Dancing in the Dark, and contemplating the stars...
What an ending. So abrupt.
And what does that do for me? Something quite fascinating. I want to have more. More of this endless book that has no story.
I kept this book on my list waiting for the day I would finally think about going to the library to find it. Thanks to my Kobo, that day came much faster than I expected.
I couldn't remember where I got the idea to read it (and the reading gave me plenty of time to wonder about it), but I found the Guardian article. And then, the cover promises us that it is a phenomenon of literature. So why not?
Karl Ove Knausgaard is both the author of the book and its narrator. He tells the story of his life as a teenager who goes to teach the children of a very small village where everyone knows each other. It is a world of freedom for him. Finally, he will have his own apartment, he will make money, he will be able to do what he wants! And then, he works, okay, but not for long. In a year, he will have enough money to go on a trip and start writing as his dream dictates.
He talks about his everyday life. When he gets up, what he eats for breakfast, what he buys at the grocery store, who he talks to, what he says in his short stories... A real teenager.
And a real guy. His "struggle" that he decided to mention on the cover is his virginity. He has never managed to penetrate a girl yet. He claims he has, though, because come on, 18 years old! It's more than time! But he is terribly embarrassed, because he comes much too fast. He never masturbates, for him it's a barrier that he can't get over, so his only reference point is his dreams, which leave him in a tide of cum in the morning. Girls fascinate him, he gets an erection just by seeing a pair of naked thighs or the shadow of breasts under a t-shirt, but his emotions terrorize him. And he thinks about it all the time, several times a day, this thought overwhelms him at the same time with an infinite pleasure and sinks him in a deep black abyss from which he does not see the exit.
It's not for lack of suitors. In one year alone, he had something like 5 or 6 in his bed. But all he has to do is rub them for a minute or two, and he comes. That doesn't make him feel any better.
A book to interpret as we interpret our own lives
This book has no story. I waited for it for the first hundred or so pages, but then I realized that there would never be one.
And strangely enough, it didn't discourage me. Because sometimes it's good not to have a clear-cut narrative: the equivalent of New Age in music. It's good to dream a little with the character, to contemplate, to reflect, to appreciate the little things in life. After all, that's what we do every day with our own lives. And it's a change to see someone else's interiority, a complete stranger that you can draw in your head, but that nevertheless exists somewhere.
Reading, sometimes, has no purpose, except to enjoy.
Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4
Karl Ove Kausgaard
17,74 $
