@fdrake

I finished the book (My Struggle 1).

It is complicated to do a review in such a deep book. I think it has a lot of crucial parts, but Knausgård focuses on one point: loneliness. I have been jotting down the parts where he felt that way -- 15 years old; 30 years old; and when he is currently writing the book, around 40 years old or so.

There are different stages where Knausgård feels lonely. The relationship with his father, rather than being bad, I would say it is incomprehensible. It hit me when he says in the book: I was reciting a performance at school. I was nervous, so the storyline didn't go well. When we were in the car, my father said that he has never felt that embarrassed, and he will not show up to another performance. He kept the promise.

The attitude of Knausgård's father was exactly that. He never was there, and I think it caused an emotional trauma to this writer. He admitted in some paragraphs of the book that it took him ten years to write a book of his father, because there are some questions that remain unanswered. I believe this book was a self-guide to answer those questions. Precisely, I think the death of alcoholism was not the issue here, but the fact that his father will no longer be physically around anymore. Maybe he had the faith to build a paternal relationship, and this is very sad.
On the other hand -- it is interesting to see how he embraces loneliness when he became an adult. There is another page that says -- I disliked living in my childhood residential neighbourhood of Norway. I gaze at this Swedish suburb with a lot of buildings with unknown people, and I feel fine.

Well, I never read something like this. I think the way he approaches solitude is unique and original. There are five more numbers. I don't know if I would read them all, but the first volume gave me the impression that he also wants to focus on his brother, Yngve. The last pages of the book show a similar sense of loneliness in his brotherly relationship when they attended Bergen University, but he was not as deep as with the father.

History as a System and other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History
by José Ortega y Gasset

Well, I never read something like this. I think the way he approaches solitude is unique and original. — javi2541997

Maybe in print. This was what turned me off the book though. He wrote in a narrative voice like every Norwegian man with social difficulties I'd met. This perpetual fleeing from the prickliness of the world into an unfulfilled solitude that he convinces himself he's fine with.

Something I'll remember from it though is that his schooling in the 1950s was similar to mine in the 1990s, and it's still quite similar to kids now in 2020s I think. 70 years, slow progress on not emotionally devastating people from birth.

Die Götter Griechenlands (The Gods of Greece), by Walter F. Otto. Finished the Iliad and really into Greek mythology at the moment.

Hello, this is my first post in here and i am so thrilled to be here :)
I am currently reading Intermezzo from Sally Rooney. It is a novel but the way she writes is full of everything. This is the third novel of her that i read. She writes without quotation marks, without dividing conversations but you can still follow and realize who is the one talking to who.
And most importantly the thing i love about her writing is she is writing with all the parts that live in our mind as id, ego, superego, shadows and so on and she makes this without any effort. She generally focuses on relationships between a man and a woman or with two friends or two brothers so you can easily find yourself or someone you know in her lines.

If anyone is out there who has same taste with me i will be glad to know :)
Have a gerat moment :)

Welcome to TPF :grin:

Hello, welcome to TPF.

And most importantly the thing i love about her writing is she is writing with all the parts that live in our mind — Burcu

She writes without quotation marks, without dividing conversations but you can still follow and realize who is the one talking to who — Burcu

If anyone is out there who has same taste with me i will be glad to know — Burcu

Well, according to that writing style, I also like some authors whose novels are similar to the one you are currently reading. But only in regard to the style, not the topic.

For example -- Jon Fosse and José Saramago always wrote in that way. Without dividing conversations and the format is written all in a row. Fosse doesn't even use chapters. I think Saramago either.

If anyone is out there who has same taste with me i will be glad to know :) — Burcu

I've seen Intermezzo recommended in three separate places I frequent now, I should really get to it.

Thanks for your kind reply :)
Yes many authors write like that but the most fascinating thing is she is not eliminating any desicion of the character, she gives all the thoughts at a moment and you feel like you are living in that characters brain. And also between occasions she put some general information about the situation that i can name as a kind of philosofie.

Also i recommend her first novel to the ones who like this style, Normal People which had awards and turned into a tv show also. That novel for me deeply show the Jung’s basic archetypes Anima and Animus.

Hope it didnt tuned our to be commercial i really get thrilled as i mentioned :)

hello, if you do choose that books i would like to hear your review :)

thank youu ☺️

she gives all the thoughts at a moment and you feel like you are living in that characters brain. — Burcu

Yes, it is fascinating. It reminds me of Melancholia by Fosse. The main character is Lars Hertervig. A Norwegian painter who suffered from a mental illness. Fosse gives all the thoughts and the anxiety of Lars at the same time that he relates to the outside world. A complex writing style that only a few are able to do. Well, Fosse is a Nobel laureate -- as well as Pamuk. I just checked your profile info, and you are Turkish! :smile:

Hope it didnt tuned our to be commercial i really get thrilled as i mentioned — Burcu

It is fine! We are often very emotional with some authors and novels. I remember being very obsessed with Mishima and Japanese literature a few years ago. We want to share this feeling with others, and this is gorgeous. :up:

thank you tihs was the aim for mw to be here, i mean i hope to interact with the ones around the world and feel to be heard. It is so kind of you to check my profile and mention a writer from my nation :)
I did not read any Mishima but i have his books.
By the way i am at a bookshop right now and while i was waiting for my coffee i turned my back and there was the book, Intermezzo again at the desk :) I do not believe in coinsidences though everything is happening as you believe and focus on so... And i smiled at that book and it smiled at me too i guess :))))

The Seducer's Diary. by Kierkegaard.

Firstly, I think it is notoriously to say that Kierkegaard's works are difficult to translate into our languages. I spent more than half an hour finding out on the Internet the proper translation of Forførerens Dagbog in English. My edition is in Spanish, which was translated from Danish in 2008. So, I think it is an accurate edition.

On the other hand, is there a Danish mate here in TPF? If so, please explain why the Danish language used by Kierkegaard is that complex to translate.

Edit: Thirdly, the book is a collection of fragments from a personal diary, where Kierkegaard shows his anxious love towards Regina Olsen. :heart:

@Hanover - I think this is a radical feminism you can get behind.

we are the modern cunt
positive anti reason
unbounded unleashed unforgiving
we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt
we believe in jouissance madness holiness and poetry
we are the virus of the new world disorder
rupturing the symbolic from within
saboteurs of big daddy mainframe
the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix
VNS MATRIX
terminators of the moral code
mercenaries of slime
go down on the altar of abjection
probing the visceral temple we speak in tongues
infiltrating disrupting disseminating
corrupting the discourse
we are the future cunt — VNS, A Cyberfeminist Manifesto For The 21st Century

I actually do like that it's real and unapologetic, the feeling that it's immutably forged from some formative personal experience and societal rejection that doesnt lend itself to debate. You either embrace wholeheartedly their manifesto, or they have you fuck off. I can trust they believe what they say, which is more than you get from most.

There's something Cool Hand Luke about it you've got to respect.

But since I'm not an accepted member of that tribe (alas, being cuntless), I can only observe their artistic expression from afar. I couldn't actually interact with those gentle souls because I'd be likely be struck by the grenades their military wing would toss at me.

But since I'm not an accepted member of that tribe (alas, being cuntless), I can only observe their artistic expression from afar. I couldn't actually interact with those gentle souls because I'd be likely be struck by the grenades their military wing would toss at me. — Hanover

I am under the impression that the modern cunt doesn't need to have a cunt, so perhaps you can still be a cunt in the future cunt.

I think this is a radical feminism you can get behind. — fdrake

It reminds me of some of Robert Frost‘s later poems.

John Carter and the Giants of Mars; The Skeleton Men of Jupiter
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Man and Crisis
by José Ortega y Gasset

A cunt of a poem! I love it!

The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas

Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera.

A collection of seven short stories. Cleverly written, as most of Kundera's works. An interesting fact that I did notice about their characters -- when he wrote in Czech, he used Czech names such as Ruzena, Havel, Klíma or Škréta. But, when he wrote in Frech, he used typical French names like Agnes or Paul.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Heart of Darkness — praxis

This is my favorite book. I’ve given it to all my children. Actually, I’ve given it to all my children more than once. My memory is not all that great.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by the Vandermeers. So far I've read the Algernon Blackwood ("The Willows") and the Julio Cortázar ("Axolotl"), both outstanding. It also includes Saki, M.R. James, Tagore, Kafka, Lovecraft, Borges, Peake, Buzzati, Murakami, Octavia Butler, and loads of others.

About half way through Herodotus, which in its own way is also a compendium of strange and dark stories.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama

This is a really great work, both volumes, not so much because of Fukuyama's individual contributions, but because it's fairly encyclopedic and is good at synthesizing views on state development.

I think I would have expected your favorite to be less dark.

I'm listening to the audiobook and the richness of it is made a little richer with Kenneth Branagh reading.

:up:

I think I would have expected your favorite to be less dark. — praxis

I know what you mean by "dark," but I don't really see it that way. For me, Marlow is a decent man who maintains his moral center while other British in Africa fall into brutal corruption. It's a story of his integrity in the face of European avarice and ruthlessness.

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
by Karl Marx, Fredrick Engels