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Karl Ove Knausgård

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Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 Hardcover – 5 Mar. 2015

by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Author), Don Bartlett (Translator)

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Book 4 of 6: My Struggle

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18 years old and fresh out of high school, Karl Ove Knausgaard moves to a tiny fisherman’s village far north of the polar circle to work as a school teacher. He has no interest in the job itself – or in any other job for that matter. His intention is to save up enough money to travel while finding the space and time to start his writing career. Initially everything looks fine: He writes his first few short stories, finds himself accepted by the hospitable locals and receives flattering attention from several beautiful local girls.

But then, as the darkness of the long polar nights start to cover the beautiful landscape, Karl Ove’s life also takes a darker turn. The stories he writes tend to repeat themselves, his drinking escalates and causes some disturbing blackouts, his repeated attempts at losing his virginity end in humiliation and shame, and to his own distress he also develops romantic feelings towards one of his 13-year-old students. Along the way, there are flashbacks to his high school years and the roots of his current problems. And then there is the shadow of his father, whose sharply increasing alcohol consumption serves as an ominous backdrop to Karl Ove’s own lifestyle.

The fourth part of a sensational literary cycle that has been hailed as ‘perhaps the most important literary enterprise of our times’ (Guardian)

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Book 4 of 6

My Struggle
Print length

560 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvill Secker
Publication date

5 Mar. 2015
Dimensions

15.93 x 4.85 x 24.03 cm
ISBN-10

1846557240
ISBN-13

978-1846557248
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Review

"A living hero" (Jonathan Lethem Guardian)

"A work of genius" (Ben Lerner London Review of Books)

"Fires every nerve ending while summoning in the reader the sheer sense of how amazing it is to be alive" (Jeffrey Eugenides New York Times)

"Beautifully human... Being drawn into his world is an ineluctable pleasure" (Melissa Katsoulis The Times)

"It has strong claim to be the great literary event of the twenty-first century" (Guardian)

"Why would you read a six-volume, 3,600 page Norwegian novel about a man writing a six-volume, 3,600 page novel? The short answer is that it is breathtakingly good and so you cannot stop yourself, and would not want to" (New York Times Book Review)

"It's unbelievable...I need the next volume like crack. It's completely blown my mind" (Zadie Smith)

"Perhaps the most significant literary enterprise of our times" (Rachel Cusk Guardian)

"Knausgaard perfectly captures the heady mixture of elation and confusion to be found in late adolescence... My Struggle remains addictive, intensely funny and intensely serious. Like the young man here portrayed, it is "full to the brim with energy and life"" (Times Literary Supplement)

"At the end of this bittersweet stint in the far north, translated again with both dynamism and delicacy by Don Bartlett, the last track invoked happens to be that talisman of the late John Peel: “Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones. For all its manic overdub of detail, Dancing in the Dark delivers a knockout kick" (Boyd Tonkin Independent)

"The narrator may be intellectually earnest, an aesthete who mediates on the sublime, but he is also a hapless fool, prone to Chaplinesque pratfalls. In exposing himself as a bundle of contradictions, Knausgaard allows us to see ourselves...it works wonderfully well" (Blake Morrison Guardian)

"If the function of literature is to take you out of your own life and involve you in someone else’s then My Struggle is literature…gripping" (John Carey Sunday Times)

"The most appealing in the series so far" (Daily Express)

"Irresistible" (Financial Times)

"If you have read the first one, you will need to read on – and you shouldn’t stop reading until the end" (Toby Lichtig Literary Review)

"So intense, so passionate and so compulsively readable" (Malcolm Forbes Glasgow Sunday Herald)

"An elegiac kind of comic novel, and it is pure Karl Ove Knausgaard" (Dwight Garner New York Times)

"Addictive" (Moira Hodgson Wall Street Journal (Europe))

"His work is transformative: to read it is to experience his life alongside him…. To read it is also to feel more human, more certain of what is means to be alive… It’s a brilliant depiction of an intense, philosophical and provocative young man" (Joanne Hayden Sunday Business Post)

"[Knausgaard] writes a clear prose that transforms ordinary events, detailing the span of his life with such directness that everything seems to be happening in real time" (Rodney Welch Washington Post)

About the Author

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s first novel, Out of the World, was the first ever debut novel to win the Norwegian Critics Prize and his second, A Time for Everything, was widely acclaimed. A Death in the Family, the first of the My Struggle cycle of novels, was awarded the prestigious Brage Prize. The My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvill Secker; First Edition (5 Mar. 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846557240
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846557248
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.93 x 4.85 x 24.03 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 192,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 449 in Fatherhood (Books)
- 1,126 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
- 22,423 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Karl Ove Knausgård

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Karl Ove Knausgaard’s first novel, Out of the World, was the first ever debut novel to win the Norwegian Critics’ Prize and his second, A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven, was widely acclaimed.

A Death in the Family, the first of the My Struggle cycle of novels, was awarded the prestigious Brage Award.

The My Struggle cycle has been heralded as a masterpiece wherever it appears.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

907 global ratings

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JaketheDax

Dancing in our mind

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 January 2017

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Knausgard is tremendously honest. He bares all the demons, inconsistencies, failings and holds them up for us to share. I am not sure if I sympathise with Karl Ove throughout the series or whether I see everyman in his thoughts and actions. I am certain that his books are compelling, imbued with the authentic touch of a man who has sifted his actions and wants them to be weighed.

Of the four books I have read thus far, this is the most interesting. Dealing with his first experiences as a teacher at the age of 18, Northern Norway and its social claustrophobia are as much a character as anyone. I have spoken to my friends about these books. On many counts they are books that I wouldn't/shouldn't enjoy, that I should put down in boredom - the fact that everyday actions or indeed inactions are so fascinating is almost entirely allied to the fine prose style and honesty I mentioned earlier. I thoroughy recommend this novel and it's predecessors.

2 people found this helpful

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William Jordan

volume iv of Knausgaard' life dealing with the years from 16 to 18

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 June 2015

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Very much as in earlier volumes, Knausgaard gives us initially the start of his experience teaching as an 18 year old in a school in Northern Norway, moves back to his experiences at school himself and reviewing records and his family experiences with his mother and father (now separated) and his grandparents as a 16 and 17 year old, then returns to the narrative of his year at school and completes it.

As in earlier volumes, he paints an uncomfortable self-portrait. As his father starts to descend into alcoholism, he too is having a problem with binge drinking (severe enough for his mother to temporarily throw him out of the family home after a party he has unwisely held there, trashing the place) and is careless with money (spending money his grandparents have given him to pass on to his brother as a Christmas present, for example and being - perhaps accidentally - banned from visiting them for sponging off them too much). That said, it remains exceptionally vivid and searingly honest and altogether compulsive reading.

And the US edition remains, as in earlier volumes, a pleasure to read.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

The extraordinary, profound yet mundane epic of Knausgaard's life ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 November 2015

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The extraordinary, profound yet mundane epic of Knausgaard's life continues with this exploration of his year teaching in northern Norway. What a privilege to delve into a man's whole life, and how fearless is he as a writer and human being to share his life with the world in such a brutally honest way. A gripping, life-enhancing read. I am now counting the days until the English translation of Book 5 appears in April 2016. In the light of thousands of German holidaymakers flooding to Cornwall inspired by Rosamund Pilcher's books, how long will it be until the Norwegian Tourist Board promote a Karl Ove Experience tour? So addicted am I that I have considered learning Norwegian....

One person found this helpful

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Joey Dean

Not so good.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2015

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Not the best of the series so far, in fact I am struggling to finish it. It's mainly about Karl's late teenage experiences and I think he could have usefully left more to the imagination. It's somewhat self-indulgent to expect the reader to be interested in the most intimate of personal detail. Some things you really don't need to know, and it puts you off the writer as well as the writing. Still, I will no doubt attempt the next one when it comes out in English, just in case it's as good as the first two.

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terence dooley

better and better, this fascinating series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 March 2015

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Certainly we can mention Proust again, because Knaussgaard's struggle is a towering achievement by any measure. In this volume I was reminded of Rousseau's Confessions, such honesty, such embarrassment and shame as few people admit to, and yet this is a genius who increasingly is realising his own power. We are lucky to have this vivd literature about his place and time, so different from, so simiolar to our own, and we have it through Don Bartlett's excellent translation, which hardly ever draws attention to itself. Only 2 things struck me as a bit absurd in the translation.
We don't talk about 'deciduous trees' in a description, nor 'low-pressure systems'. We talk about birches or oaks, and clouds or grey skies.

One person found this helpful

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Rob Peach

The 4th instalment of Karl Ove’s 6 volumes keeps the quality going.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2019

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Quite the most gloriously self- indulgent yet engaging books I have ever read. The author really captures the growing pains and agonies of a growing adolescent 18 y o and in his first job (as a teacher).
Knausgaard describes those agonies very well, especially the self-enveloping urge to drink vast quantities of alcohol, then the sexual encounters that were over rather too quickly for the partners in question!

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Sailor_Pete

Well written but a bit slow

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 October 2020

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Knausgaard's trademark is the feeling that he's writing about the reader's youth as much as his own, and this book is no exception. He's a real craftsman in his writing (hats off also to the translator) but, as always, the narrative is a bit on the slow side. Now, a while after reading all the "My Struggle" books, I have difficulty remembering which bits came from which books.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 May 2015

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Well now I have finished readying number 4 , I can now get my life back and begin to read other books . Why is it so compelling to read Knausgaard when he describes such minute details ; I ate an apple , I went for a walk , I did absolutely nothing . Zadie Smith is right ; these books are a drug , only now I will have a long long wait for the next book . Hurry up with translation , I cant wait . These are marvellous memoirs.

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Robert S.

As good as the previous three

Reviewed in Canada on 18 October 2020

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Read one popular reviewer saying this book was weaker than the others; I disagree. A great chronicle of an 18yr old’s year in far-North Norway, filled with the same wonderful character and insight as his previous volumes.

Kristin EBBESEN

Limpio

Reviewed in Spain on 5 February 2022

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su escritura límpia tal como un pintor impresionista

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Customer

Highly Personal and Brutally Honest

Reviewed in the United States on 4 May 2015

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As in his other volumes, Mr. Knausgaard writes in a clear, brutally honest and extremely personal way of his life. This volume covers ages 16, 17, 18 and a few months into age 19. Like others his age, his goal is to get laid and get drunk, and he describes these in a very direct, personal way. Although written when the author was 40 years old, he has an excellent memory and manages to capture the intensity of the feelings when one is young and many things are being experienced for the first time. At one point he mentions Hemingway as a writer he is trying to emulate, and he does. His writing is Proustian only to the extent that he writes a lot and covers small details. Unlike Proust the writing is clear. I'm referring to the translation, of course, since I can't compare it to the Norwegian original, but the translator, Mr. Bartlett, has an excellent command of English language, syntax, grammar, vocabulary. I am somewhat picky but was pleasantly pleased at how well written the book was.

Since My Struggle is autobiographical, there is no real plot or ending; the books end at a convenient break point, in the case of Vol. 4 at the end of the school year which he has committed to teach in a small northern Noerwegian hamlet.

Though Vol 4 stands on its own, if you are new to My Struggle I would suggest you read the books in this order: Vol. 3 (Childhood to age 13,) Vol 4 (this one, ages 16-19.5) Vol 3 (married with young children and Vol. 1 (death of his father.) Knowing his background helps to better understand him. Of course, I read My Struggle in the order in which the English translations were published (1,2,3, 4.)

15 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 6 November 2015

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Haven't read yet but love the whole series

Basil Porter

One either adores or abhores Karl Ove. I fall ...

Reviewed in the United States on 2 October 2017

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One either adores or abhores Karl Ove. I fall into the former camp. His style of exquisite detail of descriptions, together with his total self exposure, resonates with me and I devour every word, never skimming a page. A definite "how to write" your autobiography from early childhood. I cannot believe he really remembers all those details, but somehow it doesn't really matter.

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Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 Hardcover – 5 Mar. 2015

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