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In the Land of the Cyclops

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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Knausgaard’s struggle is still ongoing with In the Land of the Cyclops as he continues to navigate the fjord of truth between reality and experience
“This, which we perhaps could call inexhaustible precision, is the goal of all art, and its essential legitimacy.”  —Jessica Ferri, The Los Angeles Times

In his first essay collection to be published in English, the New York Times bestselling author of the My Struggle series Karl Ove Knausgaard explores art, philosophy, and literature with piercing candor and remarkable erudition. 
Paired with full color-images, his essays render the shadowlands of Cindy Sherman’s photography, illuminate the depth of Stephen Gill’s eye, and tussle with the inner mechanics of Ingmar Bergman’s workbooks. In one essay he describes the figure of Francesca Woodman, arms coiled in birch bark and reaching up toward the sky—a tree. In another, he unearths Sally Mann’s photographs of decomposing corpses, so much so that branches and limbs, hair and grass, begin to harmonize.
Each essay bristles with Knausgaard’s searing honesty and longing to authentically see, understand, and experience the world.
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    • Kirkus

      October 15, 2020
      The acclaimed author of the My Struggle series offers essays on fine art, classic literature, and his own work. In this wide-ranging, sometimes labored collection, Knausgaard argues that art is at its most effective when it destabilizes our understanding of the world. Photos by Cindy Sherman that satirize the human body, for instance, grab the author's attention because they spark the same "discomfort, nausea, anger" he experienced while working in a mental institution. Similarly, the moody, provocative black-and-white photos of Francesca Woodman reveal the "constraints of our culture and what they do to our identity" while Michel Houellebecq's novel Submission succeeds because it suggests how easily disillusioned people might accept political upheaval, asking "What does it mean to be a human being without faith?" Knausgaard approaches his subjects indirectly, often bemusingly so. (How did we get from the northern lights to Roberto Bola�o's 2666?) The throughline is the author's keen, almost anxious urge to understand the artistic mind. He is fascinated by Ingmar Bergman's workbooks, how a simple jotting can expand into a classic film like Fanny and Alexander, and how Knut Hamsun's sensibility shifted over time. Knausgaard also gives his own work close scrutiny, celebrating the crucial role of editors and sounding boards in supporting his work and psyche--he reports that he read every word of My Struggle, some 5,000 pages, to a friend over the phone--and letting fly at narrow-minded critics who "can't handle ambiguity." The book's three translators all reckon with the author's rhetorical switchbacks and run-on sentences with admirable grace, though Knausgaard is at his best with a wide canvas. These pieces at times feel compressed and fussy, lacking some of the considered grace of his Seasons Quartet or the essayistic longueurs of My Struggle. Knausgaard's intelligence is on full display here, if sometimes in strained ways.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 30, 2020
      In this dense and thought-provoking essay collection, Knausgaard (My Struggle) once again displays his knack for raising profound questions about art and what it means to be human. While Knausgaard brings complexity to his studies of paintings and photographs, analyzing the function of myths in German artist Anselm Kiefer’s paintings and wondering “how are we to understand” Francesca Woodman’s mid-20th-century photographs, the essays pick up when Knausgaard writes about literature. Among the most successful pieces are “To Where the Story Cannot Reach,” which contains his musings on craft and his relationship with his editor (whom Knausgaard has “absolute trust in”); the title essay, which asks, “What is literary freedom?” when writers are told “what they should and shouldn’t write about”; and an exploration of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (“If were published today, there is no doubt in my mind that tomorrow’s reviews would be ecstatic”). In “All That Is Heaven,” he eloquently compares art to dreams, writing, “art removes us from and draws us closer to the world, the slow-moving, cloud-embraced matter of which our dreams too are made.” Though unevenly paced, the volume tackles knotty subjects and offers nuggets of brilliance along the way. These wending musings will be catnip for Knausgaard’s fans. Photos.

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