The Third Realm

A Novel

By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken - translator

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kelsey Jaffer, Ari Fliakos, Neil Hellegers, Raphael Corkhill, Saskia Maarleveld, Vas Eli, Nina Yndis

“The people in The Third Realm are as vivid and convincing as Knausgaard’s autobiographical persona . . . Enthralling . . . you can’t stop reading.”—Lev Grossman, The Atlantic

“One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read. Novel by novel, Knausgaard is replenishing some feral charge to the world.”—Brandon Taylor, The Washington Post

From bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard, a kaleidoscopic novel about human nature in the face of enormous change—and the warring impulses between light and dark that live in all of us

For several days, a strange and bright new star in the sky above Norway has sown an unyielding sense of foreboding, of agitation, and of fear. Tove, a painter on holiday with her family, has spiraled into a psychosis that stirs her into a flurry of unbridled creativity. Geir, a policeman who has been investigating a grisly triple murder, comes to a sinister revelation he must keep to himself. Nineteen-year-old Line falls in love with the lead singer of a metal band and is lured into a secret and frightening world.

But most bewildering, and disquieting, is the discovery made by Syvert, an undertaker: since the star has appeared, no one has died.

In The Third Realm, Karl Ove Knausgaard returns to the spellbinding world of The Morning Star and The Wolves of Eternity, as a cast of new and familiar characters continue to reckon with the meaning of this star. What is haunting them, and why?

As supernatural forces collide with the mundanities of everyday, and the threshold between life and death becomes diffuse, people are forced to live their lives as before while the world around them slowly changes in inexplicable ways. Piercing through human existence into the bestial and phantasmagorical, Knausgaard flings opens the gates to our most distressing neuroses and forces us to ask: What happens if the dark forces in the world are set free?

©2024 Karl Ove Knausgaard and Martin Aitken (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“One of the most genuinely suspenseful, alluring books I’ve ever read. Novel by novel, Knausgaard is replenishing some feral charge to the world.”—Brandon Taylor, The Washington Post

“The people in The Third Realm are as vivid and convincing as Knausgaard’s autobiographical persona . . . Enthralling . . . you can’t stop reading.”—Lev Grossman, The Atlantic

“Knausgaard delves deeper into the lives of Norwegians affected by the emergence of a new heavenly body . . . As throughout the series, Knausgaard is using everyday people to explore knotty questions about God’s existence, our need for spiritual connection, and the fine line between religious devotion and mental illness . . . Readers who ​come to this book first will find an entertaining story about people sorting through spiritual, domestic, and emotional confusion. But those who’ve read the prior novels will get a deeper sense of just how fascinating, frustrating, and unknowable we can be to each other, and the consequences of that disconnection. Typically contemplative for Knausgaard, but unusually propulsive as well.”—Kirkus (starred review)

Inside view is mental illness

Good but very strange book. The mental illness of a female character is far scarier than the supernatural story element of an unexplained bright star-like object in the sky.

Relatable Human Stories

I love all the books I have read by the author. There have been many. This book was deep, interesting and highly relatable. I was able to really get into all the characters. I kind of wish there was some resolution with some of the characters and some of the situations they were in, but maybe the point was that their situations or lives were not going to be resolved. It was odd though but not unlike his other books except the autobiographical ones. The writing in this one is markedly improved although the writing in the other books was good too.