A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård"In this utterly remarkable novel Karl Ove Knausgaard writes with painful honesty about his childhood and teenage years, his infatuation with rock music, his relationship with his loving yet almost invisible mother and his distant and unpredictable father, and his bewilderment and grief on his father's death. When Karl Ove becomes a father himself, he must balance the demands of caring for a young family with his determination to write great literature. In A Death in the Family Knausgaard has created a universal story of the struggles, great and small, that we all face in our lives. A profoundly serious, gripping and hugely readable work written as if the author's very life were at stake."
Series: My Struggle #1
Genres: Fiction
Also by this author: Some Rain Must Fall, Dancing in the Dark, Boyhood Island, A Man in Love
This is the first of the six authobiographical novel series “My Struggle” written by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Entitled “A Death in the Family”, the book narrates the childhood and teenager years of the author, influenced by his father. He remembers and describes in so much detail these years and with so much honesty! It is still considered though to be a Fiction novel rather than Biography/Memoir.
First line: “For the heart, life is simple: it beats for as long as it can. Then it stops.”
“The way we think is of course as closely associated with the specific surroundings of which we form part as the people with whom we speak and the books we read.”
“What a person does always overshadows what he does not do.”
“You have a kind of receptivity to those with whom you have grown up and to whom you have been close during the period when your personality is being shaped or asserting itself, you receive them directly, without though as a filter. almost everything you know about your brother you know from intuition.”
“Feelings are like water, they always adapt to their surroundings. Not even the worst grief leaves traces; when it feels so overwhelming and lasts for such a long time, it is not because the feelings have set, they can’t do that, they stand still, the way water in a forest mere stands still.”
