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A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven

Nominated for the 2004 Nordic Council’s Literature Prize
Nominated for the 2004 Norwegian Critics’ Prize
Longlisted for the 2010 IMPAC Award

The story of the angels, as it has never been told before.

We are in pre-biblical times, when angels and human beings inhabited the Earth together. This peculiar and inspired novel contains versions of several episodes from the Bible, among them a stunning account of Cain and Abel, in which the relationship between the two brothers is signifi cantly diff erent from the one we know. Almost unnoticeably, the story moves forward to the present, where it culminates in a heartrending and moving story of a young man who has a strong, but complicated relationship with his father and the world in which he lives.

Praise for A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven:

"Karl O. Knausgaard's A Time to Every Purpose under Heaven is masterful, breathtaking"
(Christos Tsiolkas, The Best Books of 2010, The Age, Australia)

"A strange and distinctive and completely intriguing novel. I hope it finds a good readership."
(Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, UK)

"This theological fantasy is a heavenly delight [...] Not just strange, this is a quite extraordinary novel, and completely original."
(Jonathan Gibbs, The Independent, UK)

"... this strange and serious novel of ideas is an admirably imaginative contemporary reinterpretation of characters whose odd, splendid appearances in Christian mythology are made all the more mysterious for being matter-of-fact and never fully explained."
(Metro, UK)

"More striking is Knausgaard's recreation of Biblical characters. Cain and Abel come suddenly, believably alive, like brothers in a Steinbeck novel ... the devastatingly simple present-day coda [gives] the book a breathtaking cadence."
(Sunday Herald, UK)

"This demanding narrative on the nature of angels may become a cult book ... Knausgaard is at his best with finely observed natural description; he is also skilful with atmosphere."
(The Guardian, UK)

"A vast, intriguing novel … The power it carries is perplexing … I recommend this brave and at times bizarrely beautiful book"
(Niall Griffiths, Daily Telegraph, UK)

"... the sustained gaze he levels at his subjects, at his stories’ implications, will impress ... this is Old Testament landscape, and I read it as convincing and, I imagine, more fun then the source text ... this novel is comfortable within its own skin, it is fresh ... In terms of important European novels of this decade, Knausgaard’s first three novels will undoubtedly go down as a seminal roman-fleuve"
(New Review, UK)

"Knausgård's rotund novel seems itself out of time, a throwback to the grand European novel of midcentury; it is at once a sort of faux theological disquisition; a philosophical quest for the meaning of time, decay, and exile; and an unabashedly literary excursion into storytelling, with digressions narrating the psychological dynamics of Cain and the deprivations of Noah's extended family in Nod. (...) Our delight in Knausgård's virtuosity (and daring) in evoking these dreamy, ersatz settings is the payoff for his gamble in engaging an outsize theme—he is, after all, setting foot on terrain where Dante, Milton, and Blake dared to tread"
(Bookforum, USA)

"With A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven, Knausgård has… definitely written his way into the major league of contemporary authors. His prose is determined and precise, with an alluring linguistic lustre and an overwhelming poetic concentration… There can be no doubt about the exceptional talent of this author – who is still unknown in Germany: For only a masterpiece can combine this contemplative depth with such floating lightness.”
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany)

”As a reader, one is dazzled by his knowledge, the way he uses language and the joy he takes in storytelling. Possibly outshining most others, this book reaches dizzying heights … his novel is a piece of magical realism of the most exquisite sort”
(Göteborgs-Posten, Sweden)

"Knausgård’s second novel has the wingspan of an archangel and unites the psychology of the Old Testament with modern deconstruction... His empathy with Cain’s love and fight against rejection is masterly psychological prose"
(Politiken, Denmark)

"With this his second novel, always a difficult one, Knausgård establishes himself as a unique talent of his generation ... The originality of this novel is beyond question... Suffice it to agree that Knausgård has written a book of such quality that it is possible to regard it as a challenge to the very art of the novel itself"
(Dagbladet)

"Knausgård writes world literature.... You simply have to read this"
(NRK)

"There is little doubt that Knausgård, with his double-work about Henrik Vankel, has written his way into the history of literature"
(Dagens Næringsliv)

"An original, magnificent and powerful novel ... A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven takes the reader to places she has never visited before ... Is one of those novels that you will find yourself wanting to talk about over and over again"
(Aftenposten)

“Of epic proportions and an unusually ambitious work of art, both in form and content…This is a novel about stories; about reading, and a determined will to interpret, a story of a worldview consisting of texts, its creation and power”
(Nordisk Litteratur 2005)

”Sublime and original …”
(Kristianstadsbladet, Sweden)

”Knausgård’s second novel is a very strange project, and it got its claws right into me. This is the kind of novel you immediately want to tell others about, try out its theories and test its truths... A proper novel, in other words … Yes, A Time to every purpose under heaven is this autumn’s great surprise for me, as I hope it will be for many others ”
(Dagens Nyheter, Sweden)

“The millennium brought a host of angels in books, movies and television shows but without flaming swords, fire and brimstone, or joint-dislocating wrestling matches … Recently angels have begun nudging vampires off the young adult bestsellers lists. To do this, they are necessarily more threatening and sexually assertive … These angels are simple variations on familiar villains of the thriller genre …There have been a few bracing antidotes to this epidemic of angelic schlock. The most recent is the Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard’s A Time for Everything… Part biography … Part alternative Biblical exegis, and part reimagining of the stories of Noah, Lot, Ezekiel, and Cain and Abel, it is a looser, baggier monster than anything”
(The Hudson Review, USA)

Knausgård’s most evident strenght as a writer is his gift for minute descriptions, especially of nature but also of the human psyche … the same fine perception of sensory detail and spiritual desolation … taken together, these strangely juxtaposed qualities create the feeling that we are being transported, again and again, into some primordial world …
(New York Review, USA)

Click here  for English sample translation.

Read Karl Ove Knausgård's top 10 list of books depicting the nature of angels in The Guardian here.

First published: 2004, Forlaget Oktober
Karl Ove Knausgård:   Biography and bibliography

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