A fascinating piece by the Norwegian novelist in NYT Magazine:
An interesting observation by Knausgaard:
“What is culture, if
not a set of prejudices? A set of unformulated and unconscious rules and ways
of behavior that every member of a given society nonetheless immediately
recognizes and accepts?
Nowhere in the world
has shared culture been a more imperative requirement than in America. More
than 300 million people live here, and they had descended over the course of a
very few generations from a huge number of disparate cultures, with different
histories, ways of behavior, worldviews and experiential backgrounds. All of
them, sooner or later, had been required to relinquish their old culture and
enter the new one. That must be why the most striking thing about the United
States was its sameness, that every place had the same hotels, the same
restaurants, the same stores. And that must be why every American movie was
made after the same template and why, in this sense, every movie expressed the
same thing. And that must be why all these TVs were hanging on the walls,
unwatched; they created an immediate sense of belonging, a feeling of home.”
Part I: