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A review by thlwright
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård
4.0
This is a curiously old-fashioned novel, despite Knausgard’s reputation for experimental fiction. Set in Bergen over 48 hours The Morning Star follows an ensemble of determinedly mundane Norwegians. Arne, a professor, worries about his wife’s mental health who has beheaded their cat. Katherine, a priest, suffers a dark night of the soul about her marriage and purpose in life. Jostein, a drunk and mendacious reporter, tracks down a scoop about a satanic heavy metal band who have disappeared. Elsewhere a nurse worries about a patient with learning difficulties who she inadvertently allows to abscond. With trademark forensic detail we get which cups of coffee, burgers, cars and choice of hotel populate the waking thoughts and desires of the burghers of Bergen.
Knausgard adds to this cast of everyday acts and actors a sense of dread: a strange and bright new star appears in the sky at the start. For each of the protagonists there is a sense of life out of kilter. Just out of the lights dark figures appear. Arne crashes his car after drinking, Katherine meets a stranger who she later believes to be the person whose funeral she was conducting. Jostein happens across a horrific murder.
This combination of Altmanesque short-cuts and the fear and dread that can crash into well-ordered lives at any moment gives this novel a propulsive energy.. The driven nature of the rest of the cast, who have to manage life-changing decisions and spin around each other with the force of comets is contrasted with Egil. Freed of economic worries he is a life-long drifter who has the holiday home next to Arne and floats in and out of the storytelling. The moral enquiries (into faith, marriage, ethics etc) that the characters experience at length culminate in Egil’s thoughts on death - in the form of a sixty-page essay that concludes the book.
This is a big book, and it asks a fair bit of the reader. Does it marry philosophy and storytelling completely successfully? Not always. Does the novelist indulge his middle-aged male protagonists bad behaviour?Perhaps a little too much. Does it run out of steam? Ultimately so, but it’s a journey with lots to offer along the way.
Knausgard adds to this cast of everyday acts and actors a sense of dread: a strange and bright new star appears in the sky at the start. For each of the protagonists there is a sense of life out of kilter. Just out of the lights dark figures appear. Arne crashes his car after drinking, Katherine meets a stranger who she later believes to be the person whose funeral she was conducting. Jostein happens across a horrific murder.
This combination of Altmanesque short-cuts and the fear and dread that can crash into well-ordered lives at any moment gives this novel a propulsive energy.. The driven nature of the rest of the cast, who have to manage life-changing decisions and spin around each other with the force of comets is contrasted with Egil. Freed of economic worries he is a life-long drifter who has the holiday home next to Arne and floats in and out of the storytelling. The moral enquiries (into faith, marriage, ethics etc) that the characters experience at length culminate in Egil’s thoughts on death - in the form of a sixty-page essay that concludes the book.
This is a big book, and it asks a fair bit of the reader. Does it marry philosophy and storytelling completely successfully? Not always. Does the novelist indulge his middle-aged male protagonists bad behaviour?Perhaps a little too much. Does it run out of steam? Ultimately so, but it’s a journey with lots to offer along the way.