There’s always a sense of epic journey in starting a Knausgård book and especially so when beginning a volume in the Morning Star series.
It’s a major work and the latest instalment, The Third Realm, is an ambitious work. The first book in the trilogy, 2021’s The Morning Star, detailed the impact of the arrival of a new star on a vast canon of characters.
The Third Realm, in many ways returns to the same territory, revisiting characters and events from previous books but shifting the viewpoint slightly from different characters.
The volume is bookmarked by Tove, a manic-depressive and in this third installment there’s a real sense that we’re delving deeper into the troubled corners of the human mind.
And it’s big questions those human minds are pondering. Do devils walk the earth, what is the true impact of mental health and the underlying question around the existence of God?
Knausgård loves to play with the perception of mental illness and religion; is religious fervour a mental illness or is it the other way around – mental illness caused by a lack of faith?
Though that philosophical question remains at the heart of The Third Realm, there’s a tighter narrative than the previous two books and a sense that the earlier diversions into essays on philosophy have now been put to bed.
Despite not being your conventional Nordic Noir, The Third Realm does contain a detailed police procedural that adds enough twists or turns to keep more traditional noir fans happy.
That investigation of a ritual killing, though does offer us a clue to what is key to this work and perhaps the series as a whole. Strip away the philosophy, the examination of faith, and what this work really excels in is the human capacity to be part of a community and yet remain an outsider.
Knausgård is not always an easy read, running at nearly 500 pages it is sometimes a slow read, and there are passages here when the reader does wonder if the text has been through the hands of an editor, but its epic sweep and numerous detours are worth persevering with.
The third book of a planned seven-book series, The Third Realm in many ways seems to be a concluding part of a trilogy and, as such, it will be interesting to see where the remaining books head. Wherever they go, Karl Ove Knausgård has proven he can keep his readers hooked through a complex, yet ultimately compelling look at the complexities of the human soul.
The Third Realm by Karl Ove Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken is published by Vintage Books
