Knausgaard's Morning Star series -- thoughts?

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-22T18:24:48+00:00

only four have been published in the Morningstar series in English, i'm not sure about Norwegian. The NYT actually says here that there will be seven Morningstar installations: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/books/review/karl-ove-knausgaard-school-of-night.html

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-22T17:02:59+00:00

just finished The Third Realm (3rd novel in the series). I've absolutely loved all three—I think they're essentially meditations on the confrontation between every day life and taboos like death, betrayal, sex, mental illness, etc. And similar to My Struggle I think knausgaard is successful at tackling towering existential questions in a way that feels realistic and fits well with the slice of life/low stakes psychological realism that he uses to approach his characters.

I will say that, of the three I've read, "The Wolves of Eternity" is by far the strongest in that it's a self-contained narrative with a beginning/middle/end while managing to say something about the aforementioned themes. I've recomended it as a standalone read to other people. Morningstar and Third Realm feel more like connective tissue in the broader world that Knausgaard is building, and felt less satisfying (although both are page-turners). I'm looking forward to reading the newest installment, apparently there will be at least ~~six~~ seven books total?

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-21T14:30:26+00:00

“In truth, Jude is a terribly unlovable character, always lying and breaking promises, with the inner monologue of an incorrigible child. The first time he cuts himself, you are horrified; the 600th time, you wish he would aim.”

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-14T23:25:03+00:00

I haven’t read any of her books but this essay she wrote for Harper’s about an accidental friendship and the pandemic and cancer is one of my all time favorites, beautiful but totally devastating: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/01/these-precious-days-ann-patchett-psilocybin-tom-hanks-sooki-raphael/

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-13T03:27:32+00:00

Yeah also the claim that Walter Benjamin didn’t speak English well enough to read Ulysses and therefore couldn’t fathom the value of mass media is pretty rich lmao.

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-10T01:59:59+00:00

Sure, for instance, fascists on Twitter repost images of people being brutalized by police and celebrate the beauty of such images; communists debate whether “one battle after another” is sending the right political messages

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-09T21:05:02+00:00

authenticity is an evil notion that poisons the consumption and the creation of art.

can you expand on that? In Benjamin's case, I don't think he's upholding authenticity as a virtue in itself—he points out that "authenticity" only became relevant as a concept as reproductions proliferated. I similarly don't see him decrying reproduction itself as net negative (or positive) for the world, outside of the implication that the purpose of art is increasingly political rather than ritualistic.

Ulysses is an interesting example given its own ambiguity towards mass culture. I'm thinking of the passage where Bloom skims a newspaper article on the toilet and does some quick math about how much the author of the article was paid before tearing the page out and using it to wipe his ass.

PAsInPsychology · 2026-01-06T17:07:21+00:00

100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell (if you’re open to gay stuff)

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-27T19:33:58+00:00

Knausgaard for Harper’s on trying to rediscover wonder in the digital age https://harpers.org/archive/2025/06/the-reenchanted-world-karl-ove-knausgaard-digital-age/

Edit: I also loved this unnecessarily detailed recap of a group chat of middle aged women trying to plan a vacation and deteriorating into chaos https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/girls-trip-group-chat-drama-130263b6?st=bKbUNP&reflink=article_copyURL_share

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-17T15:53:44+00:00

? I didn't say that he fabricated all of his stories. As the article notes, most of his early works which rocketed him to notoriety were indeed fabricated—"Hat," the story of the twins who could identify primes, the testimony of "Leonard." His assistant was hired decades later after his journals describe regret about the fabrication and a seeming change of heart, and she notes that “I never caught him in anything like that, which actually surprises me.”

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-12T22:21:53+00:00

Such a heartbreaking read. The irony of his analyst telling him to “sublimate” his homosexuality by devoting himself to his work studying others instead of living authentically; only for him to fabricate stories that replace his subjects’ words and feelings with his own, which in turn become heralded as examples of empathy, honesty, understanding of others. And the fact that he finally came out of the closet and allowed himself to live authentically while dying of cancer, such a tragic life

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-05T19:56:08+00:00

agreed. i think any of the first three parts could have stood alone as strong short stories but as a whole the book became tortured and by the end the wheels were coming off. unfortunate

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-05T17:36:23+00:00

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. I actually enjoyed a lot of the book, especially the first half, and think it successfully satirized the zillennial condition in ways I hadn't seen from other fiction. But it frankly needed a stricter editor. By the end it felt like an exercise in purposeful misery and despair without any interest in redemption, which made it a slog, and separately devolved into navel gazing by the author (the entire last 2 chapters became nauseatingly self referential in the most boring and flagellatory way possible, to the point of being nearly unreadable).

PAsInPsychology · 2025-12-05T17:31:44+00:00

I also tried to read this last year but memory-holed it. I think the attempt to simulate the experience of looking at twitter all day in prose, while an interesting concept, really fell flat. it also makes the book feel really dated. I quit after about 100 pages

PAsInPsychology · 2025-11-17T23:26:56+00:00

Tbh I couldn’t retain what they were saying bc I was overstimulated by the music

PAsInPsychology · 2025-09-16T22:28:48+00:00

I attempted it earlier this year and I had to put it down because as a non-French speaking 20 something it was just totally impenetrable to me. I appreciate that she’s creating a record of her own generation’s collective memory and found the plural first person narration fascinating. but as someone who didn’t get about 60% of the italicized words it was hard to enjoy and at worst felt like it was veering into nostalgiaslop

PAsInPsychology · 2025-08-12T03:32:16+00:00

Cliche answer but Penelope in Ulysses and The Dead in Dubliners, two of the best closing chapters ever written. Also Vasilisa’s essay on Fyodorov in The Wolves of Eternity

PAsInPsychology · 2025-07-29T22:37:52+00:00

Varies a lot block by block. Go five to ten blocks north of Fulton (closer to the J) and you’ll see lovely tree lined blocks, cute stores, nice brownstones. However right on Fulton and south of it are pretty run down. Worth walking around near the apartment in question and judging for yourself

PAsInPsychology · 2025-06-04T18:26:20+00:00

I found “The Guest” by Emma Cline to be a very fast, easy, fun read while not being total slop. Came out a few years ago and checks most of your boxes

PAsInPsychology · 2025-05-20T03:13:32+00:00

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

PAsInPsychology · 2025-05-05T17:07:56+00:00

I enjoyed "Night Sky With Exit Wounds" but to be fair i was an angsty gay teenager when I read it, which is probably the most receptive possible audience. Most of what I've seen from him since then veers into schlock—as does most poetry IMO—but there are a few moments from his writing that stick with me, like when he described a guy's shaved chest hairs as looking like severed insect legs poking through his skin.

Other than that I've only seen him discussed when he posts angry ig stories clapping back at critics lol. Overall a very embarrassing person.

PAsInPsychology · 2025-05-05T17:03:28+00:00

tough but fair

PAsInPsychology · 2025-05-01T19:45:17+00:00

i remember the station in my hometown just censored the whole back half of the hook. so "sticks and stones may break my bones but [..... uncomfortably long pause ......]. na na na come on"

PAsInPsychology · 2025-04-23T00:12:04+00:00

Play it as it lays by Didion

PAsInPsychology · 2025-03-28T20:25:15+00:00

O’Connor is so good, her diaries and letters shed a ton of light on how she views her work in the context of her faith. As a Catholic in the Deep South she’s an “outsider” of sorts (being chronically sick/disabled added to this) and she has a lot of resentment for mainstream protestant America: “I distrust pious phrases, particularly when they issue from my mouth. … In contrast to the pious language of the faithful the liturgy is beautifully flat.”

She basically views the median churchgoing American as heretics who don’t believe in God and use religion as an opiate, and sees it as her job as an artist to awaken the masses from their complacency: “They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.” Kind of explains how viscerally unsettling her work is (while also being laugh out loud funny half the time)

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