I've chosen to weave a strange caduceus using Knausgård's towering multi-volume magnum opus that he claims to be autobiography and Proust's towering multi-volume magnum opus that he claims to be fiction. Knausgård nods his head to that similarity in the early pages of My Struggle as he mentions looking back and remembers having read In Search of Lost Time in his youth. As a result he's put something strange and magical into the world. And he's managed to place it in a strikingly similar place in the literary world to ISoLT. Just go to any bookshop and you'll see nearly an entire shelf dedicated to My Struggle as well as In Search of Lost Time.

But what a clever inversion that Knausgård is able to effect in pursuit of similar goals. He and Proust both want to investigate memory. In order to do that they both have to lead us down a meandering dreamlike examination of their lives. The detail that they both build and the confidence with which they both steep us in the banality of life is so beautiful and reflexive as we read. But the clear difference between the two is Knausgård's stated aim at a non-fiction autobiography juxtaposed with Proust's intention to create a novel. Knausgård writes an autobiography that can't help but be fiction and Proust writes a novel that can't help but be autobiography.

I think the explanation for this flip comes from Knausgård's choice of a title. "My Struggle" can't help but evoke Hitler's autobiography of the same name. An odd decision for a person who doesn't seem to share any other interests with the man (at least after 400 or so pages into his life). But I believe he makes an allusion that holds the key to this decision. Early on in My Struggle Knausgård references the fact that when a history is lost or misremembered, people often simply invent their own history to achieve political or imperial goals. Perhaps the title of this epic is a self-loathing nod to his pursuit of goals that he judges harshly.