First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

One night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Their friend Egil has his own place nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage. Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a night shift when one of her patients escapes.

Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky. It brings with it a mysterious sense of foreboding.

Strange things start to happen as nine lives come together under the star. Hundreds of crabs amass on the road as Arne drives at night; Jostein receives a call about a death metal band found brutally murdered in a Satanic ritual; Kathrine conducts a funeral service for a man she met at the airport – but is he actually dead?

The Morning Star is about life in all its mundanity and drama, the strangeness that permeates the world, and the darkness in us all. Karl Ove Knausgård’s astonishing new novel, his first after the My Struggle cycle, goes to the utmost limits of freedom and chaos, to what happens when forces beyond our comprehension are unleashed and the realms of the living and the dead collide.

It’s the end of the workweek—yay! I hope the week has been kind to everyone and that you’re all ending it on a high note. How time flies! We are nearly through with the fifth month of the year. In just a couple of days, we will be welcoming June, which means we are nearly halfway through the year. Nevertheless, I hope the first five months of the year have proven promising. I hope the conflict in the Middle East continues to de-escalate—or, better yet, is resolved soon. As the year progresses, I hope everyone is given plenty of opportunities to grow and improve. With the weekend here, I hope everyone has a great one and truly ends the workweek on a high note. It’s time to dress down and wear more comfortable clothes. I hope everyone spends the weekend wisely—whether by resting from the rigors of a demanding career, pursuing passions, completing household chores, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing. I hope you’re all doing well—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

With the month coming to an end, I am slowly wrapping up my venture into the European literary landscape. I have already spent the past two months reading works from one of the world’s most extensive literary canons. However, I still have some books in my reading challenges that I need to complete, so I might extend my reading adventure into June, albeit for only a couple of days. Interestingly, I was not originally planning to read European literature this early in the year; I usually read such works later in the year. I realized that I had several works by European writers included in my reading challenges. In March, I read works by European women writers, in line with the month’s major motif. March is Women’s History Month, and International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. April, on the other hand, was dedicated primarily to European Nobel Prize in Literature laureates. May, meanwhile, was a mixed bag.

Currently, I am reading The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård. Must-read lists and online booksellers first introduced me to the Norwegian writer, although it was only during the pandemic that I truly started taking notice of him. I kept encountering his series of autobiographical novels, Min Kamp (My Struggle), for which he has earned global recognition. The series is also a frequent presence on must-read lists. However, my primer to his lush body of work was The Wolves of Eternity (Ulvene fra evighetens skog, 2021), the book that turned my attention toward him and his oeuvre. The novel was ubiquitous during the year it became available to English readers, which piqued my interest. For the third consecutive year, I am reading one of Knausgård’s novels; last year, I read his sophomore novel, A Time for Everything (En tid for alt, 2004). Interestingly, The Wolves of Eternity is the sequel to my current read, The Morning Star.

Originally published in 2020 as Morgenstjernen, The Morning Star is Knausgård’s first major novel since his My Struggle series. The novel is primarily set in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, and unfolds over two days in late August. Its chapters are narrated by different characters who are introduced as the story progresses. Apart from residing in the same city, they seem to have very few connections. Nevertheless, their lives are connected by the appearance of a new star in the sky. The novel opens with Arne, a university literature professor married to Tove, an artist. They are spending the last days of summer at a coastal resort with their daughter Ingvild and twin sons Asle and Heming. Tove has been grappling with manic episodes, and her condition has been escalating for days. After she kills one of their kittens, Arne discovers a note hidden in her studio. It reads: “I want to fuck Egil.” Egil, a former documentary filmmaker, is their neighbor.

Interestingly, later that day, Arne drinks whisky with Egil. Tove eventually joins them, but she soon spirals into uncontrollable laughter. Increasingly drunk, Arne drives out. As he drives away and encounters crabs crawling across the road, a massive blazing light rises over the ridge. Meanwhile, Kathrine is a priest in the Church of Norway. She has just arrived home after attending a seminar in Oslo. During the flight home, she is seized by the realization that she does not want to return to her husband, Gaute, and their children. When she tells her husband that she wants a divorce, he accuses her of being unfaithful. She neither confirms nor denies the allegation. She is then invited to conduct the funeral rites for Kristian Hadeland, who has no known relatives. Kathrine recognizes him as the same man who spoke to her at the airport. Interestingly, his death had been registered ten days earlier. Kathrine’s personal crisis becomes even more complicated when Gaute finds a pregnancy test in her bag and accuses her of infidelity.

We also meet Emil, a young nursery school worker and aspiring musician. At work, he accidentally lets a toddler fall from a changing table. He leaves work consumed with guilt. After band practice, he sees a terrified man crashing out of the woods behind his house. However, the man vanishes after they stare at each other. Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Iselin, a university dropout, works at a supermarket checkout. Like Emil, she encounters a strange man who declares, “I am the Lord.” Solveig is a nurse managing a hospital ward. She is also looking after her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease. Her daughter, Line, arrives for an unexpected visit. At work, Solveig develops a quiet connection with Inge, a patient whose brain tumor causes vivid hallucinations. Interestingly, Iselin suspects that he has also experienced a hallucination.

Each of the characters somehow experiences strange events as the day unfolds. Ramsvik, a prominent politician paralyzed by a stroke, is one of Solveig’s patients. He is declared brain-dead, but when a transplant team begins harvesting his organs, he opens his eyes. His heart resumes beating. Meanwhile, three members of the band Kvitekrist are found murdered at the Svartediket reservoir. Jostein, a crime reporter demoted to the arts section of a Bergen newspaper, is contacted by the police at 3:30 a.m., just as he decides to spend the night drinking. The bandmates are skinned and mutilated. Stones are also arranged in a pentagram around a bonfire. The fourth member of the band, the drummer Jesper, is missing. Yet another strange connection emerges: Jesper is the son of Iselin’s landlord. During the same night his bandmates are found murdered, Jesper pounds on Iselin’s door in terror. However, the police cannot find him anywhere.

We also meet Jostein’s wife, Turid, who works at a care facility for residents with intellectual disabilities. Vibeke is a museum curator married to the famous architect Helge Bråthen. While preparing for his surprise 60th birthday party, thousands of ladybugs swarm their terrace. The incident mirrors the crabs in Arne’s storyline. Various cultures around the world believe that strange animal behavior is often a harbinger of catastrophe. I am reminded of José Saramago’s The Stone Raft, where the dogs of a silent village are suddenly awakened from their silence and begin barking, signaling tectonic shifts—literally—in the story. Here in the Philippines, it is believed that when an oarfish appears on seashores, a massive earthquake is bound to follow.

In The Morning Star, it seems that the catalytic event is the appearance of the new star; every chapter concludes with a mention of the “new” star, as if to remind us that it connects everything together. The individual narrative threads also point toward a cataclysmic event. Each character is dealing with personal crises that he or she is attempting to resolve. Well, not really. Suppress seems to be the more appropriate term. It is somewhat similar to The Wolves of Eternity. As I enter Day Two, I expect things to escalate even further. How will the characters resolve their concerns? The novel seems to explore how different characters perceive a single event. This also provides Knausgård with space to explore a plethora of timeless subjects, ranging from existentialism and identity to the complex dynamics of relationships. The cosmic event signals deeper existential themes. I am looking forward to seeing how the novel unfolds.

How about you, reader? What book or books are you taking with you this weekend? I hope you all have a great one—and that whatever you’re reading provides a brief respite.