What is Karl Ove Knausgård’s struggle, exactly? The answer is simple: achieving total freedom in his writing. “It’s a space where I can be free in every sense, where I can say whatever, go wherever I want to. And for me, literature is almost the only place you could think that that is a possibility.”
Knausgård’s literary freedom paves the way for this conversation with Tyler, which starts with a discussion of mimesis and ends with an explanation of why we live in the world of Munch’s The Scream. Along the way there is much more, including what he learned from reading Ingmar Bergman’s workbooks, the worst thing about living in London, how having children increased his productivity, whether he sees himself in a pietistic tradition, thoughts on Bible stories, angels, Knut Hamsun, Elena Ferrante, the best short story (“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”), the best poet (Paul Celan), the best movie (Scenes from a Marriage), and what his punctual arrival says about his attachment to bourgeois values.
Follow Tyler on Twitter
More CWT goodness:
Jacob Mikanowski on Eastern Europe
Re-release: Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality
Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship
Lazarus Lake on Endurance, Uncertainty, and Reaching One’s Potential
Jerusalem Demsas on The Dispossessed, Gulliver's Travels, and Of Boys and Men
Vishy Anand on Staying in the Game
Celebrating Marginal Revolution's 20th Anniversary
Paul Graham on Ambition, Art, and Evaluating Talent
Noam Dworman on Stand-Up Comedy and Staying Open-Minded
David Bentley Hart on Reason, Faith, and Diversity in Religious Thought
Reid Hoffman on the Possibilities of AI
Noam Chomsky on Language, Left Libertarianism, and Progress
Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
Seth Godin on Marketing, Meaning, and the Bibs We Wear
Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity
Kevin Kelly on Advice, Travel, and Tech
Anna Keay on Historic Architecture, Monarchy, and 17th Century Britain
Jessica Wade on Chiral Materials, Open Knowledge, and Representation in STEM
Jonathan GPT Swift on Jonathan Swift
Tom Holland on History, Christianity, and the Value of the Countryside
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Navigating Life After 40
Teaching Learning Leading K-12
Regenerative Skills
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast