A Death in the Family

Title: A Death In The Family
Author: Karl Ove Knausgaard
Language: 2/5
Content: 3/5
Overall: 5/10

I believe that a critically acclaimed book has to either use language very successfully or the content has to be strong. With an autobiography, often the focus is on language. This seems to be the case with 'A Death in the Family' but if so it is poorly implemented.

The autobiography at times almost seems like a detailed collection of random memories. It's as if you are reading someone's diary where every day has been written down in incredible detail. So it goes, a collection of memories that seem to have no importance or connection to each other. Other than the fact that every tiny detail is mentioned, the language is unremarkable. It lacks a flow which other books are often acclaimed for. An example is the following paragraph:

'The next morning I dropped by my grandparents', ate fresh rolls with them, then went to town, bought three records and a big bag of sweets, a few music magazines and a paperback, Jean Genet, Journal du Voleur. Had two beers while watching a televised English football match, one more while showering and changing, another while smoking the last cigarette before going out.'

Maybe the tempo was lost in translation and maybe if I had read the book in its original Norwegian I would have understood what all the hype is about but that doesn't really seem to be the case as the English translation also has many positive reviews.

Eventually, in the second half of the book, the writer loses his father. This is an opportunity for the writer to talk about his emotional journey- a change in content for the book. However, this also doesn't happen. We are left to read about his father's death and the funeral arrangements in an incredibly detailed yet non-committal language.

It may be that I have failed to grasp an experiment that the writer is conducting but this is what I know: I have struggled to read through this book and I am miffed that I bought vol. 2 as well as I can't see myself reading it in the near future.