His at times unwieldy prose, as if written in a frenzy, recalls Dostoevsky’s ... Strangely compelling ... Knausgaard, for all his obsession with death and the final stillness it imposes on us all, has produced yet another extraordinarily vital text. This seems justification enough for any work of art.
Some readers won’t be persuaded. Knausgård’s prose is sometimes not just erratic but incoherent; even fans will concede that you don’t read him for the beauty of his sentences. Besides, 500 pages in Kristian’s hateful company is a lot to handle ... A lot is riding on Knausgård’s ability to deliver on the colossal promise of this sprawling epic. But for readers with the stomach, patience and faith to keep going, this work of millenarian fiction remains an object of fascination.
In Martin Aitken’s translation, the prose is fluent and nimble, the imagery possessed of a steely melancholia ... [The older tale] is the novel’s essence – a realist affair laced with the faintest suggestions of myth, the occult and the perverse operations of fate.
I put down this book only to eat and sleep. Knausgaard has produced another addictive psychological thriller – by turns exciting, entertaining and tragic.
The remainder of the novel is as bland as its protagonist’s new milieu, although occasionally Kristian’s carping about fame is amusing ... 500 pages he needed to write but you needn’t read.
Knausgaard’s take on Marlowe’s classic tragedy and his variation on moral and psychological dilemmas is certain to satisfy his loyal fans, while readers new to this Norwegian maestro should begin with his internationally acclaimed My Struggle series.
In many ways this is an ancient story ... In Knausgaard’s hands, doled out a little at a time around the edges before coming due spectacularly at the conclusion, it’s the makings of a work of magisterial literary prowess.
