For Part 4 of "My Struggle", the 18 year-old Knausgaard heads towards northern Norway to spend a year working as a teacher in a small village school. He is doing this mainly because he wants to have his own space to work on his desired dream of becoming a writer. During his northern escapade, some writing gets done, but mainly, in the fashion of a male his age, we find he is predictably preoccupied with women and liquor intake. Knausgaard's magic touch as a writer is how he lets down personal safeguards and digs into his own humiliating confessions, seemingly without any type of self-censorship. Little, if any. ego protection is present and self-loathing is rampant. His sexual stumbling block of premature ejaculation, along with his desires for young teenage girls are strongly present in the book. Until the end of the book, he remains an 18 year-old virgin. Why would a reader want to embark on a journey of an 18 year-old's desire to get laid? That simplistic question is irrelevant to the reader, who is once again finding themselves fascinatingly preoccupied with his story.
One of the writing techniques Knausgaard masters is the ability to have long flashbacks in the middle of his novel and not lose the reader's engagement. His further capability to capture the reader's attention during scenes of banality(although Part 4 is not done quite as breathtakingly as Parts One and Two)is another reason we get caught up in the narrative of his story. He is able to capture the essence of the young man who is both insecure and arrogant, sensitive and narcissistic. He has apparently no time to delve in the physical nature surrounding him but is moved by the Arctic darkness and scenery.
The translator, Don Bartlett deserves a significant amount of credit for Knausgaard's overall shaking of the English literary world. Bartlett seemingly captures all of Knausgaard's insights from his beleaguered self-loating to his sublime humour(there are at least 3-4 times I laugh out loud with each part of My Struggle). The central themes of My Struggle continue in Part 4, only in a different age context. The tyrannical alcoholic father, sexual longing and the battle between the internal vs. external self. My Struggle is a memory flow with illogical breaks, shifts and diversions. It captures the messiness of life. That being said, Part 4 cannot reach the philosophical depths that Part One, Two and even some of Three could. With solipsism, Knausgaard has the rare ability to be interesting, tormented and self-critical enough to not only keep the reader engaged but have the reader think of his/her own past memories in relation to "My Struggle."
At the beginning of the novel the eighteen year-old mentions all of his favourite books with an overall description of them. "Books about young men who struggled to fit into society, who wanted more from life than routines, more from life than family; in short, young men who hated middle-class values and sought freedom. They travelled, they got drunk, they read and they dreamed about their life's Great Passion or writing the Great Novel." Eye-rolling aside, do we not in middle age, still feel like this, just in a more reserved manner? He continues with opening "a new subdivision in my life. 'Booze and fornication' it was called, and it was right next to insight and sincerity." This is a middle-aged man's sarcastic droll of being 18.
The unspeakable or unexplainable, also come into play on Knausgaard's rational and irrational observations of northern Norway. This, in fact, is one of the more interesting parts of the book. It gives Part 4 its own character. Everything is surrounded by the "ocean of darkness." As much as he tries to dispel nature he is awed by the extreme darkness and the isolation of the north. He adds that "I had always liked darkness. When I was small I was afraid of it if I was alone, but when I was with others, I loved it and the changes to the world it brought." In northern Norway he walks around at night feeling empty, "like a shadow, aghast." At the same time, the surrounding shorelines, the mountainside all give him a way to appreciate this isolation("There was something about this small enclose place. There was something about seeing the same faces everyday. My class. My colleagues. The assistant at the shop. The occasional mother, the occasional father. Now and then the young fishermen. But always the same people, always the same atmosphere. The snow, the darkness, the harsh light inside the school."). On one of his social outings, it amazes him when he realizes that all members of the community, regardless of age, are present in the community hall. "I loved it, couldn't help myself, there was a freedom in this I had never encountered anywhere else."
In the flashbacks of the years just before his teaching stint, we have a highly immature, at times unlikable adolescent in the midst of the aftermath of his parent's divorce. The silent and awkward parental conversations. With mom, "I lived a completely different life, my real life, with her I discussed every thought that went through my head, apart from anything to do with girls, and the terrible feeling of being on the outside at school and what dad was doing." In the model of dad, Knausgaard subconsciously develops two conflicting worlds. One world "contained everything that was good and cool and one that contained principles." As well, dad's continued demonic-like presence in Knausgaard's life has a silence that "burned like a fever inside me."
The alcoholic world of irrational behaviour give Karl the feeling that everything is possible. When he is in this state memory is lost. Solipsism is put aside. The two world collide through the "thread" of shame. This conflict is present throughout all of "My Struggle" and is the major perplexity Knausgaard has about his own life and in turn, the purpose for writing the book. It is his attempt to find the why behind the shame.
I took a great interest in Knausgaaard's critique of Milan Kundera. He begins about how he "intuitively" dislikes the author. He goes on to say that "he completely lacked this embracing of other worlds, with him the world was always the same.....he kept withdrawing his characters from the plot...then you saw the plot was only a plot and that the characters were only characters, something he had invented, you knew they didn't exist and so why should you read about them?" This is somewhat ironic from a writer with many solipsistic tendencies of his own inner self, similar to Kundera. That being said he is much more personal than Kundera. He dispels philosophy and instead tries to recognize the questions instead of giving the answers.
Part Four displayed a young man who wants to intellectually dispel the "trivialities" of the norms and day-to-day occurrences, while having to experience them externally as a teacher. The conflict between "everyday life with its endless round of petty demands and obligations" and the intoxicated world when "it was all open spaces and grand gestures." Yet the humilities, touched upon almost on a masochistic level, showcase how Knausgaard has the bravery and skill to let go of any guards and show all his vulnerabilities. The ending of the book shows that his age of innocence is over. We all can't wait for Part 5!
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