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Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund
5 posts | 1 read | 2 to read
Two world-class writers reveal themselves to be the ultimate soccer fans in these collected lettersKarl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Skane with his wife, four small children, and dog. He is watching soccer on TV and falls asleep in front of the set. He likes 0-0 draws, cigarettes, coffee, and Argentina.Fredrik Ekelund is away, in Brazil, where he plays soccer on the beach and watches matches with others. Ekelund loves games that end up 4-3 and teams that play beautiful soccer. He likes caipirinhas and Brazil."Home and Away" is an unusual soccer book, in which the two authors use soccer and the World Cup in Brazil as the arena for reflections on life and death, art and politics, class and literature. What does it mean to be at home in a globalized world?This exchange of letters opens up new vistas and gives us stories from the lives of two creative writers. We get under their skin and gain insight into their relationships with modern times and soccer s place in their lives, the significance the game has for people in general, and the question Was this the best soccer championship ever?"
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review
Misanthropester
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund
Mehso-so

As a correspondence these two men have made a safe space for themselves to ramble on about football. Sometimes that rambling is engaging like a good pub discussion but mostly it's banal & rather frequently unapologetically chauvinist & racist

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blurb
Misanthropester
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund

all of Knausgaard's chauvinism is well met by Ekeland's own bizarre racism--his fetishizing of 'Africa' & his complete contempt of Muslims

blurb
Misanthropester
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund

So Knausgaard is pretty much a 'not all men' narcissist & it's rather disgusting, his willful myopia

blurb
Misanthropester
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund

knausgaard has a way of being casually chauvinist & more than a bit boorish in his nouveau-riche attitude but when soccer is discussed it is quality

blurb
Hobbinol
Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game | Karl Ove Knausgaard, Fredrik Ekelund
post image

So I was trying to preorder My Struggle Bk 6 (but it isn't yet available to order), when I found out about this soccer book he cowrote with Fredrik Ekelund. I love the idea of the book so I'll have to have this one too! Knausgaard has also written a foreword to a new book on Edvard Munch: Between the Clock & the Bed. Big fan of Munch. Big fan of Knausgaard. Gotta have it. Now would they PLEASE release the info on Book 6! #2017MostAnticipatedBooks

Flaneurette I've been waiting on this one too! Which has been your favorite so far? 8y
Hobbinol @Flaneurette Good question. I love how each adds to the breadth of his struggles, but I'm especially fond of books 1 & 4. The end of book 4 was especially memorable. I don't think I've ever felt such disgust and mirth at the same time. I would love to hear a woman's point of view about such a climatic ending (without giving too much away, of course). What volumes do you favor? BTW I love your nom de Litsy: Flaneurette. 8y
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