by Katherine Q. Stone
According to James Wood, The New Yorker literary critic introducing Karl Ove Knausgaard this afternoon, the first time the Norwegian novelist came to New York there were about twenty people at his reading. The room was filled with empty seats. Nobody even knew who Karl Ove was, much less how to pronounce his name. People got up to use the bathroom, they left before he finished reading. They didn't stay for the signing or for the question and answer session, though there was a signing and a question and answer session. Today, all of this seems unthinkable. Unless you become a wildly successful writer and are invited to an exclusive literary dinner at his house, chances are you're never going to have an intimate conversation with Knausgaard.
Now, several years later since those barely attended appearances, his notoriety has spiraled to near unmanageable levels. In July 2014, he gave a reading at the McNally Jackson Bookstore in New York City confronting the magnitude of not simply his success, but his outright fame. Anxious fans filled the entire downstairs area of the store hours before the event started. More chairs were brought in and bookshelves were temporarily relocated. People were happy to stand in the back and line up along the staircase. The cafe was overtaken, and a projector screen brought in so that those who couldn't fit downstairs would still technically be in the store yet watching a live feed as Knausgaard read just fifty feet away from them. Finally, the line wound out the door and around Prince Street. A similar process was repeated at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn a few nights later. Instead of existing on a "first come, first served" basis, Knausgaard's events have become ticketed, sold-out affairs where people's bags are checked and security guards have to escort him on and off stage.
This afternoon, he is a headliner at The New Yorker Festival, with Wood as moderator. The crowd to see Knausgaard is so enormous that the venue has been moved to an empty sound stage downtown in order to accommodate his disciples. It's clear that Knausgaard is no longer doing readings because he needs to sell books. So what then, is his motivation for taking part in this kind of idol-worship, for which he has previously expressed, if not outright disdain, at least a certain discomfort? Is he doing readings because people expect him to? Do readers feel they are owed it? Or do they come to these readings for an even more selfish reason -- because they see themselves in his work?
Having learned from the McNally Jackson fiasco, I bought my Knausgaard ticket for The New Yorker Festival the day they went on sale. I arrive at the venue early. Bespectacled Brooklynites wander down to the sound stage, sporting Fjallraven backpacks, wondering whether, like listening to the band you're going to see on the way to their concert, it's appropriate to be reading Knausgaard before a Knausgaard reading. This weekend is also Comic Con. Walking alongside them are hordes of squealing, over-excited costumed convention kids wearing rainbow wigs and carrying elaborate fake weapons they've spent months making. It's a carnival. We all feel the same gleeful anticipation -- the Comic Con people just don't care that it isn't cool to express excitement about what they're doing.
I claim my ticket, go through the obligatory shoving of a flashlight and thin wooden rod inside my bag, and grab a seat as close to the stage as possible. The finance lawyer I end up sitting next to eagerly introduces herself to me. After she compliments my jacket and alerts me to a Helmut Lang sample sale that she thinks I'd be "really into," I ask her about Knausgaard. She tells me she's "still on Book One, and loving it." Then she goes back to talking about the sample sale. I wonder if she'll ever finish the book, or if she's just here so she can tell people she's a member of the cult of personality surrounding Knausgaard. I picture her riding the train on the way to the sample sale, Starbucks in hand, glued to Knausgaard's descriptions of buying a scarf from H&M and thinking, "This is just so me."
A finance lawyer? I think, while she drones on about how she's "totally getting out of New York for the winter and going somewhere exotic and tropical, like Florida." What does she know about all this? Does she think Knausgaard is some kind of a commute read, worth plugging in her Kindle for? I wonder what her version of a Knausgaard novel would look like: descriptions of her arguing on the phone with a ticket agent for “killer seats” at a Maroon 5 concert and explorations of the great personal trauma of going up from a size two to a size four?
But that's the most appealing and the most dangerous aspect of Knausgaard's work -- his vivid depictions of ordinary life make everyone feel as though their story is equally as interesting, and their ability to tell it irrelevant. I look around. Someone is doing The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle. I should have sat next to that guy.
"Are you a journalist?" The finance lawyer asks me.
"Yeah, my editor sent me down here," I lie, figuring she'll never know the difference. "I'm also back in school, getting my MFA. So I'm juggling a lot right now."
What am I doing? This isn't me - or if it is, then I really hate myself. Why am I being so condescending, judging whether or not this woman is "qualified" to read Knausgaard and lying so I could feel superior to her? The people I want to like me, like the crossword puzzle guy, never want anything to do with me. I'm not cool. I don't read The New Inquiry. I can't hold conversations about Post-Structuralism. I'm not even entirely sure what Post-Structuralism is. I don't have a Fjallraven backpack, or even the requisite thick-rimmed glasses.
Still, the story I told her isn't entirely untrue. Perhaps because of how accessible Knausgaard's work (falsely) makes him out to be, I've brought with me a copy of the Norwegian issue of Fiction, a literary magazine I’ve conned my way into working on this semester. My professor and editor at the magazine wants me to see if I can get Knausgaard to consider speaking at the college or contribute a story to the next issue. I know there's no way I'll be able to reach him, and even less of a chance that he'll listen to yet another young kid pushing their work onto him, but I've brought the magazine figuring I'll at least have something to read. The fact that I didn't leave it at home suggests I'm holding out a sliver of embarrassing unreasonable hope. As the finance lawyer asks me what publication I write for, Knausgaard and Wood take to the stage (about half an hour late), saving me from having to falsify an allegiance to some made-up magazine.
It's a strange sensation, seeing in person for the first time a face you've seen only in photographs. He looks identical to the man on his book jackets, except now he is in color instead of black and white. Deep forehead wrinkles, shoulder-length wavy hair in various shades of grey, piercing blue eyes betray a deep sense of sadness, if not resignation. His sense of style has made him as famous as his books. He wears the obligatory zip-front black leather jacket, faded at the elbows and neckline. Underneath that, an almost unnecessarily thick sweater -- after all, this is New York, not the far north of Norway, and we're still having summer weather. He wears black pants that look painted on, revealing almost spindly calves. On his feet, his trademark black boots, heavily worn at the soles, covered in scratches and marks. This is the version of the man we all came to see. This looks like the man we know. All that is missing is his cigarette.
Cheers and applause as might be expected at a rock concert, immediately erupt. Critics often compare Knausgaard to a rock star, but his books reveal more about him than any ghostwritten autobiography of a celebrity could do. Knausgaard isn't happy to be here. He shifts in his vaulted white director's chair and resignedly pours himself a glass of filtered water. Shortly into the talk he admits that he hates doing publicity for the books. "But, here I am," he says with a heavy sigh, staring once again at his water glass.
Even Wood is caught up in Knausgaard's celebrity and whatever else it is about his works that make people feel as though they have the need to express limitless personal perspectives on his volumes. Wood is so obviously excited to have the chance to speak with him, he barely lets Knausgaard get a word in. I can't blame Wood. Everyone wants to write about themselves without being chastised for doing so, and even literary critics can't help offering mountains of ecstatic praise. When Knausgaard finally does speak, he repeats the same rote lines as he always does when anyone asks about the books and his process in writing them: "Quantity over quality...People won't talk to me...I have done a bad thing, but some good came out of it." I start to wonder if anyone is really listening.
During the precarious question-and-answer session, readers stand in line at the microphone, many with notes in shaking hands. Most of the young men who speak are eager to show off. Instead of asking questions, they give reviews and perspectives on his works while name-dropping "Nihilism" as many times as possible in sixty seconds.
Another man chastises Knausgaard, "You live so close to so many wonderful jazz clubs and yet never bother to step into any of them, let alone write about them. Why don't you like jazz?" The next person at the microphone says they live in Knausgaard's old neighborhood in Sweden, the subtext of which is that if Knausgaard ever finds himself back in Sweden, they really ought to have a coffee.
Wood closes out the discussion, thanks Knausgaard for coming, and the latter, flanked by two security guards, races offstage and flees behind the flimsy black curtain.
After the talk, I wait in line for the bathroom, feeling depressed about how depressed Knausgaard had seemed and wondering if Knausgaard had asked Wood to do most of the talking. I realize I've left my hat inside the sound stage. I smile. I have a reason to be let back into the theatre. Once I get past the burly security guards with their earpieces, I will see Knausgaard, engaged in conversation with his Norwegian friends, saying something like, "I'm so glad that's over" or "Tell me, how was I really?" I will pretend to know one of the friends. Then, I will tell Knausgaard that he and my professor have many mutual friends and that "Paul insisted I say hello and give you this" banking, for some reason, on him knowing a Paul. Then I'll give him the magazine and he'll invite me for dinner, which will lead to not just a story for the magazine, but a jealousy-inducing lifelong literary friendship. I'll be a regular at Knausgaard's dinner parties.
When I go to the table to make my case to the scrawny ticket agent, however, he says immediately, "This is your hat, isn't it?" They've probably encountered similar plans. How many people have tried to lure Knausgaard into conversation with the promise of a cigarette? Though genuinely an accident, I realize how it looks: The dumb blonde thinks she can worm her way back inside and attempt to seduce a happily married father of four.
I snatch the hat out of his hands, spit out an embittered, "Thanks," and turn on my heel to storm out. I see Knausgaard through the glass, standing outside, presumably trapped into an impromptu chat with fans while waiting for his poorly timed car service to arrive.
There are already several people surrounding Knausgaard, who looks to be in desperate need of a cigarette. Judging by the resigned and exhausted, but decidedly not angry, look on Knausgaard's face, they must be pitching him their novels, or talking about how they "really saw themselves" in My Struggle. His black-jacketed security guard stands close by, and I wonder, aside from J.K. Rowling, what other authors require so much security? Even Junot Diaz was only separated from an equally intense fan mob by a timid bookstore employees at his last reading.
The penalty for the kind of story Knausgaard tells is that its intimacy convinces everyone that they know him well enough to bother him. I watch him steel himself and pose for photos with fans that hold My Struggle: Book One up to his face, so that there are two Knausgaards, the one on the cover and the one in the flesh.
But as bad as I feel for Knausgaard, I still can't help myself. Once two wannabe Kerouac types release their grip on Knausgaard, I see my chance. Clutching the copy of the magazine, I push through the more timid fans that seem to be waiting for Knausgaard to bum a cigarette off them. "Make it quick! Let's go, let's go!" screams his security guard. I freeze, realizing that not only do I not have any idea what to say, I don't even know what to call him.
"Mr. Karl, I mean, uh, Mr. Knausgaard," I stutter, as he dutifully stretches out his hand to shake mine.
"Move along, come on!" The guard shouts again, though we've been speaking for less than two seconds.
In my terror, I ignore his handshake, don't mention anything about how much I love his work, or even that I've read it at all, and say simply, while his hand dangles awkwardly in midair, "This is our Norwegian Issue. It's uh, your friends, your colleagues, have written for us. I just wanted to give it to you."
"Come on!" the guard looming over me now barks. The guard is distracting, not to mention irritating. I am an entitled zoo visitor and incredulously angry that I've come the day the elephant is sick. After all, I've bought this guy's books. I've read them all, I've told people about how amazing he is. Don't I deserve at least an uninterrupted quarter of a minute, especially when I'm not even asking for an autograph or a picture? Knausgaard must sense my anxiety, though it cannot have been difficult. He winces at the now-deafening roar of the security guard. "Anyway, we wanted to give you this present, and to say thank you for your works," I pile my words on top of one another. I don't mention that I've scrawled a hopefully legible note on the inside cover with my professor's name and email address.
"OK," Karl Ove sighs. That's the only word he says to me, and it certainly doesn't betray any sense of enthusiasm.
Realizing he isn't going to say anything else, I say a final "thank you" and walk away, veering out into the street to avoid the security guard. As I head further south, I turn around to take one last glimpse at the crowd swarming around the Norwegian author. I wonder if our magazine is already inside a trashcan.
Later that evening, I comb through what the Internet has to say about the event. In the uploaded photographs of him with the fans, (one of which is captioned "Now it's our struggle") Knausgaard is grimacing, not smiling. His eyes give away his blatant desire to be anywhere but with the people who read his books. In professional photographs in international newspapers, his aloofness is alluring, he stares straight into the camera, the blue eyes doing their intense searing and searching. But in amateur photographs, those that end up on some young hopeful’s Facebook or Twitter, his eyes are downcast, expressionless. His forced, determined smile renders the whole thing eerie, especially in contrast with his fans who are radiant with joy.
To be fair, Knausgaard has ensured his own legacy, has told his own story, and has revealed more than most writers have about their own lives to the public. What more, really, could we want to know? Yet still paparazzi and fans follow him around and snap pictures of him running to the store to pick up milk and cigarettes. He never planned for that. He's taken countless prose, literature, and language courses, but no one has ever taught him how to pose for a photograph.
Is the man who has been labeled the Deity of Contemporary Literature, the guy who instead of being called self-obsessed, has made a career out of writing about his own life, now condemned to sit in his office for hours every day and fantasize about being able to run errands without being mauled by fans? Is it now impossible for him to revisit the everyday reality that had made him a star? And is that really what makes his work so addictive? Critics and readers forget that seething underneath Knausgaard's exploration of the ordinary is his own nightmare. People have become so fixated on the minute, everyday details within his writing that they often ignore the fact that the first book grew out Knausgaard's desire to come to terms with his upbringing, in particular, his troubled relationship with his father. It is this excavation of the darker parts of his life that invokes a shock of uncomfortable, but not undeniable, recognition within me. This is the part that we all recognize in ourselves: coexistence with our own miseries in the everyday. Has Knausgaard's success, his ever-growing audience of enthusiastic readers, helped him to move past the disturbing events he's written about? Or has the adoration of his audience, fascinated by the banal and mundane surface of these books, fixed him in the kind of future consciousness in which I saw him at The New Yorker festival -- basically speechless.
Katherine Q. Stone is originally from North Carolina and currently lives in Manhattan where she is completing her MFA in Creative Writing. She enjoys Yiddish literature and a good ghost story.