The New York Times Book Review - Siri Hustvedt
…an elastic exploration of Munch that combines three elements, each of which is freely woven into the text: details about Munch's life and painting; the writer's private and public experiences with the art…and finally, philosophical musings about art and literature…Knausgaard's ambition is to whittle away at the legend to arrive at insights about the genesis of the art itself, and not only Munch's art, but all art…Knausgaard never underestimates the painter's labor and study, and this book stands as a sincere, often lyrical and penetrating attempt to enter the world of another artist.
Publishers Weekly
11/26/2018
Norwegian modernist painter Edvard Munch, whose masterpiece The Scream is one of art’s best-known depictions of an unhinged psychological freak-out, is a prosaic yet mysterious figure in this knotty aesthetic-biographical study. Norwegian novelist Knausgaard (My Struggle) ponders many Munch paintings (he includes reproductions), delves into his lonely life—the deaths of family members in early life left him gun-shy about relationships and perpetually alienated, Knausgaard writes—and conducts lengthy interviews with artists about Munch’s influence and legacy. The results are uneven, by turns illuminating and obscure. Knausgaard’s analysis of The Scream shows how it evokes a world subsumed in a crazy, distorted perspective without any sane vantage point to shelter viewers, an example of Munch’s ability to visually capture emotions. Often, though, Knausgaard lapses into murky art-crit pensées, as in his assessment of The Sick Child as “a picture which at one and the same time comes into being and is destroyed.” Knausgaard inserts his own droll, hang-dog psychic travails—asked to curate a Munch exhibition, he feels like a failure for showcasing subpar paintings—as a much-needed relief from high-falutin’ theory. Unfortunately, his sometimes turgid and baffling passages on the art exemplify how difficult it is to convey in words the visceral impact of images. Photos. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
“Fans of the author's acclaimed autobiographical novels will find this book to be of Rosetta Stone-like importance as he delves into Munch's exploration of memory and how the artist rendered the past in a way that still feels both intimate and universally relatable . . . An immersive, impassioned history that illuminates both subject and author.” – Kirkus, starred review
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-11-07
Although a fine primer on Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944), this book is more about the experience of wandering into the world of art and being consumed by its confluence of history, narrative, and sublimity.
Munch, who created more than 1,700 paintings, is the perfect match for the prolific Knausgaard (My Struggle: Book Six, 2018, etc.), who teases out a history and critical reading of the artist that resonates with his own literary work. Fans of the author's acclaimed autobiographical novels will find this book to be of Rosetta Stone-like importance as he delves into Munch's exploration of memory and how the artist rendered the past in a way that still feels both intimate and universally relatable. Munch was a painter of the realm between depiction and feeling; his work simultaneously re-creates a representational vision along with the emotions associated with those memories. "The space in which the story unfolds is as important as the story," explains the author. Munch's paintings capture both a likeness and an essence and are often imbued with inescapable themes of longing, nostalgia, and anxiety. His work "invites reflection about what painting meant" to him and prompts contemplation on not just the depicted image and the artist's history, but the empathetic connectivity between the two. Knausgaard admits he is not "in favor of a biographical approach to art," and it shows: He jumps among paintings, biographical fragments, and interviews with other artists with disregard for traditional narrative flow. A section following the author's curatorial foray at the Munch Museum is followed by an interview with filmmaker Joachim Trier. This all may seem baggy and misdirected, but it is in fact appropriate when discussing Munch, who saw patterns in his own chaos and assembled a body of seemingly-unrelated work into what became known as his celebrated "Frieze of Life." Knausgaard's chaos, too, finds a striking vitality.
An immersive, impassioned history that illuminates both subject and author.
