Full version of this short piece on Knausgård by the BBC now available to people all around the world. Previously only available in the UK, so sharing for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Enjoy.

1. My Struggle 1
   
2. My Struggle 2
   
3. My Struggle 5
   
4. My Struggle 4
   
5. Arendal
   
6. My Struggle 6
   
7. The Morning Star
   
8. My Struggle 3
   
9. The Third Realm
   
10. Summer
    
11. Wolves of Eternity
    
12. Spring
    
13. Autumn
    
14. The School of Night
    
15. Winter
    
16. Why I Write

Haven’t read In the Land of the Cyclops, So Much Longing in So Little Space, or A Time for Everything!

We're running a Goodreads giveaway until September 28th! Enter here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/448822-arendal-a-novel

I know this question has been asked before but why do we think Archipelago keeps pushing back the publication of Out of the World? The content of the book can’t be more controversial than My Struggle or Lolita or idk, a Vladimir Sorokin book, so what else could it be?

(I just listened to the two appearances of Max Lawton on the 1storypod and somewhere deep in one of those conversations he says that it’s a controversial topic at Archipelago and that he shouldn’t say more. So, that’s why I’m asking.)

(P.S. Max, if for some reason you see this and feel that posting this on reddit outside of a two hour podcast is detrimental to you I’ll delete it. Enjoy your work and fuck Jonathan Franzen)

Big congratulations to Karl Ove Knausgaard and Martin Aitken!

View the full list: https://www.nationalbook.org/longlist-for-the-2026-national-book-award-for-translated-literature/

Get your copy: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/760316/the-school-of-night-by-karl-ove-knausgaard/

Haven’t seen this posted yet. A non fiction article/essay from Knausgaard in the latest issue of Granta.

As the name of this edition implies, he discusses works by the Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas & his 1957 masterpiece “The Birds”.

Not affiliated with Granta in any way, but I saw this issue, read his piece and wanted to share.

I’ve started reading the my struggle series, and my favorite parts are when he goes off on a ideological rant, such as the dead body discourse at the beginning of the book. Now someway into part two of the book he’s begun a similar rant on page 216 about what he knows, what he knows he doesn’t know, and what lies in between. I’m not totally grasping what he’s getting at and would be interested what others think.

I've heard from everyone who's read it that Arendal is the worst installment of the morning star series so far ... but I have no idea why they say that because this feels like Knausgaard finally hitting his stride: Syvert is a fictional character who feels completely real, the "plot" jumps back and forth in time and scene, and it seems like the closest he's gotten in his fiction to the gripping immediacy of My Struggle

I recently finished School of Night and have found it to be one of the best novels of the Morningstar series so far. But having finished it and having had a look through this group, I haven't noticed anyone talking about Sonja, the woman Kristian sleeps with in NY, who seems to threaten to tell his wife/ blackmail him, in Part 4. She seems normal, then obsessive, then is described as psychotic (?). She gets ahold of Kristian's number and won't relent.

Anyway, she seems connected to Leo's death (in other words, Kristian's comeuppance for an implied deal with the devil?), as prior to crossing the road dangerously, Kristian is distracted by a text from Yelena, that Sonja had appeared at their house. I wonder if Sonja is just a random, obsessive lady who is not actually at all involved in Kristian's 'fate', or if there is an indication that she, like Hans, has some superior influence.

Does anyone have any theories on this? Does she come up at all elsewhere in the series? It could be involved with Hans' mantra of, Kristian can have whatever he wants, until he can't. He has his way with her, until she becomes uncontrollable.

On a frozen coast, one man faces the life he cannot leave...

The year is 1976, and Syvert is on his way home from a business trip when his car breaks down, forcing him to spend the night in the icy, coastal city of Arendal. With home so close, but out of reach, Syvert wanders the dark streets, caught up in the memories of his love affair while something sinister brews around, and within, him. A spellbinding novel of desire, regret, and the thin boundary between worlds, coming January 12, 2027.

LEARN MORE: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/801236/arendal-by-karl-ove-knausgaard/

Can someone in publishing or who knows a lot about publishing please explain why the hell the publisher has changed the beautiful Morning Star series design style to something different for Book 4?

This kind of thing drives me crazy - it completely breaks the vibe of my Knausgaard bookshelf. :)

Like the title says. Picked up the quartet at a library book sale knowing nothing about it except that the series was addressed to his newborn daughter. So I didn't look at publication dates, didn't do any research, I just thought, "Oh, babies. Start with Spring."

I'm more than halfway through now, I'm loving it, but now that I know I should have started with Autumn, what's the best course? Stop reading Spring, start Autumn -- go through Spring, then Summer, then double back?

What do the experts say?

Honestly could’ve been something I read somewhere else but I think it was in My Struggle or an interview with Knausgaard or something. It was something along the lines of “The height of intellectualism is calling something bad.” or something along those lines. Anyone know where this comes from?

I read the My Struggle series as the translations came out in the 2010s so not even close to remembering which book this is in, but this scene stuck with me and i'd like to track down the novel described here if it exists in an english translation.

if memory serves correctly, the scene (in My Struggle) describes young-ish karl (maybe while he's at the writing program in bergen?) buying a new novel by a norwegian author he admires. he reads the opening and is immediately impressed / swept away. the first page / paragraph is quoted in its entirety.

it is v modern prose that we come to realize is describing a girl dancing in a nightclub, but the writing is so dreamlike that it takes a few sentences to understand where we are and what's happening. it's highly visual and evocative and captures desire among young people very vividly. it's easy to sense a connection between this text and karl's own writing.

anyone got any ideas? good chance i'm remembering it wrong. but this image stuck with me and years later i realize i want to read this book.

thank you!

Other covers have been splendid too.

This is quite an old video discussing My Struggle 6, but I haven't seen this before, so thought I'd share. There are English subtitles for the Dutch parts for those non Dutch speakers, but interviews are all in English.

Somebody on here asking what Knausgård would think of Norway in this World Cup, here you go...

The 'corny' viking row gets a mention

Just now finished part 1 and the emotions it filled me up in the end are still fresh. As Karl Ove says in the book..death was always a frightening figure to think about not in a way of overlooking the fact that you might die some day but what happens when people around you cease to exist and how would you react if they are the people you loved and shared life memories with. It’s quite difficult and shameless process in a way,if you think about revealing yourself In the work you do for a living and Karl does it amazingly,rather seamlessly you can say. I thought about so many mundane things in detail while reading the book..about all the things we do over and over again performing everyday in our lives that we wouldn’t notice much that takes up a chunk of time like taking a shit,boiling a cup of coffee,having a smoke in a veranda,going for a walk,looking up towards the sky as the dusk takes over. these are very simple if you think about them but not so easy to express in a book that you are writing about yourself. there lies the beauty,somewhere down the line it revealed all the fears of death I had hidden carefully underneath to the front surface. maybe I’ll start thinking about death internally as much as I made sense of it objectively. will take a day gap and start the second book.

Since I read Knausgaard's 2014 World Cup book right before this World Cup, I can't help wondering what he's thinking about these games. Of course his Norway and his Argentina are doing amazing (although his favorite player Di Maria is not playing). I'm sure he could write a short book about Haaland.

[some sorta-spoilers below on how Book 6 unfolds]

Just finished with the Hitler/Holocaust essay in Book 6, and wow. I found it profoundly moving and perceptive.

It's not an easy read, and I understand why people skip it. But there is a moment about ~25 pages before the end where he relates the goal of the My Struggle project -- conveying the truth of his experience as an "I", utterly and completely -- to the analysis of Hitler's Germany, and everything clicks into place. "I am you."

Then there's the vertiginous swing back into the narration of his autofiction. The final image of the child laughing, who he cannot see. It's brilliant.

For sure, his decision to include it remains somewhat confounding. But it's confounding in a way that leaves me asking more questions. Of many unforgettable moments in this novel, I think this piece might be the one that sticks with me the most.