When I write something, I can't remember in the end if this is a memory or if it's not - I'm talking about fiction. So for me, it's the same thing.
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
Form is, in a way, death. A novelist's obligation is to break free from the form, even though he knows that this will also be seen as artificial and distanced from life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artistic form can restrict creativity, and true expression often requires breaking away from traditional structures.
In this quote, Karl Ove Knausgård discusses the tension between artistic form and genuine expression. He suggests that adhering strictly to established forms can lead to a kind of 'death' in artistic creation, as they limit the artist's ability to convey real life and emotion. By advocating for freedom from these restrictions, he acknowledges that this struggle may result in art that feels artificial or disconnected, yet it is a necessary pursuit for authenticity.
Themes
ArtFormCreativityExpressionNovelist
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on creative writing, to highlight the struggle between structure and free expression.
More from Karl Ove Knausgard
All quotes →In my experience, when you're writing, you want the truth, and you don't want to be apologetic in any way. But there is something in writing, the complexity of it, that works against that aim.
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
I'm giving away my family's story. Who owns the family's story? I don't. But you could turn it around and ask, 'Who is to deny me to write my family's story?' I have hurt people, but I don't think in a dangerous way. But you can't tell.
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
I guess I have a talent for humiliation, a place within me that experience can't reach, which is terrible in real life but something that comes in handy in writing. It seems as though humiliation has become a career for me.
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
When I wrote my fictional novels, they always had a starting point of something real. Those images that are not real are exactly the same strength and power of the real ones, and the line between them is completely blurred.
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
I do feel guilty. I do. Especially about my family, my children. I write about them, and I know that this will haunt them as well through their lives. Why did I do that to them?
Karl Ove KnausgardRead
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