Karl Ove Knausgaard

:00:00. > :00:00.planned ahead for the next two years. Now on BBC News, it's time

:00:00. > :00:35.for Talking Books. Hallow and I am at Hay festival for

:00:36. > :00:39.a special edition of Talking Books. Among one of the surprises of recent

:00:40. > :00:44.years is the Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard, who has been

:00:45. > :00:47.compared to Marcel Brewster. He has written over 3000 pages and six

:00:48. > :00:55.volumes on his life AT says this isn't a memoir but fiction. It is

:00:56. > :01:01.called My Struggle, Min Kamp in Norwegian. It's full of the everyday

:01:02. > :01:04.banalities of life. Existential crises and a series exposition on

:01:05. > :01:10.Adolf Hitler, the nature of good and evil and death.

:01:11. > :01:22.Welcome, let me start by asking you about the distinction between the

:01:23. > :01:27.memoir and the novel. The first three in English at least are

:01:28. > :01:37.marketed as a novel. Is it a novel or a memoir? For me it was a novel.

:01:38. > :01:40.I use all of the tools as a novel and it's not an autobiography

:01:41. > :01:45.because I'm not interested in representing my life, I'm not

:01:46. > :01:52.interested in telling stories from my life. That's not the point of it.

:01:53. > :01:58.This is much more using my life as war material and searching for

:01:59. > :02:06.something in my life. I'm searching for the dot. Searching to understand

:02:07. > :02:12.the times I am living and it is also an existential search. It didn't

:02:13. > :02:17.start out as such a huge project, it started as something very small. Me

:02:18. > :02:24.sitting alone in my room, trying to write a novel about my father and

:02:25. > :02:28.failing and failing and failing. The frustration over writing a novel

:02:29. > :02:32.about your father or even wanting to write a novel about your father came

:02:33. > :02:38.from what impulse? Because you hadn't written about anything that

:02:39. > :02:42.came even close to an autobiographical book in your first

:02:43. > :02:46.two books. They were completely different. Just explain why writing

:02:47. > :02:51.about your father was something he wanted to do. When I wrote my first

:02:52. > :03:03.novel, it was going to in 1998, and it was almost ready for

:03:04. > :03:07.publication. Then my father died. I realised I wrote this novel for him.

:03:08. > :03:19.I didn't know when I wrote it but that is what it was. Then he died,

:03:20. > :03:20.died of an alcoholic, it was a terrible place where he died. We

:03:21. > :03:26.went down there and find that the house where he grew up that it kind

:03:27. > :03:32.of looked like a place for junkies, totally miserable, everything. I

:03:33. > :03:39.couldn't figure out why I couldn't identify with this. It was an enigma

:03:40. > :03:45.for me. Why did he do with? I think you wanted to die, basically. How

:03:46. > :03:53.come? And then I could identify with him. I had of related frustration. I

:03:54. > :03:56.felt alienate it, I felt like a let another man's life. For the first

:03:57. > :04:03.time in my life I could identify with him, realising he was a human

:04:04. > :04:08.being, he was just like me. Is that when he became a father? Back

:04:09. > :04:15.exactly. That was the starting point for the novel. `` exactly. Also,

:04:16. > :04:20.this is the story of my life and everybody has one story in their

:04:21. > :04:23.life and I really wanted to tell it. He has been dead for seven, eight

:04:24. > :04:33.years and this is a time to do it. But I couldn't. I couldn't find a

:04:34. > :04:38.way into it. Then I started to write about myself, secrets I had never

:04:39. > :04:45.told anyone about betrayal, about doing things you shouldn't and I

:04:46. > :04:50.said it to my editor that he said it was like a manic confession. I think

:04:51. > :04:56.he was shocked but there was enormous energy in it and I think

:04:57. > :05:00.that's because I... I try to please people, want to be kind, I want to

:05:01. > :05:07.be good and I always wanted to please my father. That was one of

:05:08. > :05:10.the key things in my life. And then I ripped all of that aside and was

:05:11. > :05:21.doing something completely different. In the first book, the

:05:22. > :05:26.first 20 `30 pages are absolute examination of death. It is possible

:05:27. > :05:32.that the opening is the reason why, as were less what happens in the

:05:33. > :05:37.rest of the three books, you've been compared to Marcel Brewster. Because

:05:38. > :05:43.although you try and tell a story that has a Libyan narrative, you are

:05:44. > :05:48.very discursive. `` Proust. You talk about your feelings about nature,

:05:49. > :05:55.your member of painting and what it felt like to stand in front of a

:05:56. > :06:02.Turner. All of these renovations suggest that this is not just a

:06:03. > :06:07.memoir by this is an endeavour that is designed to help not just you

:06:08. > :06:12.understand the world but for us as readers to understand ourselves. ``

:06:13. > :06:21.all of these ruminations. I wonder if that was something he thought

:06:22. > :06:28.might be the result? No, not at all. One of the things that is necessary

:06:29. > :06:33.to write is that all of those self`criticism is or the notion of

:06:34. > :06:36.somebody reading it, the notion of whether it is going to be imported

:06:37. > :06:40.for someone, you have to get rid of that because then you are... That

:06:41. > :06:46.you are doing something, not pretending, but... It's too

:06:47. > :06:52.self`conscious? Back yes and you have to free yourself from that.

:06:53. > :06:57.That's the problem with writing. With myself, writing is better now

:06:58. > :07:02.and naive and all kinds of things. `` banal. If I had this notion of

:07:03. > :07:08.this being imported to someone else, I would have tried to be clever. I

:07:09. > :07:15.would try to write a proper novel, right? Is imported. You have to get

:07:16. > :07:22.into a kind of... To be free. It wasn't writing as therapy? There was

:07:23. > :07:29.no cathartic notion? No way. It was the opposite. The writing process

:07:30. > :07:37.was about selflessness, if you read a very good book you disappear for

:07:38. > :07:40.yourself. That feeling, it's a fire inside of you. You don't know why

:07:41. > :07:48.because there's no thought involved, just feeling. And emotion. The

:07:49. > :07:54.second I realised writing is like reading then I became a writer. I

:07:55. > :08:00.was 27, 28 years old and I remember it very clearly. I wrote something

:08:01. > :08:05.unexpected and it didn't come from my thoughts or anything. Where did

:08:06. > :08:10.it come from? From experience of reading, watching films, all of the

:08:11. > :08:15.cultural things that are inside a bus. That's not buy property. ``

:08:16. > :08:20.inside of us. If you can free yourself from that, I will make

:08:21. > :08:27.something, these things come pouring on the page. It's really strange

:08:28. > :08:35.because it should be about me at in the end it isn't. `` art in the end.

:08:36. > :08:38.Even if it didn't wanted to be, it inadvertently becomes about the

:08:39. > :08:44.readers as well. Yes, and I didn't know that. I was so amazed when that

:08:45. > :08:48.happened, that people relate to it, cause I honestly thought that even

:08:49. > :08:53.my friends wouldn't be interested in this book. And then people started

:08:54. > :08:59.to connect to it, started to identify with it and contacted me.

:09:00. > :09:07.And all kinds of people. A woman who is 90 Age who wrote me letter. ``

:09:08. > :09:12.who is 90 and Britney. They do talk about literature, that's not their

:09:13. > :09:17.agenda. I'm not their agenda. They want to talk about their lives. You

:09:18. > :09:25.contend that this is a novel. The protagonist in all of the books is

:09:26. > :09:30.Carl. The people aren't disguised. Your wife, your second wife, window,

:09:31. > :09:35.is in the book. Your first wife who you betray is in the book. Your

:09:36. > :09:40.father is in the book. Your mother and father are in the book. Your

:09:41. > :09:43.grandmother is in the book. All of these people are named. If it's not

:09:44. > :09:48.a memoir, what is your responsibility to these people? What

:09:49. > :09:54.went through your head in terms of the ethics of the project, the

:09:55. > :09:59.endeavour, as against the feelings of the people who for the most

:10:00. > :10:08.part, presumably, loved you and love them? `` you love them? When I

:10:09. > :10:10.started to write it I didn't think of the consequences and I didn't

:10:11. > :10:20.think of this really as being published. I have a kind of autistic

:10:21. > :10:26.part of me that makes it possible to do this without thinking of the

:10:27. > :10:34.consequences. So, I wrote the first novel. But I am decent and I

:10:35. > :10:38.realised they have to read it, the people over at about, sites `` I

:10:39. > :10:44.sent the manuscript to everybody and I got the reactions back and all

:10:45. > :10:49.hell broke loose. I understood what I have been doing, I realised it,

:10:50. > :10:54.and it was extremely difficult. It was like hell. It was a moral

:10:55. > :10:58.dilemma. I couldn't find a solution. What I'm basically saying to those

:10:59. > :11:04.people is that my book is more important than your life. And you

:11:05. > :11:09.can't say that. That's to say. But it was a choice you make. Place you

:11:10. > :11:15.said, I'm a good person. `` twice. So, setting back against the choice

:11:16. > :11:19.you did make, even if you didn't set out to have the book published, the

:11:20. > :11:24.decision in the end to have it published was presumably yours

:11:25. > :11:33.alone? How do you explain the tension between those things? It was

:11:34. > :11:41.a struggle. There was a crisis. I was discussing with my friends and

:11:42. > :11:45.my editor. In the end, the solution for me was to turn it around. The

:11:46. > :11:51.cost of controversy was about my father, revealing his story. ``

:11:52. > :11:55.because the controversy. I turned it around and thought, who can say that

:11:56. > :12:01.I can't write about my father? Who owns the story to my father? When I

:12:02. > :12:05.thought of that, I thought, OK, he is my father and I have a right to

:12:06. > :12:09.tell this story. And I have a good relationship with almost everybody

:12:10. > :12:14.in the book, except basically from my father's family. And I totally

:12:15. > :12:27.understand why they don't want anything to do with me.

:12:28. > :12:33.I don't think it is a spoiler, in the first book, it is not entirely

:12:34. > :12:39.clear why the relationship with your father is difficult. He is clearly

:12:40. > :12:44.distant and a hard taskmaster. It is not entirely clear how he treated

:12:45. > :12:49.you that might make you feel very unhappy in your relationship with

:12:50. > :12:55.him. The second half of the first book is how it is translated in

:12:56. > :13:07.English. It is called My Struggle, but it is called a Death in the

:13:08. > :13:11.Family. It is a more exposing track on how it is to be a son, because

:13:12. > :13:15.you discovered how your father lived for the last ten years of his life.

:13:16. > :13:20.He became an alcoholic, living with his mother, and the house you went

:13:21. > :13:27.to clean after his death was full of urine soaked sofas, excrement, piles

:13:28. > :13:30.of rotting clothes, bottles of alcohol everywhere. And your

:13:31. > :13:37.grandmother, also, was complicit in this. The rawness of this story and

:13:38. > :13:40.your description of it, I can understand exactly why your

:13:41. > :13:44.father's brother would not be happy with it. But this idea of owning a

:13:45. > :13:49.story I think is a really interesting one for a writer, a

:13:50. > :13:56.novelist. Why is it so important for you to feel that this is yours and

:13:57. > :14:03.nobody else is to tell `` nobody else's to tell? Because you give

:14:04. > :14:07.other perspectives, as well. Everybody can tell whatever they

:14:08. > :14:14.like, but they can't say no to my story. They can't say, you are in no

:14:15. > :14:21.position to write this. What they did was saying not only you

:14:22. > :14:28.shouldn't tell this, but this isn't true, it didn't happen this way. I

:14:29. > :14:35.started to wonder if it really happened, or did I exaggerate it,

:14:36. > :14:39.did I make it more dramatic for the purpose of the book? Maybe I did, I

:14:40. > :14:47.thought. I called my brother, and he said, I'm not sure. We were both

:14:48. > :14:51.shocked when he was there. It was a terrible moment for me, because I

:14:52. > :14:58.have said that this book is the truth, that is what it is about, it

:14:59. > :15:02.is about my life. I certainly used the story of my father to become

:15:03. > :15:07.more interesting myself, before I wrote the book. It is something I

:15:08. > :15:12.did and felt very bad about afterwards. I am interested in my

:15:13. > :15:21.father, and this happen to him. Then, I found a letter from one of

:15:22. > :15:25.the medical teams who was there, and I De Marchi said he just sat down

:15:26. > :15:30.and started to read a book at the house, and I remembered I was there.

:15:31. > :15:40.`` she said she had just sat down and started to read the book. That

:15:41. > :15:48.you hadn't exaggerated it? No, that it was worse. Then, you start to

:15:49. > :15:53.think about recollection, memory, everything is frail and difficult to

:15:54. > :15:58.pin down. That is what I am looking for, the complexity of things. I am

:15:59. > :16:02.interested in the way I remember it more than the way it actually

:16:03. > :16:05.happened. People have also written letters to me and said, it didn't

:16:06. > :16:13.happen that way, you have to change it. But I won't change it, because

:16:14. > :16:18.the whole idea is... You remember little mundane things, like one

:16:19. > :16:24.situation where she was peeling potatoes, your mother. Or she really

:16:25. > :16:27.peeling potatoes? This idea of the unreliable narrator, which is very

:16:28. > :16:41.common in fiction, it comes to the fore. I wonder what you make of

:16:42. > :16:48.being compared to Proust, because in one case it can be a huge accolade,

:16:49. > :16:52.but also a huge burden. When I first heard it, it is a contradiction in

:16:53. > :17:04.terms. A Norwegian Proust, that is impossible. For me, I am a great

:17:05. > :17:11.admirer of Proust. I read his books when I was 25, and two years later I

:17:12. > :17:15.managed to write my first novel. I kind of talk is literally language,

:17:16. > :17:25.swallowed it, and then wrote a novel without knowing it. My first novel

:17:26. > :17:32.is really in`depth into Proust. This one is sophisticated. Everything is

:17:33. > :17:38.brilliant and well composed, and I think it is the best novel ever

:17:39. > :17:45.written. I did kind of the opposite, I just write in a rush, I don't care

:17:46. > :17:50.about details, it is only about the essence of getting someone else, and

:17:51. > :17:56.everything is a storm of words. No revision? You don't go back? No, I

:17:57. > :18:02.haven't. It is very unsophisticated. At the end of the

:18:03. > :18:06.project I felt sorrow, because why didn't I slow down, try to make it

:18:07. > :18:14.better, try to make a really good novel? Now it has blown, I can't do

:18:15. > :18:18.it again. This is it. You sustained that ought of the rush of words and

:18:19. > :18:23.wanting to tell the story of Marie period of 3600 pages. That is a long

:18:24. > :18:28.time to sustain, this has to do is come out, rather than thinking as a

:18:29. > :18:33.writer. Because you were a writer before that, you are a novelist. Why

:18:34. > :18:38.resist the temptation to revise? It is a method. It is a method to get

:18:39. > :18:47.somewhere you normally don't get to. Speed is the key for me. No

:18:48. > :18:51.thinking. You can't think when you are writing, I can't think when I'm

:18:52. > :18:56.writing. No concepts. The irony of this is that the third and fourth

:18:57. > :19:00.book did very quickly, and I thought, I wasn't free at all,

:19:01. > :19:08.because they use them. I used forms from... Existing forms. The

:19:09. > :19:10.childhood memoir, and so on. It is impossible to break free of

:19:11. > :19:16.everything, but that is the method, to write quickly. In the journey of

:19:17. > :19:22.trying to be, not the best perhaps, but a good, decent person, you

:19:23. > :19:29.expose a huge amount of humiliation for yourself. You open yourself to

:19:30. > :19:34.incredible shame in a way that I think would surprise even the most

:19:35. > :19:40.open person. Even anybody who would say, I don't mind what people think

:19:41. > :20:03.about me, IMS, I am that, except me as a. `` I am this. `` accept me as

:20:04. > :20:06.I am. My whole life is about what to the people think of me, and I am

:20:07. > :20:10.very much manoeuvring around, because I have no self`confidence.

:20:11. > :20:16.It is very important to me what other people think, and I had to get

:20:17. > :20:21.rid of that in the book. It was very hard, but it was possible because I

:20:22. > :20:28.wrote without somebody looking. I could do it, I was all by myself. In

:20:29. > :20:32.the fourth book, which hasn't come in English yet, there is the most

:20:33. > :20:37.embarrassing episode in my whole life. I never told anyone about it,

:20:38. > :20:40.and it has to do with sexual shortcomings, which is the most

:20:41. > :20:49.embarrassing thing, and I came to that point. OK, they have to deal

:20:50. > :20:52.with this. And I did, I wrote it down, and called my friend, and read

:20:53. > :20:59.it out loud to him. He was just laughing. And I put it in the book,

:21:00. > :21:05.and now half a million Norwegians know of my sexual shortcomings, but

:21:06. > :21:11.I can't think that thought, and I don't. For me, this is literature,

:21:12. > :21:16.and it is connected to my study, and that is it. Let me bring it back to

:21:17. > :21:21.you personally. You have four children, so you are a fully fledged

:21:22. > :21:25.father, completely engaged in their lives. It is clear from the books

:21:26. > :21:29.you have written that one of your struggles was to be a father and

:21:30. > :21:39.present. I wonder what relationship you would want them to have the

:21:40. > :21:48.books you have written. `` to the books you have written. From my own

:21:49. > :21:58.life, from my own experience, I think I first started to understand

:21:59. > :22:03.my parents when I was about 14. I think there could be protesting

:22:04. > :22:07.against it, the angry against it, and that is a natural thing. It is

:22:08. > :22:18.like I have been stealing something from them. I could see it as that,

:22:19. > :22:21.and I am probably taking something away from them, but I hope the

:22:22. > :22:33.perspective that I am giving something to them as well. I am an

:22:34. > :22:41.old father, I will probably be dead by then. Almost all the time I am

:22:42. > :22:46.thinking about that. We have run out of time, but I hope you will all

:22:47. > :22:53.join me in thanking Karl Ove Knausgaard.