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:
Alain Bertaud on Cities, Markets, and People
Samantha Power on Learning How to Make a Difference
Hollis Robbins on 19th Century Life and Literature
Masha Gessen on the Ins and Outs of Russia
Kwame Anthony Appiah on Pictures of the World
Neal Stephenson on Depictions of Reality
Eric Kaufmann on Immigration, Identity, and the Limits of Individualism
Hal Varian on Taking the Academic Approach to Business
Russ Roberts on Life as an Economics Educator
Ezekiel Emanuel on the Practice of Medicine, Policy, and Life
Margaret Atwood on Canada, Writing, and Invention (Live at Mason)
Ed Boyden on Minding your Brain
Emily Wilson on Translations and Language
Raghuram Rajan on Understanding Community
Sam Altman on Loving Community, Hating Coworking, and the Hunt for Talent
Jordan Peterson on Mythology, Fame, and Reading People
Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama on *Persecution and Toleration*
Larissa MacFarquhar on Getting Inside Someone's Head
Rebecca Kukla on Moving through and Responding to the World
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