8stitches 9lives's Reviews > The Morning Star

The Morning Star is Karl Ove Knausgard's first major novel since the conclusion of the landmark My Struggle series and an astonishing, ambitious, and rich novel about what we don't understand and our attempts to make sense of our world nonetheless. The action takes place a few days in late August. The professor of literature Arne and the artist Tove are with their children at the resort in Sørlandet. Their friend, the rich man's son Egil, is in a cabin nearby. The priest Kathrine is on her way home from a seminar, the kindergarten assistant Emil is rehearsing with his band, the journalist Jostein is out on the town, his wife Turid who is an assistant nurse has a night shift. On this a seemingly normal night in August, a huge star appears suddenly in the sky. No one, not even astronomers and weather experts on TV can explain this alarming celestial phenomenon. Is it a newly discovered dying star? Or something new? Eventually, the interest in the news subsides and life goes on, but not quite as before. Reports of shocking portents and unsettling happenings pour in from the fringes of human existence. Creatures that previously existed only in nightmares, mythology, and computer games stalk through the forest, while animals and the environment itself appear to be behaving in strange new ways. Over several days, a cast of idiosyncratic characters will come to understand what is happening, each in their own way, and all face new struggles in their own lives.

Unusual things are starting to happen on the fringes of human life, strange natural phenomena are increasing and people are trying to interpret their message. Eventually, interest in the star dilutes and life goes on, but not quite as before. This is a beguiling and exhilarating return to fiction from one of the most acclaimed and talked-about global literary stars, and The Morning Star is a novel about what we do not understand--a cosmic, existential drama filtered through the lens of regular human lives. At its heart, it's about what happens when the dark forces in the world are set free - liberated and allowed to roam unabated. It has a rich and extensive gallery of characters and action that ranges from the everyday recognisable to the great cosmic contexts, and from the quantum, infinitesimal to humongous events wreaking havoc on the entirety of our home planet and solar system. It's about great drama viewed through the limited lens of the most mundane elements of quotidian life. Following nine people over two crucial days in their lives this is a deeply atmospheric work with a sinister undertone throughout but it has a wonder to it and is an exploration of the nature of life and death, the ephemerality of living and an examination of our temporary home on this planet where not everything that surrounds us do we comprehend. Touching, original, emotionally resonant, it manages to be both sprawling and intimate. An ode to the fleeting impermanence of a life we don't truly understand but that is beautiful all the same. Highly recommended.