Less melodramatic than The Morning Star
4 estrellas
like The Morning Star, there was one character here who felt straight out of My Struggle (Syvert). The novel dwells in his perspective most of the time, which was at first felt revelatory, and then began to drag solipsistically... just like The Morning Star and My Struggle. I think the first Syvert section could have been edited down to 1/2 or 1/3 of its 400 pages without losing much. But Knausgaard has always been a bit Proustian.
The middle half was wonderful, a subplot straight from Richard Power's The Overstory with the thrilling conclusion of an essay on immortality and Russian cosmism. A little too cute with tying the different narratives together, but this is often the case. (Certainly in The Overstory too!)
like The Morning Star, there was one character here who felt straight out of My Struggle (Syvert). The novel dwells in his perspective most of the time, which was at first felt revelatory, and then began to drag solipsistically... just like The Morning Star and My Struggle. I think the first Syvert section could have been edited down to 1/2 or 1/3 of its 400 pages without losing much. But Knausgaard has always been a bit Proustian.
The middle half was wonderful, a subplot straight from Richard Power's The Overstory with the thrilling conclusion of an essay on immortality and Russian cosmism. A little too cute with tying the different narratives together, but this is often the case. (Certainly in The Overstory too!)