Our Struggle: Reading Karl Ove Knausgård’s Min Kamp

Abstract

A extensive (11,700 word) roundtable discussion edited and revised for scientific publication: the authors consider the sometimes-frustrating but immersive experience of reading Knausgård's Min Kamp, its relation to modernism, postmodernism, banality, contemporary social media, and essayism, its relation to Northern European culture and "Norwegian-ness," Knausgård's portrayal of male identity, his extensive analysis of Hitler and his book, and its rhetorical significance during a period when many of the rhetorical moves described there are mirrored within the rhetoric of contemporary right-wing extremism.