The Wolves of Eternity, by my boy Karl Ove Knausgaard, takes an eternity to get to the point. At almost 800 pages, the "sequel" to The Morning Star does not even mention the same universe as that novel until 700 pages in. (It's the title symbol--the morning star--that finally appears in the sky as the novel is winding down.) Knausgaard is one of the most innovative writers of structure and pacing today, so it was not an unpleasant read, just mystifying. The Morning Star remains one of the best novels I've ever read: wild, ruminative, eerie, shocking, brilliant. The Wolves of Eternity was so different that I'm still mulling it over, unclear what to think or feel.
Part of that was my fault. I didn't read any reviews or promotions for Wolves--not even the jacket notes--so hungry was I to be surprised by whatever Knausgaard would throw in there. So I missed that the series behind the first novel would continue for at least another two books (already published in Norwegian and awaiting translation). I didn't have a sense of the scope of this project, more My Struggle than his seasons tetralogy. The narrative in Wolves is like his memoirs. Characters would stop to fix meals, go for drives, decide what to wear, listen to music, and so on. The overarching story was not about the apocalypse, but about serendipity, family ties, and humanity's place in the cosmos. Gone were Morning Star's demons, pagan rituals, and walking corpses (mostly). In their place was international travel, graduate school, and household chores. There were shared threads between the novels--death, and the defiance of death through religion or science--but not enough over the 800 pages. At this point, then, the series is uneven. But don't think I won't immediately pick up volume three! Knausgaard is one of the greats, and I'm along for the ride, wherever it goes.
