A Time for Everything - Softcover

Knausgaard, Karl Ove

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098003308X ISBN 13: 9780980033083

Publisher: Archipelago, 2009

Synopsis

A spellbinding pursuit of divine mysteries from the celebrated author of My Struggle

“The writing glows with an intense awareness of the here and now, and loving observations of landscapes and objects . . . an extraordinary novel, and completely original.” —The Independent

In the sixteenth century, Antinous Bellori, a boy of eleven, is lost in a dark forest and stumbles upon two glowing beings—one carrying a spear, the other a flaming torch. This event is decisive in Bellori’s life, and he thereafter devotes himself to the pursuit and study of angels, the intermediaries of the divine.
 
Stretching from the Garden of Eden to the present, A Time for Everything reimagines key allegorical encounters between humans and angels: the glow of the cherubim watching over Eden; the profound love between Cain and Abel despite their differences; Lot’s shame in Sodom; Noah’s isolation before the flood; Ezekiel tied to his bed, prophesying ferociously; the death of Christ; and the emergence of sensual, mischievous cherubs in the seventeenth century. Alighting upon these dramatic scenes—from the Bible and beyond--Knausgaard’s imagination takes flight. The result is a dazzling display of storytelling at its majestic, spellbinding best. Incorporating and challenging tradition, legend, and the Apocrypha, these penetrating glimpses hazard chilling questions: can the nature of the divine undergo change, and can the immortal perish?

About this title

About the Author

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s debut novel Out of the World won the Norwegian Critics Prize in 2004 and his A Time for Everything was a finalist for the Nordic Council Prize. My Struggle is a New York Times Best Seller and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Knausgaard writes regularly for The New York Times Magazine. Rachel Cusk wrote that My Struggle “deserves to be called perhaps the most significant literary enterprise of our times.”
 
James Anderson’s literary translations from the Norwegian include Berlin Poplars by Anne B. Ragde, Nutmeg by Kristin Valla, and several works by Jostein Gaarder.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Antinous had been born in 1551 at Ardo, a small mountain town in the far north of Italy, where in all likelihood he remained until he began to study in 1565. Apart from one particular event, to which he was to return time after time for the rest of his life, little is known about his early years. The names of his parents and native town do not figure anywhere in Antinous’s writings, and, as they are otherwise characterized by a large amount of biographical detail, this early obscurity has aroused the curiosity of many readers. But if one is to attempt to understand Antinous, it isn’t to the inner man one must turn.

Edition details

• Publisher: Archipelago
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 098003308X
• ISBN 13: 9780980033083
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 499