The Dancing Narcissus
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Vol. 4
Vintage, 560pp, £17.99, ISBN 9781846557248
reviewed by Hilary Ilkay
Meeting Karl Ove Knausgaard at the Edinburgh Book Festival last August was both a thrilling and terrifying experience. After binge-reading the first three instalments of My Struggle, I felt intimately connected to the narrating Knausgaard, who leaves no introspective stone unturned, but I had no idea what I would say when confronted with the grizzled, bearded Norwegian himself. Knausgaard lays bare the figures in his life, both transient and lasting, with as much candour as he does himself, and as I waited in the book signing line, I started envisioning a future piece by Knausgaard that mentioned a blathering, inane Canadian woman he encountered in Scotland one dreary summer evening. It’s intimidating to converse with a man to whose inmost thoughts you have been granted access.
Whatever your feelings about Knausgaard’s writing, it’s impossible to deny that he has stormed the literary Bastille. My Struggle forces the reader to stretch our perceived notions of literature, to ask at times, what about this is so engaging? Why am I compelled to keep reading? Knausgaard insists that his books are not memoirs but fiction, albeit in a radically untraditional form, applying tools drawn from the novel to his own life. During his talk in Edinburgh, he stressed that his six-volume saga is an existential enterprise, exploring the meaning and characteristics of a contemporary human life by using himself as an example. He acknowledged the ‘narcissistic ring’ of writing thousands of pages about his life, but that is the struggle of his project.
This struggle becomes especially pronounced in volume four. When discussing the writing process for volume three, which is narrated from the viewpoint of the author as a young boy, Knausgaard mentioned the importance of maintaining a lowered perspective and resisting the temptation to offer some kind of meaningful reflection and demonstrate his authorial awareness. A similar tension is at play in Dancing in the Dark. He submerges himself in the perspective of his adolescent brain with just as much intensity, if not more. The Knausgaard we encounter in volume four has lost his sense of boyish wonder but has not yet gained the pensiveness and maturity of the adult self from the first two volumes. He is caught in a transitional state, struggling to free himself from the clutches of his childhood and assert himself as a man. There is an instance, however, directly following a moving, searching, self-aware description of Knausgaard sitting on a bus and thinking about a girl he claims to love, that interrupts the voice he has sustained to announce: ‘Only a forty-year-old man could have written that.’ This is a rare point of intervention on the part of the writer, reminding the reader of the fictionalisation of memory taking place.
In order to effectively capture his adolescent subjectivity, Knausgaard introduces a significant shift in prose style. He is obsessed with girls, ashamed by his virginity and lack of sexual prowess, and fiercely devoted to music, alcohol and writing. Accordingly, the philosophical and deeply existential reflections from volumes one and two, and the charmingly youthful observations from volume three, are lacking in volume four. It is the least literary but also, in my experience, the most hypnotic and readable. Knausgaard is often compared to Proust for his ability to use quotidian objects and experiences as catalysts for deeper meditation on memory and existence, but his voice and subject matter are uniquely his own: he does not shy away from the mundane or from the grotesquely visceral. In volume four, he treats the making of instant coffee or the consumption of hot dogs with as much gravitas and literary merit as Proust’s famous description of the madeleine in Swann’s Way. This isn’t to say that there aren’t beautiful moments. One of my favourites is Knausgaard’s description of his record collection, which is, I think, the closest he comes to a Proustian 'madeleine moment':
While not every reader can relate to the misadventures and angsty yearnings of a Scandinavian teenager beset by sexual agony, such passages return us to the intimate folds of Knausgaard’s universe and endear him to us anew. The book is rife with personal moments, as Knausgaard begins to explore his individuality and revel in his freedom outside of his hometown. His family plays a central role in the first three volumes of My Struggle, but they end up floating on the periphery of the narrative in volume four, which follows Knausgaard’s journey to teach at a school in a small remote town in northern Norway. During an extended flashback that unexpectedly overtakes the primary narrative and propels the reader into the recent past, details about the development of the Knausgaard family are supplied through a series of vignettes.
Though the narrator seamlessly emerges from the flashback, the effect on the reader is jarring and almost surreal, like shaking off a dream, and we are returned to a piteously hungover teenager who described his unrelenting morning sickness 268 pages before. A pattern of reckless behaviour emerges that reflects the ethos of Knausgaard’s adolescent attitude: 'Rock ’n’ roll!' Nevertheless, the sought-after solitude of Knausgaard’s childhood and of his eventual adulthood maintains its prominence in volume four and offers him an escape from social and familial demands. This is why the book’s title draws from a scene that occurs not long after the passage quoted above, once Knausgaard is left alone after a visit from some of his female pupils and one of his co-workers. Putting on one of his favourite records, he writes: ‘Slowly I began to move to the beat, a shoulder here, a foot there at first, then, after switching off the light so that no one below could see me, I danced away with my eyes closed and sang from the bottom of my heart.’ Unlike Nietzsche’s image of dancing in chains, the act of dancing in the dark represents, for Knausgaard, a private state of rapturous emotional and physical release and abandon in which past, present and future are woven together in the chords and harmonies of the music.
Writing occupies admittedly less space in the 18-year-old Knausgaard’s brain than girls, but it is a similarly potent source of anxiety and uncertainty. At the heart of his writing lies a stubbornness, a desperate existential need, and a vindictive ambition to prove his worth and ability. ‘I’ll bloody show the whole sodding fucking world who I am and what I am made of,’ he rants in an almost comedically dramatic internal monologue. ‘I’ll render every single one of them speechless...I’ll be so big no one is even close...I will be the bloody greatest ever...I had to be big. I had to be. If not, I might as well top myself.’ A large portion of the book is underscored by a comic tone, which gives way to total farce at the end. Throughout the narrative, Knausgaard’s failed sexual escapades build to a climax (pardon the pun) that is unceremoniously and inelegantly resolved. The hero has accomplished his foremost goal and achieved his desired state of happiness, and that is where Knausgaard leaves him, refusing to intervene once again and offer a more satisfying, meaningful 'literary' conclusion.
As for the conclusion of my story, what did I do when I found myself standing across the table from Karl Ove Knausgaard? I made a silly joke about the pink post-it note on which I had written my name (a system arranged by the festival staff in order to ease the signing process: not many brogues in Norway, I imagine). And what did he do? He chuckled, and I swear there was a glimmer in his eye, one that I can imagine dancing amidst the dark pupils all the way from boyhood, through adolescence and into adulthood.
Whatever your feelings about Knausgaard’s writing, it’s impossible to deny that he has stormed the literary Bastille. My Struggle forces the reader to stretch our perceived notions of literature, to ask at times, what about this is so engaging? Why am I compelled to keep reading? Knausgaard insists that his books are not memoirs but fiction, albeit in a radically untraditional form, applying tools drawn from the novel to his own life. During his talk in Edinburgh, he stressed that his six-volume saga is an existential enterprise, exploring the meaning and characteristics of a contemporary human life by using himself as an example. He acknowledged the ‘narcissistic ring’ of writing thousands of pages about his life, but that is the struggle of his project.
This struggle becomes especially pronounced in volume four. When discussing the writing process for volume three, which is narrated from the viewpoint of the author as a young boy, Knausgaard mentioned the importance of maintaining a lowered perspective and resisting the temptation to offer some kind of meaningful reflection and demonstrate his authorial awareness. A similar tension is at play in Dancing in the Dark. He submerges himself in the perspective of his adolescent brain with just as much intensity, if not more. The Knausgaard we encounter in volume four has lost his sense of boyish wonder but has not yet gained the pensiveness and maturity of the adult self from the first two volumes. He is caught in a transitional state, struggling to free himself from the clutches of his childhood and assert himself as a man. There is an instance, however, directly following a moving, searching, self-aware description of Knausgaard sitting on a bus and thinking about a girl he claims to love, that interrupts the voice he has sustained to announce: ‘Only a forty-year-old man could have written that.’ This is a rare point of intervention on the part of the writer, reminding the reader of the fictionalisation of memory taking place.
In order to effectively capture his adolescent subjectivity, Knausgaard introduces a significant shift in prose style. He is obsessed with girls, ashamed by his virginity and lack of sexual prowess, and fiercely devoted to music, alcohol and writing. Accordingly, the philosophical and deeply existential reflections from volumes one and two, and the charmingly youthful observations from volume three, are lacking in volume four. It is the least literary but also, in my experience, the most hypnotic and readable. Knausgaard is often compared to Proust for his ability to use quotidian objects and experiences as catalysts for deeper meditation on memory and existence, but his voice and subject matter are uniquely his own: he does not shy away from the mundane or from the grotesquely visceral. In volume four, he treats the making of instant coffee or the consumption of hot dogs with as much gravitas and literary merit as Proust’s famous description of the madeleine in Swann’s Way. This isn’t to say that there aren’t beautiful moments. One of my favourites is Knausgaard’s description of his record collection, which is, I think, the closest he comes to a Proustian 'madeleine moment':
The music was linked with almost everything I had done, none of the records came without a memory. Everything that had happened in the last five years rose like steam from a cup when I played a record, not in the form of thoughts or reasoning, but as moods, openings, space. Some general, others specific. If my memories were stacked in a heap on the back of my life’s trailer, music was the rope that held them together and kept it, my life, in position.
While not every reader can relate to the misadventures and angsty yearnings of a Scandinavian teenager beset by sexual agony, such passages return us to the intimate folds of Knausgaard’s universe and endear him to us anew. The book is rife with personal moments, as Knausgaard begins to explore his individuality and revel in his freedom outside of his hometown. His family plays a central role in the first three volumes of My Struggle, but they end up floating on the periphery of the narrative in volume four, which follows Knausgaard’s journey to teach at a school in a small remote town in northern Norway. During an extended flashback that unexpectedly overtakes the primary narrative and propels the reader into the recent past, details about the development of the Knausgaard family are supplied through a series of vignettes.
Though the narrator seamlessly emerges from the flashback, the effect on the reader is jarring and almost surreal, like shaking off a dream, and we are returned to a piteously hungover teenager who described his unrelenting morning sickness 268 pages before. A pattern of reckless behaviour emerges that reflects the ethos of Knausgaard’s adolescent attitude: 'Rock ’n’ roll!' Nevertheless, the sought-after solitude of Knausgaard’s childhood and of his eventual adulthood maintains its prominence in volume four and offers him an escape from social and familial demands. This is why the book’s title draws from a scene that occurs not long after the passage quoted above, once Knausgaard is left alone after a visit from some of his female pupils and one of his co-workers. Putting on one of his favourite records, he writes: ‘Slowly I began to move to the beat, a shoulder here, a foot there at first, then, after switching off the light so that no one below could see me, I danced away with my eyes closed and sang from the bottom of my heart.’ Unlike Nietzsche’s image of dancing in chains, the act of dancing in the dark represents, for Knausgaard, a private state of rapturous emotional and physical release and abandon in which past, present and future are woven together in the chords and harmonies of the music.
Writing occupies admittedly less space in the 18-year-old Knausgaard’s brain than girls, but it is a similarly potent source of anxiety and uncertainty. At the heart of his writing lies a stubbornness, a desperate existential need, and a vindictive ambition to prove his worth and ability. ‘I’ll bloody show the whole sodding fucking world who I am and what I am made of,’ he rants in an almost comedically dramatic internal monologue. ‘I’ll render every single one of them speechless...I’ll be so big no one is even close...I will be the bloody greatest ever...I had to be big. I had to be. If not, I might as well top myself.’ A large portion of the book is underscored by a comic tone, which gives way to total farce at the end. Throughout the narrative, Knausgaard’s failed sexual escapades build to a climax (pardon the pun) that is unceremoniously and inelegantly resolved. The hero has accomplished his foremost goal and achieved his desired state of happiness, and that is where Knausgaard leaves him, refusing to intervene once again and offer a more satisfying, meaningful 'literary' conclusion.
As for the conclusion of my story, what did I do when I found myself standing across the table from Karl Ove Knausgaard? I made a silly joke about the pink post-it note on which I had written my name (a system arranged by the festival staff in order to ease the signing process: not many brogues in Norway, I imagine). And what did he do? He chuckled, and I swear there was a glimmer in his eye, one that I can imagine dancing amidst the dark pupils all the way from boyhood, through adolescence and into adulthood.