Watching this review is one of the best things I have done. Because it got me to buy the series, which has been the greatest reading experience I have ever had.
I don't come to Better Than Food to kill time, I don't come for entertainment, I don't even come for Cliff Sergeant's dashing features. I watch these videos to have my own thoughts and feelings expressed by another in a way that I couldn't possibly have seen myself. Time after time Cliff will describe a situations or an emotion that I have felt myself with pinpoint accuracy. I have the same memories of my own father (who I am happy to say is still with us), even down to the dashboard lights and street lamps flashing by in the car at night, reminding me of times I have spent talking with my dad, both happy and sad. Clifford Lee Sergeant is the American Clifford Lee Sergeant; there is and can only be one.
Don't know how much you're into Japanese literature, but if you haven't read A Personal Matter or No Longer Human, I think you would love those. Both have this kind of horrible beauty and nastiness. Both are extraordinary autobiographical fiction.
Picked this up today and didn't realise that you had covered it before, now i'm even more excited to start reading it. Great contemplation, thanks again!
I feel as if I've seen everything on TH-cam that I like and don't have a channel that has well made content anymore, then Better than food always comes out and it's the shit.
I can't thank you enough for this review. Ever since I saw this review and picked up the first volume of My Struggle, it really helped as an aspiring writer. Awesome work. Thank you again!
Fantastic review and interesting reflections. Very brave to review a book which must have been very emotional for you. Is that whiskey you are drinking in the video? 1 thing though - I think you meant humility rather than humbleness.
I dunno if it's intentional or not, but the ambient hums and the muffled sounds of passing cars really do add weight to this. It's half the reason I stuck with the entire video.
What you said about envy and not making it, or being too late, is my greatest fear as a wanabe mathematician who hasn't done anything, unironically pretentious and just recently hit a year-long burnout from school going from to top straight to the bottom.
Just finished reading this. It's a great review of a brilliant (unique and insightful), beautifully-written book, indeed. Thanks for your review that helped me to get some takeaway feelings or thoughts from it.
Excellent review. I'm in the middle of book two and it's quite good. By the way, I'm a big fan of your videos. After I watched your review on Under the Volcano, I went out, bought a copy and read it within a month. It's probably one of my favorite books I read this year and it's all thanks to you. Have you read Thomas Bernhard? I'd like to know your thoughts on him. I recommend either The Loser or Correction. Keep up the good work.
+Better Than Food: Book Reviews Yes, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Bernhard. I recommend (also) the Looser, Extinction, and my personal favorite, Yes. I bet you like it. It's incredible.
That was a fantastic review! It really does the book justice. And that's a very rare thing. I didn't like the majority of reviews that are out there, but this one is incredible. Thank you, Cliff.
Hello! After this video, I'm wondering if you've ever read Proust. I absolutely would love to watch a review of Proust from you. I really enjoy your channel, thanks!
The fuck-all of doodlebob actually sounds great, like some weird ass nobility title. Also glad to know I'm not the only one who fucking hates these little wheels.
"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." - George Eliot, 'Middlemarch'.
Great and insightful comments. I just finished Book 5 myself. So far, Book 2 is my absolute favourite in the series and maybe the best contemporary literature has to offer at this moment in time.
I'm from Denmark, and I read this monstrous novel series in Norwegian a few years ago, and it has just stock with me. Knausgaards way of writing is just so human. I feel like that is the best way to describe it, anyway. Anyway you got a new subscriber.
The impoverished masses feel the weight of the world invariably cutting into the marrow of their existence, and all they know is one thing. It is better to have wheels. ;)
I loved My Struggle (Book 2 especially). I also love French literature, and there was a time when I couldn’t get enough of the usual names, some you’ve reviewed - Houellebecq, Genet, Sade, Huysmans. But, I’d like to recommend something that for me, has changed how I look at all literature, and one I’m sure you’d enjoy. François-René de Chateaubriand’s The Genius of Christianity. This book is like a hammer that smashes all these other books and names into nothing. By this I mean, after reading this masterpiece by Chateaubriand, I realized how these authors are almost infantile in their work, in comparison. These more topical names are good for cutting the teeth, but this Chateaubriand is the real meat, as they say. I know, how could anyone make such a claim? Trust me. Read it. There’s no looking back.
+Jared Rose Chateaubriand lack imagination and authentic writing skill, also he's concerned with politics and religion in a way that it just too tightly woven with he's times and We kinda moved on, at least a little bit. In he's autobiography there are some interesting psychological insights about general human condition - like for example in Pascal or Montaigne but not much else. I can't even consider him a writer, more like some commentator, certainly nothing in the league of juggernauts like Sade and Huysmans.
I must ask a favor. Being someone who has been trying to get deeper into literature, still being young, I want to ask if you have a few books that would be great to begin with. Books that are often mentioned and referenced in other famous works. I've read Borges and David foster Wallace, but often they are over my head. I would love to re-read them with some other works under my belt. If you have any recommendations I would really appreciate it.
This is so well-written, so beautiful. I couldn't relate to it, though. I'm not sure if relating is the goal of literature, but I couldn't understand most things Karl wrote. I'm gay, I don't want to have children, I'm not like him. I read this book when I was eighteen years old. Perhaps it wasn't the right timing.
By the way, I'd receive messages of a new upload of yours and kind of get disappointed when I realized that it wasn't a review of Knausgaard's book. I really wanted to know what you thought of this book. Now I know. Great.
We're all so utterly unique yet so utterly similar. Yet most of the time we overlook both these realities. Not trying to undermine what you said at all but just felt I wanted to respond and share. Take care (mean it)
Envy and self doubt. Have you thought about the fact that partial failure is unavoidable in any endeavour toward the sublime? But that also implies a partial success. Everyone is frustrated on this planet. Even the people we envy.
At 13:15 you are at a colossal loss for words and you've got a perfectly stunned look in your eyes. You are lost. You have been snowed under by K.O.K. and you didn't even know what hit you.
Since you seem to like Knausgård's writing I would reccomend you to check out an another big Norwegian Writer called Stig Sæterbakken. Especially his two last novels "Don't leave me" and "Trought the Night". He sadly commited suicide in 2012. Knausgård actually mention Sæterbakken in the second book of My Struggle.
Have you read any of the other books in this (I hate to use this word but fuck it) series? If not do you intend to and would you do a review of any of the others? I've heard mixed reviews about this (don't say series....don't say series) body of work (?) so have left it alone up until now. But I loved this review; precise without being pedantic, perfect without being polished. If you didn't show your face in your videos I would have thought that you were at least 10 years older than you are. You have an older, more mature soul and seem to grasp the subtleties and nuance in literature, better than many others of your own age and beyond. I'm definitely putting this one on the TBR list now. Thanks for giving me enough information, enthusiasm and impetus to do so.
"Most fathers are children" WTF...........As father myself and a 40 year......and former kindergarten teacher.....and well a lot of things....I can say ONLY THE BEST ONES dude -only the best ones-
The question of Memory is an important one. Twice in the book he claims that he has a terrible memory so how can we believe his accounts of (for example) conversations that took place decades ago? I was disappointed by this book. It had some decent passages but mostly I found it dull (did he really have to spend the best part of 100 pages talking about how thoroughly he cleaned his granny's house?). Then he says "for Rimbaud everything was about freedom" despite the fact that Rimbaud literally worked in the slave trade in North Africa.
He gets into memory and the fiction-memory-fact-truth web of relationships more in the later books. When it comes to his habits of pontification and the tangents he goes off on fairly regularly... yeah. To be honest if Knausgaard's style isn't doing it for you in Book 1 I'd probably just leave it and maybe come back to it at a later stage? I've noticed his books tend to hit people hard or not really at all.
Hey,man!! I'm Hemanth from India.I really like your work.I'm glad that I found your channel.I'm eagerly waiting for your "A Man in Love" review.I think,we really found a literary badass in the form of Karl ove Knåssguard.
great review as always Cliff, I'm so glad that you took the time to explain the feeling of the book so well. i'll definitely find the time to read this masterpiece. do you get the impression from this book that it might be the start of a kinda new philosophy (?) against modern shortcuts, and for 'feeling the weight of the world'? basically, could you clarify what you meant by the "something that is happening" at 22:50?
Very late to this, but just finished this book and decided to comment. Regarding Knausgaard, I honestly don't understand why he is so praised. I admit he has great style - but then again, anyone who keeps at it like he has probably will have - but a lot of the book just seems uninteresting to me. He writes about things that are tragic and important just as much as things which are dull and uninteresting, almost in the same way. And in this way he dilutes the value of the book. I suppose he admitted this himself when he said he would write about things the way he sees them... It's as you said - this book is about a 40-year old Norwegian guy's life - and turns out that's not such an extraordinary thing. The 'wheels' passage is a great example of how I found this book mediocre - to believe that carrying a bag instead of relying on wheels is a way of dealing with the world, being "masculine" and suffering, is for me indicative of someone who has no more interesting, real problems or pain to deal with: If you really are overwhelmed by the world, exhausted and almost unable to deal with it - you use the stupid wheels on your travel bag. Regarding your channel - it's amazing! Keep up the good work. I love when you talk about your life the way you did in this video and how that related to the books you read . To me, that's what makes literature interesting: the interaction with the readers' lives and experiences, and how this is so different from person to person. Would like more of that and to know more about you - what is your background? Do you write? Where do you live? What are your goals? What have you been through in life? Cheers! Pedro
Watching this review is one of the best things I have done. Because it got me to buy the series, which has been the greatest reading experience I have ever had.
Dude I love Fuckall of Doodlebob, you should consider reading him! He reminds me a bit of the Canadian Camus.
I don't come to Better Than Food to kill time, I don't come for entertainment, I don't even come for Cliff Sergeant's dashing features. I watch these videos to have my own thoughts and feelings expressed by another in a way that I couldn't possibly have seen myself. Time after time Cliff will describe a situations or an emotion that I have felt myself with pinpoint accuracy.
I have the same memories of my own father (who I am happy to say is still with us), even down to the dashboard lights and street lamps flashing by in the car at night, reminding me of times I have spent talking with my dad, both happy and sad.
Clifford Lee Sergeant is the American Clifford Lee Sergeant; there is and can only be one.
I come for book recommendations
Who's Clifford Lee Sergeant?
What a great review of this channel, it’s content and of C.L.S.
@@jamespotts8197 This guy,dufus.
Great review. I've been interested to pick up some knausgaard for a while, and watching this has made me more so.
Don't know how much you're into Japanese literature, but if you haven't read A Personal Matter or No Longer Human, I think you would love those. Both have this kind of horrible beauty and nastiness. Both are extraordinary autobiographical fiction.
I hope your channel keeps growing. Keep the good Work. This is the one of the best(if not the best) book review channel on youtube.
Thank you kindly.
Picked this up today and didn't realise that you had covered it before, now i'm even more excited to start reading it. Great contemplation, thanks again!
I feel as if I've seen everything on TH-cam that I like and don't have a channel that has well made content anymore, then Better than food always comes out and it's the shit.
+Jahubla Appreciate the kind words.
I can't thank you enough for this review. Ever since I saw this review and picked up the first volume of My Struggle, it really helped as an aspiring writer. Awesome work. Thank you again!
You're very welcome
Fantastic review and interesting reflections. Very brave to review a book which must have been very emotional for you. Is that whiskey you are drinking in the video? 1 thing though - I think you meant humility rather than humbleness.
Too early for the whiskey.
+Better Than Food: Book Reviews Brandy?
Miss ya, cliff. My favorite channel on TH-cam
I dunno if it's intentional or not, but the ambient hums and the muffled sounds of passing cars really do add weight to this. It's half the reason I stuck with the entire video.
I think you would play a young Ernest Hemingway in a movie very well.
What you said about envy and not making it, or being too late, is my greatest fear as a wanabe mathematician who hasn't done anything, unironically pretentious and just recently hit a year-long burnout from school going from to top straight to the bottom.
What a great review. I´m definitely going to read My struggle.
Which one?
Just finished reading this. It's a great review of a brilliant (unique and insightful), beautifully-written book, indeed. Thanks for your review that helped me to get some takeaway feelings or thoughts from it.
Your hair looks like a wave and I have a lot of reading to do.
What are you drinking? Awesome review as usual.
Excellent review. I'm in the middle of book two and it's quite good.
By the way, I'm a big fan of your videos. After I watched your review on Under the Volcano, I went out, bought a copy and read it within a month. It's probably one of my favorite books I read this year and it's all thanks to you.
Have you read Thomas Bernhard? I'd like to know your thoughts on him. I recommend either The Loser or Correction.
Keep up the good work.
+Anthony Navas Thank you, no not yet, the name keeps coming up, I'll look into it.
+Better Than Food: Book Reviews Yes, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Bernhard. I recommend (also) the Looser, Extinction, and my personal favorite, Yes. I bet you like it. It's incredible.
+Better Than Food: Book Reviews Maybe you should start with Gargoyles. It's probably a better starting point.
That was a fantastic review! It really does the book justice. And that's a very rare thing. I didn't like the majority of reviews that are out there, but this one is incredible. Thank you, Cliff.
Do you think there is a Chinese Bukowski?id love to read about such person.
Hello! After this video, I'm wondering if you've ever read Proust. I absolutely would love to watch a review of Proust from you. I really enjoy your channel, thanks!
+Docteur Cottard Yes, I have, I'm very tempted to do Swann's Way.
The fuck-all of doodlebob actually sounds great, like some weird ass nobility title. Also glad to know I'm not the only one who fucking hates these little wheels.
there are 6 books in this series will you read all of them?
+January Frost Yes.
Comment on all six and be humble.
"Contestation of the limits" - who dat?
Sorry, I'm late to the party. Not expecting a response.
+Taro Madden Houellebecq?
+Taro Madden Bataille, I'm thinking. Usually if I repeat someone's good line, it's coming from Georges.
the fingerless gloves are killing this for me.... cringe!
I feel like the dude in this video is trying really hard to be a hipster
"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." - George Eliot, 'Middlemarch'.
What a powerful review. I had to create an account just so I could thank you. So yeah, thank you.
Flattered - thank you.
Great and insightful comments. I just finished Book 5 myself. So far, Book 2 is my absolute favourite in the series and maybe the best contemporary literature has to offer at this moment in time.
My grandad used to have Knausgård's uncle as a teacher in his younger days.
I'm the African American mixed race Marguerite Duras!
Wrong book called My Struggle
I'm from Denmark, and I read this monstrous novel series in Norwegian a few years ago, and it has just stock with me.
Knausgaards way of writing is just so human. I feel like that is the best way to describe it, anyway.
Anyway you got a new subscriber.
For a second i though you were gonna talk about the other My Struggles.
You are exellent! :)
The impoverished masses feel the weight of the world invariably cutting into the marrow of their existence, and all they know is one thing. It is better to have wheels. ;)
If you like Karl Ove, check out the Substack by Chris Dangerfield
I loved My Struggle (Book 2 especially). I also love French literature, and there was a time when I couldn’t get enough of the usual names, some you’ve reviewed - Houellebecq, Genet, Sade, Huysmans. But, I’d like to recommend something that for me, has changed how I look at all literature, and one I’m sure you’d enjoy. François-René de Chateaubriand’s The Genius of Christianity. This book is like a hammer that smashes all these other books and names into nothing. By this I mean, after reading this masterpiece by Chateaubriand, I realized how these authors are almost infantile in their work, in comparison. These more topical names are good for cutting the teeth, but this Chateaubriand is the real meat, as they say. I know, how could anyone make such a claim? Trust me. Read it. There’s no looking back.
+Jared Rose Done.
+Jared Rose Chateaubriand lack imagination and authentic writing skill, also he's concerned with politics and religion in a way that it just too tightly woven with he's times and We kinda moved on, at least a little bit. In he's autobiography there are some interesting psychological insights about general human condition - like for example in Pascal or Montaigne but not much else. I can't even consider him a writer, more like some commentator, certainly nothing in the league of juggernauts like Sade and Huysmans.
You're such a genius
Not to be confused with Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler which translates into English as My Struggle, too.
Stil got it. Thanks for your videos and their worth
I must ask a favor. Being someone who has been trying to get deeper into literature, still being young, I want to ask if you have a few books that would be great to begin with. Books that are often mentioned and referenced in other famous works. I've read Borges and David foster Wallace, but often they are over my head. I would love to re-read them with some other works under my belt. If you have any recommendations I would really appreciate it.
This is so well-written, so beautiful. I couldn't relate to it, though. I'm not sure if relating is the goal of literature, but I couldn't understand most things Karl wrote. I'm gay, I don't want to have children, I'm not like him.
I read this book when I was eighteen years old. Perhaps it wasn't the right timing.
By the way, I'd receive messages of a new upload of yours and kind of get disappointed when I realized that it wasn't a review of Knausgaard's book. I really wanted to know what you thought of this book.
Now I know. Great.
We're all so utterly unique yet so utterly similar. Yet most of the time we overlook both these realities.
Not trying to undermine what you said at all but just felt I wanted to respond and share.
Take care (mean it)
Envy and self doubt. Have you thought about the fact that partial failure is unavoidable in any endeavour toward the sublime? But that also implies a partial success. Everyone is frustrated on this planet. Even the people we envy.
doing book number 2 anytime soon? i just finished it and found it so much better than number 1.
God damn, you speak so beautifully. Galvanizing, really.
As a norwegian he mostly strikes me as a narcissist.
Cliff, this is the best book review I've ever seen. Thank you.
I'm going to read this book now as soon as I can. Thank you for this review, it was awe-inspiring in the best way
+Aniket Sanyal You're quite welcome, glad you enjoyed.
Are you from Idaho?
This hit home on so many levels. Thank you. I cannot wait to read this book.
You're quite possibly the hottest book reviewer on TH-cam~. Love your insightful reviews. Thanks, man.
+Gabe Rimbaud Of course, thank you
At 13:15 you are at a colossal loss for words and you've got a perfectly stunned look in your eyes. You are lost. You have been snowed under by K.O.K. and you didn't even know what hit you.
Love it
Why are you wearing a scarf indoors?
Since you seem to like Knausgård's writing I would reccomend you to check out an another big Norwegian Writer called Stig Sæterbakken. Especially his two last novels "Don't leave me" and "Trought the Night". He sadly commited suicide in 2012. Knausgård actually mention Sæterbakken in the second book of My Struggle.
Have you read any of the other books in this (I hate to use this word but fuck it) series? If not do you intend to and would you do a review of any of the others? I've heard mixed reviews about this (don't say series....don't say series) body of work (?) so have left it alone up until now. But I loved this review; precise without being pedantic, perfect without being polished. If you didn't show your face in your videos I would have thought that you were at least 10 years older than you are. You have an older, more mature soul and seem to grasp the subtleties and nuance in literature, better than many others of your own age and beyond. I'm definitely putting this one on the TBR list now. Thanks for giving me enough information, enthusiasm and impetus to do so.
I really like the technical quality of your videos. Can you kindly share with me the camera you used for this?
A great Norwegian writer, in tradition, of Knut Hamsun.....
"Most fathers are children" WTF...........As father myself and a 40 year......and former kindergarten teacher.....and well a lot of things....I can say ONLY THE BEST ONES dude -only the best ones-
dont know how that got crossed out apparently autocorrect is turning into Basquiat
I think all inuit are kind of hemingway
Are you drinking Red Stripe on the rocks?
One of the hardest things to do is to write an easy read.
The question of Memory is an important one. Twice in the book he claims that he has a terrible memory so how can we believe his accounts of (for example) conversations that took place decades ago? I was disappointed by this book. It had some decent passages but mostly I found it dull (did he really have to spend the best part of 100 pages talking about how thoroughly he cleaned his granny's house?). Then he says "for Rimbaud everything was about freedom" despite the fact that Rimbaud literally worked in the slave trade in North Africa.
He gets into memory and the fiction-memory-fact-truth web of relationships more in the later books. When it comes to his habits of pontification and the tangents he goes off on fairly regularly... yeah. To be honest if Knausgaard's style isn't doing it for you in Book 1 I'd probably just leave it and maybe come back to it at a later stage? I've noticed his books tend to hit people hard or not really at all.
Great review! Have you ever thought of reviewing Infinite Jest?
To summarise 26:52
Hey,man!! I'm Hemanth from India.I really like your work.I'm glad that I found your channel.I'm eagerly waiting for your "A Man in Love" review.I think,we really found a literary badass in the form of Karl ove Knåssguard.
No doubt - thanks for saying hello! And yes I'm going to get to it asap, it's on the way, as well as many more. All the best Hemanth!
Don't know how you feel about Hemingway, but i just finished For Whom the Bell Tolls and thought it'd be a great review for you. Such a great novel.
+Earbly Big Hemingway fan. That will be coming soon, thanks for the reminder.
Honestly, sometimes I put on your reviews just to hear your voice. It's very therapeutic.
Glad to hear it, thanks for watchin
“Hey, i’ve seen this one”
great review of a great book
I love how philosophical you get with a glass of Booz in your hand.. thank you dear sir
Ps, hope you are keeping up with the gym current day, and please take a look at “the morels” by Christopher hacker, would love to hear your take..
18:43 who?
great review as always Cliff, I'm so glad that you took the time to explain the feeling of the book so well. i'll definitely find the time to read this masterpiece. do you get the impression from this book that it might be the start of a kinda new philosophy (?) against modern shortcuts, and for 'feeling the weight of the world'? basically, could you clarify what you meant by the "something that is happening" at 22:50?
Very late to this, but just finished this book and decided to comment. Regarding Knausgaard, I honestly don't understand why he is so praised. I admit he has great style - but then again, anyone who keeps at it like he has probably will have - but a lot of the book just seems uninteresting to me. He writes about things that are tragic and important just as much as things which are dull and uninteresting, almost in the same way. And in this way he dilutes the value of the book. I suppose he admitted this himself when he said he would write about things the way he sees them... It's as you said - this book is about a 40-year old Norwegian guy's life - and turns out that's not such an extraordinary thing. The 'wheels' passage is a great example of how I found this book mediocre - to believe that carrying a bag instead of relying on wheels is a way of dealing with the world, being "masculine" and suffering, is for me indicative of someone who has no more interesting, real problems or pain to deal with: If you really are overwhelmed by the world, exhausted and almost unable to deal with it - you use the stupid wheels on your travel bag.
Regarding your channel - it's amazing! Keep up the good work. I love when you talk about your life the way you did in this video and how that related to the books you read . To me, that's what makes literature interesting: the interaction with the readers' lives and experiences, and how this is so different from person to person. Would like more of that and to know more about you - what is your background? Do you write? Where do you live? What are your goals? What have you been through in life?
Cheers!
Pedro
He's called the Norwegian Proust because his books are thick. The person who first stated it has probably never read Proust...
Having read both, i think Knausgaard's style is similar to Proust's