Karl Ove Knausgaard Saves the Earth from a Giant Asteroid
by Gordon Haber
Hamsun, we have a problem.
When I think of my mission, that is, to save the Earth from being destroyed by a giant asteroid, it is not the importance of it that makes me anxious, but rather the banality of my many tasks.
Whenever I must once again verify the EVA CB configuration, downlink the OCA data via the S-link system, and make sure that the nuclear missile is armed and pointing in the right direction, that is, at the asteroid and not at France, I feel a certain unease that threatens to swell and break inside me like a storm.
To think that I, who have always tried to keep a distance between myself and other people, who ironically prefers the deep silence of a space capsule, but nevertheless has the eyes of everyone in the world upon me, even though I am alone in a space capsule where no one can have their eyes on me, which is for the better, since I ran out of hair product … and what’s worse, you’re not allowed to smoke in a space capsule … the obligations weigh upon me and make me wish that I were elsewhere, brooding and smoking.
The radio crackled to life.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi Karl,” said Houston. “I’m sorry to bother you. But is the missile armed?”
I could feel the spacesuit clinging to my chest.
“I’m just asking,” said Houston. “Because the asteroid is getting close.”
What a stupid, fucking, idiotic mission this was. A nuclear missile launched by a Norwegian writer with great hair in a space capsule at a giant asteroid that threatened the existence of mankind. I wanted to ask if there were some other way to save the Earth without such grand gestures, but doing so would make me sound like a provincial European, that is, a Norwegian.
“Yes, the missile is armed,” I said.
I thought of my children, and how they often make small gestures, futile, self-conscious motions that no one noticed but me, gestures that my children themselves might forget immediately afterward but remain imprinted upon my own sensitive, hyper-observant soul, and I pressed the big red button that fired the nuclear missile at the giant asteroid.
Very Funny. Bravo, Gordon Haber. There is at least one sane writer still living, one writer who has not given in to bobby-sox hysteria over this literary manifestation of the current cultural solipsism. I’ve read the first volume and am stunned by the shameless fawning of “respected” critics. Is this really about sales? A boost for book publishing? This “memoir” (that’s also funny) will not be read in ten years time. Kinda like 50 Shades. And I’ll bet Karl Ove continues to write because he knows this work is NOT deserving of all the hoopla. Karl Ove’s Days of Angst have just begun.