Not many authors are successful enough to become a problematic fave, but Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of the few. The Norwegian author’s My Struggle, a six volume series of autobiographical novels named after Hitler’s memoir, was widely hailed as, in the Guardian’s words, “perhaps the most significant literary enterprise of our time,” launched intra-familial feuds, and induced its fair share of eye-rolling. The books explored his life in excruciating detail, with frequent detours into history, philosophy, and the arts. You might find it brilliant; you might find it preposterously self-indulgent. Regardless, Knausgaard emerged from the project divorced and acclaimed. It took him nine years to publish another novel.
That book, The Morning Star, comes out in English this week. If you went to Sunday school or watched Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, that title might ring a bell. It follows a number of characters grappling with the challenges of everyday life, which seem to be worsened by a bright star that mysteriously appears in the sky. There’s a priest stuck in an unfulfilling marriage, a literature professor struggling to care for his wife, an arts journalist whose main problem seems to be that he’s a huge asshole, and several others. They all try to hold their lives together as their world becomes unnerving, then creepy, then worse.
Anyone even slightly familiar with Knausgaard will notice one big difference right away—he’s not writing about himself (though fans will notice autobiographical qualities in many of the characters). This proves a winning formula. My Struggle was rooted in such a grandiose concept that it could distract from Knausgaard’s undeniable talent. For my money, no one today writes as well about shame or funerals. Much as Sally Rooney is the literary authority on millennials who can’t talk about their feelings, Knausgaard is the great author of dads who drink too much and behave badly. That might not sound like a good time, but The Morning Star, with its wide cast and spooky undertones, is easily Knausgaard’s most fun project to date. It clocks in at a charmingly satanic 666 pages.
And there’s more coming—Knausgaard hopped on a Zoom with GQ a few hours before submitting the final draft of a follow-up to The Morning Star. He wouldn’t say whether it would have the same scope and scale as My Struggle, but it’s certainly a whole new Knausgaardian universe. Read on below to hear about his ambitions for this new project, how music finds its way into his novels, and the signature dishes of the Knausgaard household.
GQ: Where are you calling from tonight?
Karl Ove Knausgaard: I’m in London all the time. I have a house there and I’m basically in the house most of the time.
Is that because of COVID, or are you home-bound by choice?
It’s kind of both, but I’ve always been mostly at home. I published this book in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark last year. It was such a relief to do no book tour, no traveling, no events, nothing really. I actually wrote most of this book in lockdown.
I was at a reading of yours four years ago in Brooklyn, and you mentioned that you were writing a book about the devil. Is that this book?
Yep. So this is going to be several levels. There will be things happening later and this is a part of that universe. I wanted to make a novel with many characters, many voices and I had the morning star. And this has been a thing in my mind for quite a while. And I also worked on all of the characters for a very long time, but it didn’t start to become a novel until very recently, really.
When you say a very long time, how long are we talking? Like four years? Before My Struggle?
No, but you know, when you write a novel there are elements that are very old. They could be in those books or in my thoughts or for a very long time, and I’ve never done anything about it. And then you write a novel and then you use everything that you have available.
I just finished the second novel two weeks ago. I’m working a little bit on it, but I’m done. I’m going to send it tomorrow.
What can you tell me about the wider project? You just talked about the novel taking place in a universe. Do you envision a series of novels?
I can’t really tell you much other than two books are written now. I realized when I started The Morning Star that this story, it takes a while to tell. I don’t know exactly how much or how many or when, but the plan is to write several novels within this universe, not necessarily with the same characters, but the same world.
You’ve mentioned that sort of the guiding principle, when you started wanting to write this, was a novel in many voices. I’m curious if you found any of them easier or more difficult to write?
The first one I did was Solveig, that was incredibly hard because she was the first woman I have ever written, really. I spent a long, long, long time on that. But when I understood how to do it, it was easy.
I wanted to ask you about one character, the younger woman, Iselin. I know she digs Billie Eilish. Are you a Billie Eilish fan?
No. I asked some young people in the house what they were listening to, and I had a kind of a range of singers and dance and stuff. I listened to them and I picked [Billie].
There are a bunch of different bands and musicians in your book, like the War on Drugs and Father John Misty. When does a band leap from music that you enjoy to something that you put in a novel?
That’s many different levels. Whenever I write I always play the same music again and again and again, like a thousand times, so it kind of enters me and the novel in a weird way. I remember the first time I heard War on Drugs, I was in America on a road trip. It was just driving at night in the Midwest. It was like minus 20 in a car, and then this incredibly atmospheric music came. And then I wrote, I went to Russia and I wrote an article about Russia. I was traveling there and I played that music nonstop. Every time I hear it now I get those kind of two different things coming. And my wife and I saw them in London, which was great. It’s good news that there’s a new record.
For this novel the one I played the most is Father John Misty. His last record [God’s Favorite Customer] is great. He is also in it. I don’t know if it’s in [the English edition] actually, because the lyrics [are copyrighted], but in the Norwegian at least I have the lyrics of one of his songs down there.
I know you like to write early in the day. Did that change during lockdown? What does your daily routine look like these days?
I get up at 6:30 because they always start leaving quarter to seven, so I want to say bye to [the kids]. Then we have a two year old and he wakes up at that time. So we are with him, take him to nursery, to school, all of that is done by nine o’clock. Then I have a smoke and a coffee in the garden, and then I start to work at 9:30. Then I work until 3:00 and I pick up my daughter and my son. With them I make dinner, read at the end of the day and then I go to sleep. That’s just a normal day.
Is there a lunch in there, or really just a coffee and a cigarette until dinner?
In Norway there’s no such thing, at least not when I lived there, as a warm lunch. You have some bread or whatever. So when I’m on my own, I don’t do lunch. I eat dinner quite late. I do like cooking, so I cook for dinner every day almost.
What’s your signature dish?
My signature dish would be a very delicious wiener schnitzel, which is very good. Also, we do very good osso buco, which is very easy to do, but it’s incredibly good. That’s my favorite dish.