A book of Knausgaard’s essays makes its way into my house. On a snowy day, the cats and I finish putting together my taxes, then read. The snow piles and drifts. The next day, the snow melts and melts, running in sun-sparkling rivulets. Readers either love Knausgaard or despise him, like readers understand Halldór Laxness, or don’t, much in the same way that I have never understood Jane Austen. When I began reading Knausgaard’s Struggle books, a neighbor read at my breakneck pace, loving his words. She and I have long since traveled our own different lives. But reading these essays reminds me of her, how profoundly she believed in beauty as a force. Whichever way she’s traveled, I wonder how that’s worked out for her.

Writing is about breaking down what you can do and what you’ve learned, something that would be inconceivable to a craftsman, a cabinetmaker, for instance, who can’t possibly start from scratch every time.

— Karl Ove Knausgaard