Though there are supernatural touches ...this long first section is primarily driven by the intrigues of realist fiction ... If Knausgaard is your thing, it reads as compulsively as anything he’s written ... Contains long essayistic stretches, quite unlike the rest of the narrative, that probe both eschatology and death itself. In these passages, Knausgaard once again proves a thoughtful and wide reader ... At times, the book’s conceptual weight and narrative sprawl feel unsustainably massive ... Although the final shape of Knausgaard’s latest enterprise is not yet visible, there’s famously no smoke without wildfires. It’s likely something wicked this way comes.
Comprises multiple narratives filtered through various characters ... The task of any novel is to absorb its materials, to finish what it started ... On the intellectual level, however, the great tension of warring concepts is unresolved. That might be the point. Knausgaard has spackled his narrative with several of these obsessive reflections ... The sense of things in anxious flux — we feel it throughout. The clincher for me was when I felt the words on the page become a stark premonition.
Eerie ... The range of subjects The Wolves of Eternity explores is fascinating, but the elements of the novel that gave me the most joy were also the most prosaic ... Perhaps I’ll be in the minority to say it, but I wanted The Wolves of Eternity to be even longer.
Not a conventional sequel ... Despite this occasional poignancy, The Wolves of Eternity is a cerebral book with a peculiarly Russian heaviness ... Revives fiction as an inquiry into the cosmos, re-enchanting the latter with those beguiling secrets science had stolen from it.
Bulky ... As ever, Knausgaard is managing a precarious balance—his overwriting can be deeply immersive or exasperating ... A curiously affecting tale about science and spirit, optimistic despite its gloomy themes.
