Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Third Realm ***

The Third Realm is the third book in Knausgaard's The Morning Star series. It is quite similar to the first book, with multiple narrators recounting events just before and after the emergence of the new star. Several sections retell incidents from the first book from a different point of view; for example, we hear from Tove and Gaute who are married to Arne and Kathrine from The Morning Star.

The hallmark of Knausgaard's style is the slow emergence of themes from a wealth of mundane detail. The prominent themes that arise in The Third Realm are questions about the source of evil and the differences between external appearance and internal truth.

Like The Morning Star, The Third Realm ends with a cliffhanger. The star disappears, and the surviving member of the murdered black metal band tells Tove that her task will be revealed to her. I am far enough into the series to know not to expect a resolution any time soon.

The fourth book, The School of Night, recently became available in English. Early reviews tell me it has a single narrator, a peripheral character from the first three books, and is a modern version of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. At the moment, I plan to skip it and possibly the rest of the series. I'm starting to suspect that Knausgaard doesn't have a vision for how it all fits together.