Some Rain Must Fall

Karl Ove Knausgaard

What do people talk about when they talk about Karl Ove Knausgaard?

I’m on the phone to Jonny Landau in Jerusalem – a summer’s day. I ask him about the latest Knausgaard, Some Rain Must Fall, the one I haven’t yet read. Was it good as the last one? ‘Not as good!’ he says, ‘But anyway, Knausgaard is a genius. He’s done something totally new. There’s Philip Roth. He did something new. And now there’s Knausgaard.’

So those two writers belong together?

And here I am on Christchurch Hill with David Landau. It’s a winter’s evening and we’re heading to the Duke of Hamilton – and talking about Some Rain Must Fall.

Jonny, David and I are a Knausgaard circle.

‘There was a bit that reminded me of you,’ says David. But I never get to learn what bit! The conversation carries us away. ‘I had this realisation,’ says David, ‘I’m not like Knausgaard! That was it! And it was amazing. It was a relief. Knowing I didn’t have to go through all that!‘

I think he means go through all that emotionality – or that obsession with describing the world. But do those two things really go together? Or are they just a coincidence in Knausgaard?

I know what reminded me most of me. It was the bit where Knausgaard realizes that no job he took – and however high he rose in it – could possibly fulfill him as much as writing. I once reached the same conclusion about medicine. That I’d rather fail as a writer than succeed as a doctor. What a formulation! And yet I stayed in the clinic.

David seems to believe that, for all the brilliance of his writing, Knausgaard is basically an asshole. But I cannot get my head round this. OK, here is a guy who can cut his own face, who can cry his eyes out over a rejection – a guy who goes on alcoholic sprees and remembers nothing afterwards. Yes, he often acts like an asshole – but does that make him one?

And if he is an asshole what does that make me? I’d have to be an even bigger asshole than Knausgaard.

There again, here’s a guy – Knausgaard – who can walk away from a woman he loves and not think about her again. This is something different – what he calls the “piece of flint” in his soul. ‘And that was how I left Bergen,’ he says – the last line of the book. Stunning! But so weird!

The book is full of insights, and since the subject is becoming a writer, the insights are riveting. ‘You can write whatever you like,’ Knausgaard discovers, ‘so long as you make it interesting.’

Now I’m at the Gypsy Queen in Gospel Oak. I’m with Pat Turner’s friends Ben the Museum Guy and Tom the Artist – and with Tom’s girlfriend, Juliet the Bookseller. ‘I recall you’re big into Knausgaard,’ she says. Yep, I sure am. And dying to discuss Some Rain Must Fall with someone. ‘But isn’t everyone discussing it?’ she asks. Well, maybe in her world – maybe in the book world – but not in the world of psychiatry. Come to mention it, Tom the Artist hasn’t read Knausgaard either. As for Ben, he may have read a third of the first book – enough to propel him deep into discussion – but he hasn’t read the oeuvre. I say, ‘I’m kind of proud to have read these books. It takes a bit of work. It’s not like putting on a box set of DVDs.’ ‘But that’s exactly what it is like,’ Juliet replies. ‘They go down so easy.’

Here I am at David Kuper’s birthday party, nattering with Mieke – inevitably about Knausgaard. Mieke hasn’t read him but, always responsive, she finds a connection: Elena Ferrante. Then she mentions Philip Roth. ‘Roth’s just so interesting,’ she says. Yes! He’s one of my favorite authors!

Mieke reaches out a long arm and draws in my uncle Richard. Has he heard of Knausgaard? At first it appears not. He looks puzzled – this reader of books, this founder of Pluto Press – and even worse he looks bored (always my fear with Rick). Then he recalls Knausgaard’s co-ordinates in the universe of books. Oh yes! But what’s to say?

Anna and I are visiting Anna Broadhurst and her husband, Pete the Group Analyst. I like them both. Have they read any Knausgaard? No, but they’ve heard of him – he’s the stream of consciousness guy, right? (Well, not exactly.) And have I read any Elena Ferrante? (Yes, The Days of Abandonment.) You should read the Neopolitan trilogy! (I’ve tried.)

To answer my own question, when people talk about Knausgaard, they talk about housework, alcohol, deliberate self-harm, and Norway; they talk about fathers, mothers, brothers and lovers; they talk about the definitions of an asshole – and about what makes a great writer. Mostly, though, they talk about Philip Roth and Elena Ferrante.