Karl Ove Knausgård opened the gates of the underworld wide open two novels ago. Now he opens them wide open. Or at least almost. Book number three about Morgenstjernen is so close to the first book in the series that if Knausgård hadn’t written both himself, it would have been obvious plagiarism. It is a collective novel, we meet the same people, the star shines and three members of a death metal band are brutally murdered in the forest. But the perspective is twisted just enough for the kinship to be a strength, at least for those who have been involved from the start. Who is it that shines? In novel number two, “The Wolves in the Forest of Eternity”, we met the 19th-century philosopher Fyodorov who proclaimed that it was time to abolish death completely. This time the author enters death via a brain researcher who believes it is possible to return to life after being dead. WIDE SCREEN: Knausgård abolishes death in “The Third Kingdom” and opens the door for the devil to roam the earth. A rare feat in a novel, but the strength here nevertheless lies in the portrayal of the characters who live their troubled lives. Photo: Thomas Wågström / Oktober We are therefore dealing here with secular dreams of extended or eternal life, as a physical being. But this human brain, is he alone in having self-consciousness? Does reflection exist outside of man? God? The devil? Is it these that make some of the characters feel gloated when they are all alone? The policeman who is to investigate the triple murder believes that it is the devil himself in physical form who is wreaking havoc, while the postmodern priest Kathrine thinks that theology is about our ideas about God, not about God himself. Again: Are we alone, or? Rough mixture The novel opens up large spaces for interpretation, which are not diminished by the fact that death ceases. Nationwide, in fact. I see “The Third Reich” and the two preceding novels as an attempt to broaden the perspective on life. The method is to include partly the forgotten, partly what is so new that one can only glimpse it. Established pairs of opposites such as life/death, myths/science, human/animal/plant are shaken. TRILOGY: “The Morning Star”, “The Wolves from the Forest of Eternity” and “The Third Kingdom” make up the three books in the novel series “The Morning Star”. Photo: Forlaget Oktober There is an ambitious foundation wall of ideas, thought experiments and research under this novel, which requires a certain goodwill to gape over. Knausgård portrays restless people who collect both gold and gray stone as they try to find out about the big, existential questions and the miserable, often gray everyday life. Restlessness and longing should be taken very seriously, even if the answers people settle on can be quite stingy. But when the novel puts such weight behind the irreversibility of death, I read it as a theme in the novel itself more than as a clever idea with one of the characters. It hangs on the outside as the idea the book would have been better off without. Be a part of the game I can follow the thought of brain researcher Jarle for a while, who, when faced with Schubert’s “Winter journey”, formulates himself as follows: A work of art, be it literature or music, communicates on a different level than both meanings and identification. Therefore, I participate in the whole game, while I discuss the text in parallel. Knausgård will be responsible for the attempt to expand our world view in many different directions. Despite this, the novel is at its strongest where the questions are allowed to be part of the lives of the characters. news reviews Photo: Forlaget Oktober Title: “The Third Reich” Author: Karl Ove Knausgård Publisher: Oktober Genre: Novel Number of pages: 482 Date: 28 October 2022 Hi! I am news’s chief fiction critic and have followed the writing of Karl Ove Knausgård closely. If you want a guide to the author’s novels, you can read my Røff guide to the Knausgård universe. And here you will find all the book reviews my colleagues and I have written about Knausgård’s books. Review of the first two books in the series: ? “THE DATE”: Karl Ove Knausgård, Erik Peter La Bella and Finn Solemdal are born into a time where the male role is changing. Can these three people’s lives tell us something about us all?
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“The Third Reich” by Karl Ove Knausgård – Reviews and recommendations
