I’ve read three volumes of My Struggle so far, and I’m almost certain that I like Vol 2 the best. I hate comparisons of My Struggle to Proust because they always end up being purely superficial, but I’m going to make another superficial comparison for reasons that I hope will be evident: I kind of liken this volume to the second volume of Proust. Nine out of ten people adore Within a Budding Grove the most of all volumes of Proust because it’s the love volume. Proust is using all of his talents to describe love at its most rapturous and incandescent phase, and he’s processing it through his own memory, which of course makes it even more romantic and memorable. Not to mention, love stories tend to make for great narratives, another thing that makes the second volume of Proust much easier to read and more memorable than other volumes. There’s a certain sort of immediacy there that’s hard to match with any other kind of story.

Even though I would never compare Knausgaard’s prose or aims, or well, just about anything he does, to Proust—I’m not trying to be judgmental or elitist or say one is better than the other, I’m just saying that they’re not very similar except superficially—I think the deal with Vol 2 of My Struggle is much the same. After all, the subtitle is “A Man in Love.” This is the story of Knausgaard falling in love with his wife, and, well, it’s quite amazing. Knausgaard’s description of being carried away by a romance must be experienced! It alone makes the book stand out from the rest of the pack for me. More.

See: Three Percent

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