Knausgaard and the two Struggles

At about the half-way point through the monumental My Struggle : Book 6 Karl Ove Knausgaard goes off on one of his by-now famous digressions, this one an examination of Hitler's book, also called My Struggle (what a coincidence), a digression that I believe continues for several hundred pages! Why does he do this? First of all let's get this on the table: neither this book nor KOK are in any way apologists for or acolytes of Hitler. kOK makes it clear that his interest in Hitler, sparked when he was in middle school or high school, was his reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. In adult life he orders a copy of and reads Hitler's two-volume work, and he seems to be fascinated by the anomalies of h's early life, puzzled by the idea that this seemingly ordinary and somewhat artistic young man could become the most hateful human being of the 20th century. To try to make sense of this horrendous anomaly he engages in a close reading of Hitler's work, along w much commentary by various historians on the life of H. KOK brings to this work the same obsessive attention to detail and nuance that earlier in this book he brought to a reading of Celan's poem about the Holocaust. I suspect part of this Hitler digression is to show how different his own books are from the AH Struggle - in which that odious man tells remarkably little about his family, friends, inner life, and personal experience. Also, it's a bit of a thumb in the eye of any readers who questioned his use of this highly fraught title. Well and good - but why would I want to read this material? I would like to see all memory of Hitler wiped from the earth, and especially from serious literary fiction. Would any editor have allowed the author the leeway for this digression in any other work? But here we are in book 6, we've traveled this far w KOK, so maybe he's earned the right to say whatever he wants. Ok - but readers, too, have rights - and I'll say right here, as a huge fan of Knausgaard, sorry pal you've lost me and I'm jumping ahead to the end of this section and won't read another word by KOK on this topic.

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