 6 his wife Linda enters a period of serious mental illness.Three very different sections which felt in many ways like 3 separate books, although Knausgaard successfully ties them together. In the first section, Knausgaard comes across as a bit of a self-obsessed bore who is selfish with his self-wallowing time and introspection. In the first few books he humorously comes across as a bit of a dick as a youngster. By the end of the first section of book 6, I was beginning to think he might just be a bit of a dick full stop.The first part of section 2 didn't work for me. He opens up by stating that he's always felt inferior because he doesn't understand poetry, yet then goes off on a 70 page examination word-by-word of the Celan poem. This felt like a selfish departure from the main thrust of the novel, a chance for Knausgaard to prove to himself and his readers that he does deserve respect as a credible examiner of literary text. Whilst I could put forward a similar argument for the Hitler segue, I found this part really interesting as I've not read in detail about Hitler's life before. On one level I could be unkind and accuse Knausgaard of simply bringing a number of texts on Hitler together (including Mein Kampf) - he relies on much of the actual text from other books in this section - but overall I think that would be doing him a disservice. His analysis of the popularity of Hitler and the important differences between the viewpoints of I, we and them was extremely well done, and I can see how he has successfully gone on to write other books which are of a more philosophical and critical nature.The third section was probably my favourite of the three, but the one that gives me the most personal doubt. Was it right for him to have written in such graphic detail about his wife's mental illness? Does this cross a moral line, or was it necessary to maintain the truth of his project right to the end?In all, l this was a rollercoaster finale to the series, that takes the reader in all sorts of unexpected directions. Does the series finale need a 400 page philosophical critique taking up a third of it? Does it work? Yes. No. I can't decide. It's so out there, and so at odds with the rest of the book and the series, yet at the same time I think he might just have pulled it off. Would I ultimately have preferred to have read section 2 as a separate book? Quite possibly, but then wouldn't that just have been something more ordinary then?For sure this is a series I'll have to come back to again at some point. It deserves re-reading, multiple times. Knausgaard successfully concludes the series, to the detriment of us readers. How will we cope with not reading in his words about his subsequent divorce from Linda, his move to London and his new partner? Don't we deserve to keep spying on his life indefinitely?!!!4.5 stars - my literary crush remains intact. Knausgaard is joining Bowie in my personal true-love-lasts-a-lifetime wall of fame.PS - So is he a dick? In conclusion, yes there is a strong chance he is, as this project has ultimately been a selfish and self-absorbed journey, but still - we've all got our crosses to bear ;)

[jonfaith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My rating has to be extended to the entire endeavor itself, the stones required for such a project. Do I at this moment feel manipulated? Possibly. If Hamlet is indeed about Bosnia and AIDS (as was once asserted in a brilliant Branagh satire) then Knausgård and his Min kamp is a meditation on Trump/Erdogan/Abe, Brexit and #MeToo.

There are astonishing readings of Paul Celan and Hitler here, much more on the latter than one would assume. This discursive turn arrives when one is accustomed to something different. The My Struggle project isn't Proust, though the author is most aware and lards matters with the stated appreciation thereof. There is also a questionable diary of his wife's mental illness: things went suddenly Through A Glass Darkly. (that analogy is interesting with Bergman's relationship to Linda)

I read most of this on a mountain in Tennessee, Sierra Nevada was at hand. Quite a bit. Do I want to plumb further, perhaps consider Anne Sexton and Kawabata in this light? Do the Kavanaugh hearings have a bearing on ontology? My wife and I discussed a host of aspects regarding the meta-confession. I feel the better for such. I just spent a month reading Karl Ove. Let's see what daylight brings.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The 400 pages about Hitler were just too much - it's as if in the middle, and in the midst of all the problems (struggles) with the family members and friends who felt exposed by his earlier books, he just had to digress to essay form to escape himself, the self that he was able to inhabit at the beginning and end of this book, and in all his other books, the I that was fully the I without regard to the We, the readers who were also integral to the I's life. It is impossible to try to write like him! Once I recovered from Hitler, I was just absorbed in the end of the book. So raw, so painful. I was happy to read that he's now engaged, and that Linda has had a book published and nominated for a prize. Took off half a star for the Hitler digression.

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

It is hard to believe that this long (the fabled 3,600 pages in six books) tale is done. It took him years to write, and then many more years for the English translation. Knausgaard takes a detour of many hundreds of pages to tell and reflect on the life and times of Hitler in this volume. He does this because of their shared titles, My Struggle being the English translation of Mein Kampf, and because how Hitler regretfully relates to the state of the world's current politics. I have read much on Hitler, and while I found Knausgaard's insights interesting, this long historic detour isn't what I'm looking for in Knausgaard's writing. Other parts of the book tell how the author felt about his rapid worldwide fame after the publication of several volume of Struggle. When you write extremely direct about family members and friends, all but praise can, and in this case, did, cause problems, anger, and lawsuits. The last part of the book was much golden for me. I fall into a real groove when Karl Ove is doing his thing. and I was inclined to give the book my top rating, but then I thought to myself -- what about the unwanted Hitler detour -- so, no crow.