Book Review: My Struggle: Some Rain Must fall by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgård
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

None of it matters: apeing Hamsun, Joyce, Bernard, Easton Ellis; the endless self-indulgence; the ever-expanding level of seemingly insignificant detail, like a Mandelbrot Set of the banal; the many valid questions about the shaky ground upon which the whole premise of 'auto-fiction' is built - many such questions asked by Karl's loved ones in law suits against Karl and Karl's struggle... none of it matters, not enough to stop you reading, absorbing the struggle. Not enough to stop you laughing out loud in parts like his days working in the loony bin or his botched dates; not enough to stop you grimacing as once more Karl fucks things up with a love interest, or his family or friends, or loses the plot again on the drink. Not enough to stop you sympathising with his subsequent remorse and shame and efforts to be a 'good man' despite his own dodgy history.
Afterwards I thought, OK, that's five volumes of Karl's Struggle read in a couple of months - I need a break now. I picked up something else, but it just felt so weak in comparison, it couldn't hold my attention, my eye kept drifting to the 1000-page beast that is volume 6 of My Struggle that was sitting in the pile of books I had just bought below the tele. 1000 more pages of Karl! I couldn't resist. I yielded to a greater power I doubted I would ever fully understand. None of that matters.
The Power of Knausgaard compels you.
The End is nigh.

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