My Struggle #5: Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Knowing there was only one more book left for me to read in Karl Ove Knaugaard's addictive series, I enjoyed fully immersing myself in the sensory world he so lushly describes. Often, I sat reading with a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee, sandwiched between cozy blankets while submitting myself to the pervasive darkness (both literal and figurative) that permeates so much of the book. I also let Karl Ove play the deejay for me. As he was constantly in and out of record shops as well as working at times reviewing music, the mention of late 80s/early 90s bands throughout the book was extensive. Taking this as a cue, David Bowie, XTC, The Sugar Cubes and The Waterboys were just some of the records I used as a soundtrack to transport me back to this time.

There were storylines that brought us back to familiar characters - his disintegrating relationship with his unpredictable father, his comfortable relationship with his reliable and loving mother and Yngve was present again, this time in quite a prominent role, as the two brothers were now in the same city of Bergen where Karl Ove moved once he'd gained acceptance at the Writing Academy there. There were lots of secondary characters, mostly fellow workmates or writers, but also some important women - the most notable being both Gunvor and Tonje with whom he shared his deepest and longest-lasting romantic relationships to-date. It was gratifying to see this turn in his life away from the awkward, fleeting encounters of his teenaged years to these more complex, committed adult relationships in his early twenties.

Also familiar was Karl Ove drowning his feelings of self-doubt while drinking to the point of blackouts. He experienced cringe worthy stomach-churning dread whenever he'd wake up from these overindulgent nights on the town that would last for several days. Though he always found the brief flashbacks and fragmented descriptions of what may have transpired unbearable, it was as though he had no self-control in this area and kept repeating the pattern. Unsurprisingly, this led to quite a few regrettable decisions, all of which compounded his already bad self-esteem.

But, really, the main focus of My Struggle #5 - the elusive string barely tethering Karl Ove to what he believed to be his true destiny - was his writing life. When Karl Ove was accepted into Bergen's Writing Academy, he went into the course believing himself to be a writer - it was his calling, it was all he wanted to do in life. So imagine his shock and disappointment when instead of being the star pupil, his work was characterized as immature, cliché, and juvenile by his fellow students. Never mind that he was the youngest in the program, never mind that he had less life experience from which to draw, ignore the fact that we can see, in retrospect, that he could grow and would soar in the literary world a few years down the road. Karl Ove took it all to heart and felt like a complete and utter failure. His sole desire was to be a literary fiction writer. Not a reviewer, an essayist or an academic. What frustrated him to his core was that it was the one type of writing he didn't seem to be able to produce. His frustration was all-encompassing. He would write for months on end, only to have a few sentences to show for it. He couldn't come up with ideas or didn't write about what he knew best or just couldn't seem to tap into one particular line that would lead itself into another and another and produce an actual story worth sharing with the world. Adding to his frustration were the successes many of his colleagues achieved, getting their writing published while he couldn't seem to fulfill his own burning dream.

Of course, from our vantage point here in the future, we can see that he's done it - that it all worked out for him in the end. That his first published novel would go on to win a prestigious Norwegian writers' prize and that the cover of this very book is bannered with "The International Literary Phenomenon" right there for all to see. But that's why this series is so addictive. Life is not just made up of major crowning moments and glittering achievements. It's both the ups and the downs that form a life. Karl Ove splays his whole life on the page: not just the good times, not just the moments where he shines brightly, but all of the horrible, messy, embarrassing character-building moments. He's sinks to the lowest points where he wonders if he can even go on, but I'm so glad he did. He may have struggled to tell a story worth reading in his younger years, but thankfully that struggle slowly waned and in its place were a whole cache of stories just aching to be told.

Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez

It's always interesting reading a book that's set in an area that's familiar. While this isn't exactly the case in that I'm only aware of Scarborough by name and knowing it's located fairly close to where I grew up, it felt fitting that I read the back half of this book while on a train heading to Toronto. Gazing intermittently through the window at the passing landscape, much of which was marked with graffiti, felt appropriately fitting if one were to pair a view with a book. The neighborhood of Scarborough is the setting of this book, more specifically the most rundown, inner city area of Scarborough. We are shown this city mainly through the eyes of three families who live there, as well as some peripheral characters whose presence reinforces the economic, social and diverse climates that are in constant tension. The characters we meet are struggling in every way possible. They're living in low-income housing or shelters, fleeing abusive relationships and/or drug abuse. They're culturally diverse families who are tied together not only in their poverty-level status, but more positively through the Ontario Reads Literacy Program, a community centre located within the children's elementary school. This centre plays a large part in the book, as does its new Program Facilitator, Hina, an eager woman who clearly cares deeply about the families who come to the program. Though for doing so she often receives passive-aggressive disapproval from her supervisor, Hina follows her heart and provides a warm, welcoming place for the kids and their parents to obtain resources, much-needed food and anything else they need - basic help that many of us take for granted. While there wasn't necessarily a grand storyline per se, there were definitely common threads and intertwined characters that formed a cohesive unit. The book felt like more of a snapshot: a year in the life of each of these struggling families, the different depictions provided to us via the personal experiences of the young school kids and their parents. We meet Laura and her former skinhead father, Cory, who has a lot of anger issues and residual opinions from his youth. Sylvie, a Native girl, is the sister of a Johnny who has special needs. She lives in a shelter with her parents who are trying to cope with an accident that left her father paralyzed. Sylvie is also friends with Bing, a flamboyant Vietnamese boy who is happily supported by his hardworking mother Edna. Hunger is a central theme of this book. Not only physical hunger - though literal hunger is certainly persistent throughout the novel - but hunger to be seen as a person and not just a cultural stereotype, hunger for proper healthcare and decent housing. Hunger for a better life. The book demonstrates that no matter our circumstances, we're not all that different from each other if only we show a little empathy. Kids will be kids: they are, for the most part, understanding, forgiving and resilient. And parents, despite their income, their pasts, no matter how the outside world perceives them are, for the most part, trying their best with what they've got to provide the best for their children. Shortly after finishing this book, I pulled into the Toronto train station. Did it make me want to stop in Scarborough to see it for myself? To be honest, no. But did it make me contemplative and grateful for my mostly easygoing childhood and sympathetic to those not as fortunate? Absolutely. And, as a parent, it reinforced that if we were all a little more empathetic, understanding and a lot less quick to judge, we're all really a lot more similar than we might appear at first glance.

My Struggle #4: Dancing in the Dark by Karl Ove Knausgaard

The back of this book asks, "Why would you read a six-volume, 3,600-page Norwegian novel about a man writing a six-volume, 3,600-page Norwegian novel?" and my answer is because I can't NOT read it. Because it feels like Karl Ove Knausgaard is speaking directly to me. Because out of these 3,600 pages, not one of them is sugarcoated, sterilized or bent into a form that makes the author appear anything other than what he is: complicated, self-deprecating, conceited, embarrassed, talented, anxious, fallible. This series is an x-ray of a human life: it's unedited, bare, and unfiltered. It shows us that life is messy. That life is hard. That some days we achieve the highest of highs and we're soaring and some days we faceplant.

This book makes the carefree nostalgia of youth come alive and brought me straight back to similar escapades I was enjoying at the same age. At the same time, it reminds us that life is a series of conundrums, and that the teenage/early adult years are really nothing close to carefree. That at the age of eighteen, every thought we have about love, career prospects, freedom, and how we're perceived by others is thought out, replayed, examined and pored over on an infinitely looping, exhausting mental reel. Karl Ove's eighteenth year is pretty typical in this way. It's steeped in hormones, blackouts, first jobs, friends and parties. And girls. Lots and lots of girls.

Although we are essentially following a placeholder year in the author's life when he's moved away from home for the first time to a small town, Halfjord in Northern Norway, teaching for a year while saving money to travel and become a writer, we spend a considerable time (as in the previous books in the series) detouring down memory lane, immersed in several adventures from his youth before drawing us back via the scenic route to complete the circle.

In Dancing in the Dark, we see a revolving cast of characters come in and out of Karl Ove's life. Once again, we are in the shadow of a dark, distrustful and increasingly distant father who is losing himself in alcohol. We cling to an older brother who is a support system and an everyday hero to his younger brother. We witness a cherished mother who is scraping by in a newly single life, sturdy but weary. We hang out with fellow teachers, we meet nosy neighbours and self-assured students. But the main attraction is the girls. They are the brightest stars of the peep show of Karl Ove's life here. Older women, younger schoolgirls, fellow teachers, lusted-after friends, one-night stands, unrequited love, girls who want him, girls who don't...Karl Ove seems drawn to nearly every single one of them. He is absolutely girl crazy, with a near-obsessive focus on losing his virginity. Once again, through his unique lens, each moment of his self-loathing, his conceit, and his experience is uncomfortably palpable. He brings us along for every starkly awkward conversation and fumbling encounter. Whenever failure presents itself, whenever Karl Ove wakes up with only shards of embarrassing memories to puzzle over, whenever he's rebuked or rejected, we hold hands and leap with him straight down his ever-present shame spiral. His words are mirrors reflecting back the same complicated feelings we've all experienced ourselves at some point. 

The backdrop of much of this book is the misty, dark winter of Northern Norway which, in a book where perfection is nowhere to be seen, actually reflects the author in such a perfect way. The twenty-four-hour winter darkness mirrors Karl Ove's blackouts. The hanging thick mist, his hangovers. The rushing water, his pulsing, racing heart. The dark, rough edges, the boys; the quiet beauty, the girls. The village of Halfjord is so tiny that whenever Karl Ove leaves his house, it's as if the eyes of the entire village are upon him. We, the readers, are drawn in so close to his world that we feel like one of the neighbours. Karl Ove is the magnet and we are the iron filings that are swept up by him as he walks past us on each page drawing us deeper into his stories and his psyche.

Karl Ove's world is all-encompassing. His life's story is compelling, truthful and laid bare for the world to see. It's honest writing at its purest. It's about the extraordinariness of ordinary life and trying to figure out what it all means. His books are about real moments, human elements, fumbling, tears, laughter, life. Karl Ove is unique unto himself, but at the same time, he is all of us. He's just brave and unfiltered enough to lay it all down on the page.