THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT

A photography student strikes a deal with, perhaps, the Devil.

Knausgaard’s acclaimed six-volume autofiction epic, My Struggle (2012-2018), inevitably drew accusations of extreme narcissism for the author. But the Karl Ove character conjured up in those books was defined by his ordinariness; this bleak, somewhat overstuffed novel truly is a portrait of self-absorption. Kristian Hadeland is an aspiring art photographer who, in 1985, has left his native Norway to study in London. Disdainful of his teachers’ criticism of his work, he decides to cut his own path, often in troubling ways; for instance, he attempts to boil a dead cat down to its bones in his apartment for the sake of a vague photo project. After cutting off contact with his parents in a fit of pique, his sole friend is Hans, a mysterious Dutch expat working as a stage designer for a production of Doctor Faustus. And this novel is essentially the Faust tale with a modern spin, following Kristian’s path after the Mephistophelian Hans befriends him, pivoting on an altercation between Kristian and a homeless man who dies after they tussle over a cigarette lighter. Hans has pulled some levers to help Kristian escape a manslaughter charge, freeing him to pursue photo-world glory. But at what cost? Many familiar Knausgaardian elements are at play here: Granular explorations of youth and art-making, philosophizing on religion, a scatological detour. But the author is more concerned with ethics than in his previous books, and this novel is overly bulky for the kind of straightforward morality play it imagines. It also asks the reader to spend a lot of time with a profoundly unlikeable young Kristian, who repetitively bemoans how every career opportunity is beneath him and that family and women are drags on artistic greatness. As in the Faust story, comeuppance arrives, but it takes a while.

Knausgaard at his darkest, and most sluggish.