I didn’t want to read My Struggle, but now I’m hooked!

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Before I became a ridiculously over-zealous fan, I had no interest reading “My Struggle”, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s 3600-page fictional memoir. Who in the world would ever read something so long, much less write such a voluminous text? Brevity is key in this world of 140 character Twitter posts and pithy advertising copy. We want short, to the point, condensed nuggets. Not some self-obsessed writer droning on for pages. I’d heard of Knausgaard following my nerdy literary world of journals and book reviews, but I remained a hold-out, passing up the release of three out of six volumes (yeah SIX VOLUMES). I wasn’t that intrigued, and it always seems that literati has a penchant for male authors who write long diatribes, so I brushed him off as the newest David Foster Wallace. I favored reading contemporary women fiction writers because I had spent my youth devouring all the male literary giants, and so Knausgaard was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to read.

Then I happened upon “My Saga” a sort of travel piece he wrote for the New York Times Magazine about his adventure through North America. I noticed his pictures right away, and he is handsome, in that edgy chain-smoking way that should bore me by now. But what about his writing? I was hooked after I read a few paragraphs. His style is soft and flowing the opposite of Hemmingway but not quite with the frenetic energy of a Hunter J. Thompson rant. He can describe a mundane event page after page, with details and facts that you may or may not need to know. Then he makes a soft turn, very subtly infusing a statement that causes a slow pause, and you begin to understand the purpose of the details and want to know every moment. His scenes of everyday life, don’t necessary prove a point, but sometimes they do support his digressions, it just takes hundreds of pages for the reader to make the connection. In My Saga, I was pulled into a story about his lost backpack, and he writes,

There is a saying in Norway that he who loses money shall receive money, and I think that’s true, because when you lose things, it means you’re not on your guard, you’re not trying to control everything, you’re not being so anal all the time — and if you aren’t, but allow yourself to be open to the world instead, then anything at all might come to you.

I knew what he meant. I could relate, in a way when I was messier, I also had a different energy and felt more alive. Sure stuff got lost, but I wasn’t living in the grips of control. I kept on reading and found his whole botched adventure, insightful in a strange stoic, repressed yet observant, wryly humorous manner. But I didn’t think I’d read his books, it seemed too much of an investment. His stories are about events that are familiar, driving around America, or clogging up a toilet, but then he digresses with insights about literature and philosophy and then weaves his way back to the start.

But then in My Saga, Knausgaard relates a story to the photographer that he is traveling with, about meeting with a famous writer (he is unnamed in this piece, but later Jeffrey Eugenides outs himself). Knausgaard realizes that his silence may have offended the author, and the story picks up here;

Then I realized he must have taken my silence personally. He must have thought I didn’t find it worth my time talking to him.

I wrote back and asked him if he’d seen any Bergman movies? No one talks there either. And Finland was even worse; there, no one ever said anything to each other. I wrote that I’m always like this, that I never say anything to people I don’t know, even when they’re having dinner at our house. He never answered.

“Who was it?” Peter asked.

I told him.

“It’s deeply un-American, you know, not to make small talk. It’s a very important part of the culture of this country. You remind me a little of my dad. He didn’t know how to make small talk, either, when he first got here. Or maybe he didn’t want to. But he does now.”

Now I had no doubt that I must read “My Struggle”. He was pinpointing something that is relatable to me, the trials of an introvert, but he brings in observations that are distinctly not an American point of view. I have noticed this type of interaction and have wanted to write about this very theme. But he encapsulated this struggle, the quiet person versus the incessant American need for small talk, with an exchange and a short interlude to another story. I had to step into his Norwegian world, all 3600 pages!

Because of translation and publishing dates volumes come out in sporadic succession, but I went through the first three books rapidly. But the struggle of being introverted were one of many for the author, who is the main character of his fictionalized version of his memories. And what is a fictional memoir? If it’s confusing, you’re not alone. However, as you read you’re constantly asking yourself, is this his memory, or is it a fictionalized account? Of course, in true meta-fictional style, he as the narrator explores the very notion of memory and false memory. So you get the idea that he is playing with the past at the very same time he writes about his present life.

Aside from his life in Norway and Sweden, with scenes and discussions about the cultures and attitudes in these two countries, he also writes about his successes and struggles to be an author. He has all sorts of bourgeois baggage, that in itself is not that compelling. He has episodes of drinking problems, leaves his first wife, falls in love and marries again, has kids, his abusive father dies, he has a brother and relates long conversations with a close friend. But his intensity about his work, the malleability of identity, and his digressions that somehow touch upon these concepts, make his work compelling.

When I read Knausgaard I see a story every day, all around me, conversations on the bus, the interaction with my mom, my child, and husband. I notice small details, sounds, landscapes, and relationships, and I realize there is so much there, all around me. I kept thinking about all the scenes I wanted to write, connecting ideas or random thoughts. His struggle is inspiring, more so than overly positive affirmations that have become all the rage. When I posted the quote below on Facebook, a friend said, “Ouch.” But I get it, I understand. Right now, I’m more than disgusted with myself that I haven’t written enough and have so much more to write. So I needed this Knausgaardian kick in the seat because I can only be a writer if I write. Simple but harder than you think.

“If I have learned one thing over these years that seems to me immensely important, particularly in an era such as ours, overflowing with such mediocrity it is the following:

Don’t believe your are anybody.

Do not fucking believe your are somebody.

Because you are not. You’re just a smug, mediocre little shit.

Do not believe that you’re anything special. Do not believe that you’re worth anything, because you aren’t. You’re just a little shit.

So keep your head down and work, you little shit. Then, at least, you’ll get something out of it. Shut your mouth, keep your head down, work, and know that you’re not worth a shit.”

Ferrante Fever versus the Forces of Franzen

FerranteFeverI felt so pleased with myself today. For months, I’ve waited for Elena Ferrante’s next book, “The Story of the Lost Child.”  Finally, the crescendo of the Neapolitan novels was soon to be in my hands. I walked on a rubble path, through Golden Gate Park with a friend and I told her of Elena’s hidden identity and how some say the books are written by a man. I tell her I found it implausible and if someday proven true my belief in anything would be crushed forever. She had heard about “Ferrante Fever” from Jezebel and just started reading book one. I immediately rebuked her for liking Jezebel, I called it click bait and a snarky form of feminism I found insulting. She liked the blog because they posted issues she cared about and I told her that she didn’t need Jezebel. She kind of shrugged and I realized I could have tempered my proclivity for being overbearing.

I thought of how lucky we were to work near Green Apple Books on the Park, one of the last remaining bookstores in San Francisco. I knew exactly where “The Story of a New Name” would be placed. It was as if I took a standing leap, like an out of shape ballerina, straight to the wooden shelf. In a few short seconds, I grabbed one of remaining two copies and placed it on the counter. An irrepressible squeal, a few claps of my hand came next as I fished around for money, eagerly awaiting to complete my purchase.

“I bet you didn’t expect people to come in squealing over a book,” I say in a pleased tone.

“You aren’t the first one today!”

“Oh that’s good, I can’t wait to start reading. I’ve been waiting for months!!!”

“Ferrante is getting more excitement than Franzen today,” says the youngish bookseller boy.

“Well, of course, I’m not choosing Franzen over Ferrante!!”

My friend obviously hadn’t been too offended by my dislike of Jezebel.  She stuck around the bookstore to watch as if I was picking up a huge cash prize from the lottery. She happened to bump into a friend who just happened to be there to pick up her Ferrante pre-order.

“I overheard you’re reading book four!”

“Yes, I’m so excited. You know what I’ll be doing tonight!”

“Yeah, I tried to come in yesterday to pick up my book early and they wouldn’t release it until today!”

“What?! I’m sure the book was here!”

Just then the bookseller showed up with a box that said Ferrante Fever Party Box. He handed us pins that said “Ferrante Fever” in a strangely inappropriate but eye-catching hot pink neon style. Then he reached in the party box and handed us Europa tote bags. It really couldn’t get any better I thought to myself. I may have squealed again.

“I heard you mention Franzen,” says the woman who was picking up her order.

“Yeah, there is no way I’d read his version of feminism over Ferrante,” I say without holding back again.

“Right?! I don’t like his style.”

The bookseller pipes in, “Yeah he’s not really that great.”

I walked back through Golden Gate park and thought of how willing I was to make so many opinionated proclamations. Earlier in the day I had posted an article about the death of the San Francisco Hipster and for some reason I had called out my closest friend. I didn’t feel like holding back the truth. I did cringe every time she offhandedly called me a hipster or referred to my hipster family. But what kind of friend had I been to tag her name on such a post, laughing about the death of the hipster? Because, yes the hipster is dead and really all counterculture identity is pretty much dead, but did I have to be such a snot? I must have found it necessary to share this opinion with so many people. My friend may have meant little harm calling me a hipster, or maybe it a compliment, or a simple observation. Here I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was out of some weird combination narcissism and smugness that prompted me to let everyone know that I dislike labels. Yeah don’t call me anything, I want to say. I’m undefinable.

And what of this comparison between Ferrante and Franzen? I had found it so validating to have a conversation about disliking Franzen. Obviously, in the literary world it’s de reiguer to put one’s nose up at highly promoted fiction writers. Yet I always end up reading his books, while all the while complaining of his misanthropy. I remember that I had ordered a signed version of “Freedom” before the release date and read it with rapt attention commanded by such a literary force. I had blabbed to all my friends about “Freedom” not unlike the incessant stream of platitudes I lay upon Ferrante’s work. But what had struck me after reading “Freedom” was that I was left feeling hollow. At first his characters had pulled me in and I wanted to follow their transgressions, hoping for redemption or insight. But “Freedom” doesn’t take you there, one is still trapped within the confines of unlikable characters and murky ethics.

When I finished “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” book three of Ferrante’s series I gasped out loud and raised my fist to an empty space. I couldn’t believe the end, even if I had seen it coming, perhaps a thematic device. For months after, I kept thinking of Lenu and Lila and they brought up insights into what it means to live as a woman in the shadow of men, those in our family and those we love. I thought of all the times that I had been a selfish friend, especially to those who I consider close, even to this day. Lenu and Lila’s lives together created a portrait of friendship and feminism that unfolded with so much energy, connection to others (including the reader), to the past and to the present, it became hard not to layer in our own memories. The many flaws of the characters left small wounds, not unlike the how I feel when I see a child left out on the playground. Oh, I how I wanted to go and offer my hand, to take away the isolation and abandonment. Ferrante creates dynamic characters who inhabit a small world, but within a span of decades of complicated friendship we are taken through so many depths of emotions we feel as if we had lived along with them.

As I write this I almost feel a strange nervous trepidation to start the last and final novel because I know it will be the end of the story of Lenu and Lila. But this is the pleasure that I long for, the joy of reading with transfixed attention to the end, and even after I finish I will still make connections and think of their story.

My Return to Life, Part 1

I just read about 1500 pages of contemporary literature in about 6 weeks. Beyond the sheer number of pages, I boast about this feat because it signifies that my brain is open to ideas, without barriers. I can feel it as I read, little globular brain cells soaking in the words, growing plump with new connections. I also enjoy the long almost meditative periods when my subconscious allow stories to pull me along in their spell. But a huge motivation is my own latent desire to write. As I read, I simultaneously enjoy the story and also pause along the way to dissect the force that is driving the narrative. Like any resurrected habit, at first, you have to fake it until you make it, and for a short bit I forced myself to fill in every possible moment of down time with a book. I made a concerted effort to reduce screen time and stopped binge watching serial TV, because I felt that I was losing my imagination, the images and words that clutter social media were adding nothing of value to my life. Reading voraciously is like any exercise, if the mind is out of shape it takes some patience before the words start to flow naturally. Of course, good writing helps, and once my reading chops are warmed up by one good book, I begin to search around for the next fix as quickly as possible to keep the lubricated gears in motion. It feels thrilling, I begin to notice more connections, catch phrases and my old habit of eavesdropping on conversations is tuned up searching for stories.

Since March I’ve been immersed in two huge epic serial novels by European writers that have both been touted as literary giants, if it sounds intimidating to ponder the idea to read a 3500 page, 6 volume fictional memoir believe me, it is at first.  Now my hours of commuting have been filled the close and strangely compelling writing of the mundane by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante’s fiery world of womanhood. I’m going to start peeling away at Ferrante first and step into the land of Naples, which is one long tale of feminity and friendship, shame and courage. But I will be back to delve into the Nordic land of the introverted, chain-smoking, coffee guzzling world of Knausgaard at a later date–because I’m obsessed with him and his writing as well. Plus, I plan to follow his footsteps when he comes for a visit in May. Unfortunately, Ferrante in her pseudonymous, almost non-existence doesn’t allow for fans to follow her around.

Last night, I finished “A Story with No Name” or Book 2 of the Neopolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. I rushed through the last 40 pages and before it was too late and I sadly realized  had only two pages left. I was a tiny bit panicked and mostly sad because I wanted the story to slow down since I didn’t have Book 3 handy and I felt a manic moment of abandonment as  I closed the book. I’ve become emotionally attached to the friendship and twisting and turning tales of Lenu and Lila, and I felt I couldn’t stop following them through their childhoods in the rough streets of post-war Naples, to their sexual and intellectual awakenings and then onto motherhood. But more simply, I just want to know what happened to both women, I needed to learn how their friendship survived or crumbled, I wanted to know if they were happy or sad, if they have money, success, happiness and if in the end they were comfortable. Even as I was reading there were times when Lenu stopped herself from visiting Lila and I want to cry to her and reach into the book and say, “No! Go see your friend, she needs you, don’t be petty, you need her friendship too.” This is the power Ferrante (or whomever she is, although I’m certain a woman wrote these books) her energy, her words, the passion, there is no editing or slowing down, its long paragraphs of grief and energy, page after page pulls you into what is intuitively honest emotions. Nothing is trite. There is little that is superfluous and there is a lack of sentimental descriptions of setting and yet through the thoughts, emotions, ruminations of these two women I can still see Naples, Italy. There is an outline that is filled with the stories fo the neighborhood and I can see shabbily dressed children and basic buildings that are made of stone, where women work all day, men push carts of fruit, teenagers flirt, and the streets are filled with heat and sweat and tears. It’s not said so much or even described but as a reader I can feel the presence of the scenery. This is the magic of these stories. Yet through it all, I’m in the middle of their story, I never want to leave Lenu or Lila’s side, I fear the day that I will have no more pages to read and I will have to let them go. At the same time, I’m struck by the underlying message, the difficulty and brutality that face women as they navigate through a male-centric world, where choices are limited and risks are high. At first, one can think this story seems to have been told, haven’t we heard of the sad affairs of women that come from poverty? Why does this story of Lenu and Lila has me captivated, disgusted, emotionally wrought and concerned for their lives? As Rachel Donadio said in her review in The New York Review of Books:

To those of us fully entangled in the Ferrante universe, participants in this Greek chorus, who have come to care about these characters as much as we care about some people in our actual lives, to those of us who have come to scrutinize the world and ourselves all the more intensely for having read these unforgettable books, her latest report could not have arrived soon enough.

And here is what I feel, a fire has ignited within. It reminds to sit and write down what I have experienced, it doesn’t matter what elements of craft is used, or metaphor or figuring out the arch or symbolism or magical realism or any such literary device. I just need to sit and write my own story as a way to exorcise everything that is clogged within, because it’s truly creating a cancer, a block, a hateful feeling that can shadow days at a time. I feel that all I have left to face is a blank page, and to realize I have plenty of words and ideas to fills its daunting whiteness. I bookmarked the following page from Ferrante because it hit a nerve and one that also ties back to Knausgaard–this idea of writing as an art of destruction–and I know I have plenty of shame to destroy.

One morning, I bought a graph-paper notebook and began to write, in the third person, about what had happened to me that night on the beach near Barano. Then, still in third person, I wrote what happened to me on Ischia. Then I wrote a little about Naples and the neighborhood. Then I changed names and places and situtions. Then I imagined a dark force crouching in the life of the protagonist, an entity that had the capacity to weld the world around, with the colors of the flame of a blowtorch: a blue-violet dome where everything went well for her, shooting sparks, but that soon came apart, breaking up into meaningless gray fragments. I spent twenty days writing this story, a period during which I saw no one, I went out only to eat. Finally I reread some pages, I didn’t like them, and I forgot about it. But I found that I was calmer, as if the shame had passed from me to the notebook. I went back into the world, I quickly finished my thesis, I saw Pietro again.

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