Norway

Karl Ove and me.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

The boy Knaussgaard definitely dun gud.

Have battered my way through the first two volumes of ‘My Struggle’, where he shreds and re-builds most concepts of art, truth, the human condition and that which is sayable. The word ‘compelling’ appears on both sleeves: it’s a word that might sound bland. Not here. I read these bad boys in a couple of days flat; almost impossible not to.

‘A Death in the Family’ and ‘A Man in Love’ are MASSIVE LITERATURE in the (classic?) sense of having tremendous envisioning scope, and also in terms of being unequivocally serious art. The clues are in the names – most obviously in ‘My Struggle’, which is of course a deliberately epic-sounding moniker designed to bounce through the generations. This is art with ambition (as well as scary North European normalcy), aimed at the peak, at the heart, at the authentically high and thoughtful but delivered via the contemporary and the everyday. As I say, I’ve devoured both tomes.

Now like every other schmuck doodler, and despite just diving in and never over-thinking, I’ve latched onto coupla things. Notably the fearlessness and the voice.

Knaussgaard is relentless and ruthless around honesty. This is his voice and we are compelled to believe it, for the execution, for sure – for its brilliance – but also the amorphous power, the urgency across the text. Something in the vividness and energy of the storytelling (is that what it is?) completely captures us.

His often challenging but crystalline worldview(s) will out, if you will, because he commits utterly and directly: meaning the kind of autobiography that smacks you in the face because of its combination of insight and what we might call observational truth. The fella is, as Geir remarks, an ascetic. He makes a brutally real record of things but also, critically reveals the soul – in the landscape, of the people. This is some achievement.

I have read nothing about Knaussgaard, deliberately, so far. I imagine his saying of the unsayable, for example, around caesarian births and the general liberalisation/’feminisation’ of cultures and the contempt in which he holds the Swedish worthie-intelligentsia fashionista-crew draws a heavy dollop of flak.

Maybe it’s too blokey – reactionary, even? I’m watching this… but currently in the These Are Important Issues We Must Be Able to Talk About camp. Plus he is of course right about the smugness of some of us liberals. And Knaussgaard is *at least* as excoriatingly critical of himself as of anybody else. The books are alive with opinion but too wise, I think, to document arrogance or certainty. He is observing meticulously and with vigour so as to find truth: at whatever cost.

On pages 496/7 of ‘A Man in Love’ the (ahem) *wild, hard-drinking Norwegian* writes about writing itself.

(*Absolutely in as a wind-up!* Wonder if the magazine interviews he so detests have ever described him that way?!? Anyway, onwards)…

I had increasingly lost faith in literature. I read and thought this is something someone has made up.

… the nucleus of all this fiction, whether true or not, was verisimilitude and the distance it held to reality was constant. In other words it was the same.

Knaussgaard goes on to say that he hated this sameness with ‘every fibre of his being’, because it had ‘no value’. I take this to mean that he felt it an inadequacy, a distraction, a betrayal, because art should or can offer more than this. (And Knaussgaard is unmistakably a serious artist).

I couldn’t write like this, it wouldn’t work… Fictional writing has no value, documentary narrative has no value.

Value lies in ‘diaries and essays… (which) just consisted of a voice, the voice of your own personality, a life, a gaze you could meet’.

He is talking about the direct way into truth that autobiography can proffer.

Now I am not a great writer – unlike my Norwegian brother, here. And I really don’t overthink these things: I just do. However forgive me if I did feel just a teeny bit vindicated by this argument for honesty-through-voice.

By accident this is how I’ve practised my own prattling for aeons. For always. Falling back on personal experience – the things I know and care about – because that way I might find some truth. Because I would know it was honest.

That’s as close as I get or as deep as I get into thinking about what I can or should write. Bottom line, do I know it? Can I be true? If so, all else is superfluous. Number of readers, quality of reaction, fear of judgement, all an irrelevance. I can absolutely park that suspicion that I may be a nobody and a laughing-stock as long as the voice in there feels authentically like mine. I can have some hope that things on the page, feeling genuine, can resonate, can have value.

Might sound ridiculous. To hear me paralleling-along with a properly magnificent tome (or six). But I have no delusions of grandeur, here. Neither does Karl Ove, although he plainly does have Literary Ambition. It’s just gratifying (is that too much?) to find that we share the wee recognition that maybe there IS something good about writing what you really know… in your own voice.

Postscript: in a not unrelated burst of wild confidence, Yours F Truly has landed on the notion that my vicarious upgrade via the Knaussgaard voice-authentification-assessment means I am well within my rights to claim that the Dots Will Not Be Joined/Beautiful Games constitutes a new art form, which I am happy to christen lolsobiography. I trust no explanation is necessary? The third volume in the series (of however many) is underway.

You have been warned.

Bronze makes it hers.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

So a great win then. White again looking a complete, all-round centre-forward, Bronze finally absolutely grabbing the game, England generally looking a better-drilled, more luxuriantly-equipped side.

Norway a tad disappointing, if we’re honest. The energy of Engen was again noteworthy, just more in the defensive gathers than any attacking forays. Graham Hansen, possibly the greatest talent in the tournament (and in that sense something of a loss as we reach the endgames) significantly underachieved, looked pained and rather petulant, at times.

Jill Scott won’t care. The Lionesses’ heart yet again beat out the rhythm of the performance, being irrepressibly ever-present once more but again without quite reaching her max in terms of accuracy. Look out France/U.S./Whoever, if Scott *really does* find her radar; her rather heeled-in goal last night was just reward for another nonstop effort.

Neville and his staff got most things right again: Greenwood had to be dropped, Parris and Kirby had to shake off their lethargy or nerves and make more telling, more impactful contributions.

The flying winger was instrumental in much of England’s goal threat but still flashed and flickered rather. (She also missed a second pen of the tournament – one which given her in-&-out performance, she might never have taken). Word is Parris a bit of a card, a bit of a ‘character’: my guess is that there’s a whole load of front there but some real insecurity beneath – hence the recurring mixture of brilliance and frailty. More arms-round from Neville may still bring out more of her best, more often.

Kirby likewise improved, whilst still seeming occasionally wasteful or simply unaware. However, she starts from such a high base that even a 78% performance was always going to embarrass Norway on the night.

Because Norway were exposed, rather than England, to greater effect, repeatedly.

Jonathon Pearce, in commentary got things about right when he suggested a 5-2 scoreline might have been fair – whatever that means. The team in red were pretty much swept away *but*… how they failed to register will remain a mystery.

Houghton is close to the best centre-half in the world: for most of the game she looked it and the central-defensive partnership with Bright was looking more imperious than not. Then came some moments.

Bright appeared to take some hallucinogenic drugs through the second half and her skipper may have dabbled. They were weirdly off it, for a while, in a way which inevitably drew comments of the “can’t do that against such and such” sort. True enough. On balance though, England coped, being better organised, more strategic everywhere, and they defended well enough.

Stokes at left back, in for the frazzled Greenwood, started well and without being flawless, looked strong and quick throughout. Indeed in the first period, defensive concerns for England came almost exclusively – but okaaay, still rarely – from the other flank. Parris repeatedly drifted from her defensive duties, allowing space towards that right corner flag. Norway might have profited.

After Scott’s early pass into the net, Parris put White in for a volley smashed against the far upright and also engineered the tap in for the ‘Lionesses’ Harry Kane’ – a name I’ve heard but wish I could erase from the memory. Could well be that Ellen White may finish up top scorer in this Women’s World Cup whilst actually playing well – something her male counterpart has thus far failed to do. 😉

If the general story is about England marching more convincingly on, the the headlines will and should be about Bronze. Famously, Neville has challenged her publicly to show that she may be the Best Player in the World. Privately, after another decent but relatively restrained showing against Cameroon, he must surely have reiterated or re-worded that challenge.

Maybe he said…

“Bronzey, how about bursting out a bit more? Can see you doing the mature, composed international thing and love that. But how about showing these fuckers that they’re not fit to be on the same pitch as you – that you’re playing a different game. Go grab that game – go make it yours. All of us in the camp know that you can do that. You know that you can do that. Get out there and make this World Cup yours!”

She has – or has started to. The surge in the third minute, to make Scott’s opening goal. The heightened, more positive display. The goal, a thing of real beauty and power, a cheeky, ill-read double-bluffing re-run of stuff Norway should have noticed earlier – a triumph both personal and collective, having been plainly rehearsed prior to and during the match.

Norway should have been ready but Bronze blasted their belated rush into oblivion. What a strike!

So 3 – 0 again. And a part-brilliant performance. Who next?

England really will fear no-one; the quality they have is beginning to shine through the team, as opposed to just via individual contributions in the moment. Only Duggan seems to remain palpably below her par. Such is that development, it could now be that remaining sides would choose to avoid meeting Neville’s Posse ‘til the final, if that were possible? Because they really are a threat.

But next up, Bronze goes home – to Lyons. Might that be a further spur towards something special? But who against, who might be least accommodating to those English Dreams? France, or the U.S?

If I were choosing, I’d play France, anyday. Even with the possibility that they might ride the crest, they are less controlling, less controlled, less consistent. Great potential but so far a lot of waste, too, from the hosts. Let them have a night to remember and a staggering, exhausting extra-time win tonight… and let Lucy Bronze dispatch the French later.