“But this is a different country, that’s why the little details are different.”
--Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle Book 2
Accompanying Books
Since Book 2 in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle is thick, the tome I began while still in Norway was still partially unread when I boarded the airplane in Stockholm to return to Atlanta. As I mentioned in the last posting much of the book centers on Knausgaard as a successful novelist living in Sweden but as a new father. Though he loves his wife and young family, he resents them because it takes him away from his writing.
The love story between Knausgaard and his second wife is more manic than romantic, but they seem to make it work. His domestic life reads a little banal, but somehow he makes it interesting enough by folding in comparisons between Norway and Sweden with help from his writer-friend Geir (mentioned in the last posting.)
“Sweden is a stupid, idiotic country…Stockholm has no soul, but it is fantastically beautiful…”If you said anything of that kind (in Sweden), you either were reactionary or Norwegian, in other words 10 years behind.”
On a broader level, it’s Knausgaard’s unapologetic views about writing is what I enjoyed the most:
Fictional writing has has no value, documentary narrative has no value. The only genres I saw value in, which still conferred meaning, were diaries and essays, the types of literature that did not deal with narrative, that were not about anything, but just consisted of a voice, the voice of your own personality, a life, a face, a gaze you could meet.
(Do blogs count?)
.. I wasn't very interested when it (an earlier book) was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, for there was one thing that I had learned over the past six months it was that all writing was about was writing. Therein lay all its value. Yet I wanted to have more of what came in its wake because public attention is a drug, the need it satisfies is artificial, but once you have had a taste of it you want more.”
(This explains why I monitor this blog’s page view statistics on a daily basis,)
Book Shops
Denise and I visited only one bookstore while in Stockholm, but it was a worthy one. The English Bookshop is in the Södermalm District of the city. I purchased a copy of Norwegian Nobel Prize Winner Knut Hamsun’s novel Hunger (1890). Hamsun is mentioned several times is My Struggle, and Knausgaard himself is ticked off when a guest at this dinner party taunts him by calling him Hamsun.
Denise purchased a copy of a small book entitled Fika, which we learned is the Swedish tradition of having a break in the morning and the afternoons, which includes coffee/tea and a pastry. We didn’t want to risk offending our guide by not partaking in fika during a food tour. Here is our two-year old grandson Zack inhaling a slice of Princess cake. It was delicious. Zack learned this eating technique from his grandfather.
Near the bookstore we had lunch at Meatballs for the People, which our guide recommended. She made it clear that if you think real Swedish meatballs is something you get at Ikea, you are sadly mistaken. Real Swedish meat balls are made of various meats; reindeer, moose, elk and bear to name but a few. On your sampler platter they identify the origin of every meatball with a little flag.
Unexpected Lit Experiences
Denise and I were unable to make it to Uppsala which is an hour north of Stockholm, where Ingrid Bergman wrote and directed in —which may surprise many— one of our favorite Christmas movies Fanny and Alexander (1982). Warning: if you listen to this clip, you risk getting a nasty earworm.
However, on the same day we were in the Södermalm District we did stumble across the Fanny and Alexander studio. It was Sunday, so there was no one around. I peered inside and it did seem like it was some kind of production company named after the famous film.
I did ask the female clerk at the bookstore for more details the studio but she knew little about it. Coincidently she said her name was Fanny named after the young protagonist in the film. But this was as close as we got the Swedish director.
And finally a special thanks to Denise, Lizzie and her family (husband Mike, Zack and Zoey) and my daughter Cynthia for making the trip through France, Norway and Sweden possible and giving me something to write about.