What Is Great Lit? Is It Really Marcel Knausgaard?

Certainly democracy is the great leveller. Reading anything is better than reading nothing. If it's point-and-shoot or apes reality TV, how can it be great art? For the few people with "strong opinions" about such things (I suppose I'm one of them), the world is drowning in kitsch.

And yet: the times they are a changin...

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Peeting essentials: a good cup of coffee and maple scone (in lieu of madeleines and tea); some reading apparatus (paper or Kindle); something good to read (Kafka's Trial will do). Before I get started, I look at a message from Amazon (something I rarely do, as they're usually just pushing more of what I've recently chosen myself--in this case Thomas Bernhard--or something I have little interest in). Knausgaard (a name I've never heard of) is linked to Bernhard (and, after a series of clicks and glimpses: to Proust).

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I'll reserve judgment (for now) and let the pot simmer. Maybe eventually I'll sample more (what I read didn't come close to the poetry of Proust).

Anyway, here's one naysayer I kicked up:

 http://sandberghans.blogspot.com/2014/06/to-knausgaard-or-not-to-knausgaard.html

And here's William Deresiewicz's article which Sandberg's blog references:

http://www.thenation.com/article/179853/why-has-my-struggle-been-anointed-literary-masterpiece?page=full#

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