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Title details for The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard - Available

The Morning Star

#1 in series

by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Edoardo Ballerini
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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Last night a new star appeared in the sky. The morning star. I know what it means. It means that it has begun.
One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Their friend Egil has his own place nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage.
Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a night shift when one of her patients escapes.
Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky. It brings with it a mysterious sense of foreboding.
Strange things start to happen as nine lives come together under the star. Hundreds of crabs amass on the road as Arne drives at night; Jostein receives a call about a death metal band found brutally murdered in a Satanic ritual;
Kathrine conducts a funeral service for a man she met at the airport—but is he actually dead?
The Morning Star is about life in all its mundanity and drama, the strangeness that permeates our world, and the darkness in us all. Karl Ove Knausgaard's astonishing new novel, his first after the My Struggle cycle, goes to the utmost
limits of freedom and chaos, to what happens when forces beyond our comprehension are unleashed and the realms of the living and the dead collide.

  • Creators

  • Series

    The Morning Star

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 28, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781501916465
      • File size: 667901 KB
      • Duration: 23:11:27

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from August 9, 2021
      Knausgaard’s first traditional novel since the 2008 translation of A Time for Everything offers a dark and enthralling story of the appearance of a new star. The action, which verges on horror, teems with brutalized people and animals behaving unpredictably. Arne, a teacher with a drinking problem whose bipolar wife, Tova, often disappears on long walks, observes a horde of crabs crossing the road toward the glare of the star. He and eight other narrators alternately react to the astrological event—and yet the turbulence of their home lives overrides their capacity to grasp its shocking effects. Among the players are Kathrine, a Church of Norway priest who is struggling with her marriage; Solveig, a nurse who recognizes a patient from when she was young; Jonnstein, a caustic reporter who gets a tip on a serial killer after committing adultery; and Egil, who is connected to many of the threads, and whose interpolated essay provides a dose of philosophy and one of the strongest narrative beats. Knausgaard wheels wildly and successfully through various forms. His focus on the beauty and terror of the mundane will resonate with fans of My Struggle as they traverse this marvelous, hectic terrain. For the author, it’s a marvelous new leap. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The many viewpoints of this large novel are well served by the large group of narrators, all of whom embody their characters admirably. Don't, however, expect their stories to come together or to come to any neat resolutions. The central event of the novel, the appearance of a new star, remains unexplained, so why shouldn't the stories? Each character's tale is gripping as written and performed. It's hard to imagine any of them being better cast. Each viewpoint has a clear, and clearly imagined, personality. All the voices are American, although the translation from the Norwegian is obviously British. Knausgaard, in any language, is a major writer, and this ensemble performance serves him well. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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