“Wolves of Eternity” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, review: too long at 500 pages

Karl Ove Knausgaard, Norway’s greatest writer, expressed his view early in his career. In the first part of his revolutionary third book (2009). My struggle, (an autobiography that reads like a novel), he recounted his Saturday evening preparations for a party, deciding not to skimp on the details, but to expand them into dozens of pages. The effect was hypnotic or creepy – literary Marmite. Here was someone who adopted John Updike’s mantra of “bringing beauty to the everyday” but did it in rather banal prose. My struggle there was only the first part of his autobiography; Five more episodes followed.

In 2021, he turned to fiction – although in Knausgaard’s world novel and memoir are interchangeable – with Morning Star, A 666-page monster that tells the interconnected stories of a group of people whose lives are upended by the rising of a bright star in the sky.

Now comes Wolves of Eternity, which, despite featuring the same characters, doesn’t really pick up where the book left off or follow along dutifully. Instead, it revolves around two people. The first is Sivert Leuning, a young Norwegian who returned from military service in 1986 and is caring for his ailing mother while contemplating the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. When he finds a stack of letters his late father wrote to a secret Russian lover, he learns that his family line now extends to the East.

The second part is set in modern Russia and follows Leuning’s half-sister Alevtina Kotova, a single mother who teaches at the local university and is fascinated by nature and the communication of trees. When the siblings meet, they recognize in each other the spirit of their father, whom Sievert still misses and whom Alevtina has never met. Their instant connection proves indelible.

For a book that begins with a rather innocent description of the 1977 album Status Quo (“I had it on cassette, and I kept playing it on the black cassette recorder I had gotten for Christmas the year before. It ran on batteries. I sang along without exceptions. How nice to hear [it] Now again!”) over time it develops, albeit slowly, into more existential themes.

There is much thought about death, loss and immortality, and the human need to come to terms with them, as brothers and sisters argue among themselves about God vs. science and religion vs. doubt. And if the author himself seems in no hurry to favor any particular side, it is because, as he suggests, life is like that: an endless stream of questions that we spend most of our time trying to answer. Look for answers. He doesn’t so much write his books as he bleeds all over the place and no one offers him bandages.

Wolves of Eternity It would be much more effective if it were 500 pages shorter, but the author doesn’t do that. The book’s failure to find successful solutions to the greatest mysteries we face means that the book ends with apparent ambiguity rather than a satisfying climax. This is, of course, intentional and suggests that there will indeed be more microanalytic discourse. Several sequels to this series are already in development.

That sound? Here is Knausgaard typing. He’s constantly typing. Some people just have something to say.