A Time for Everything

by Karl Ove Knausgaard Narrated by Eduardo Ballerini

Overview

In the 16th century, Antinous Bellori, a boy of 11, 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.

Beginning in the Garden of Eden and soaring through to the present, A Time for Everything reimagines pivotal 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 17th 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?

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for A Time for Everything:
 
“A marvelous book . . . Knausgaard’s most evident strength as a writer is his gift for minute description, especially of nature, but also of the human psyche . . . The descriptions of forests, floods, streams, fields, and Henrik Vankel’s secluded island are ravishing and . . . create the feeling that we are being transported, again and again, into some primordial world.”
—Ingrid D. Rowland, The New York Review of Books
 
“The writing glows with an intense awareness of the here and now, and loving observations of landscapes and objects . . . this is an extraordinary novel, and completely original.”
—The Independent

Praise for My Struggle:
 
“This deserves to be called perhaps the most significant literary enterprise of our times.”
—Rachel Cusk, The Guardian

“Knausgaard's command of the traditional novelistic procedure is the reason these books are the opposite of dull, though on the face of it they should be. Knausgaard is always spinning a tale, always drawing the reader along with some romantic entanglement, sexual disaster, or emotional crisis. He feeds in atmosphere in just the right amounts; his pacing is flawless. How wonderful to read an experimental novel that fires every nerve ending while summoning in the reader the sheer sense of how amazing it is to be alive, on this planet and no other.”
—Jeffrey Eugenides, The New York Times Book Review

“What’s notable is Karl Ove’s ability, rare these days, to be fully present in and mindful of his own existence. Every detail is put down without apparent vanity or decoration, as if the writing and the living are happening simultaneously. There shouldn’t be anything remarkable about any of it except for the fact that it immerses you totally. You live his life with him.”
—Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170448951
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	12/11/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

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.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "A Time for Everything"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Karl Ove Knausgaard.
Excerpted by permission of Steerforth Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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