After reading The Blue Fox, I was really excited to start this, and then frustrated when I did. A very different kind of Jonah-and-the-whale story, and it was a bit of a slog to trudge through the language. By the end, I felt rewarded by the experience, but it seemed to take a lot of work on my part as the reader in order to get there.

Though lyrically-written and compellingly-charactered, this novel's real charm is that it allows us to see the world of northern Europe through the eyes of an ostracized 17th-century Icelandic naturalist/mystic. Superstition goes hand-in-hand with empirical proto-scientific analysis, etc. For a short novel, there's a lot going on here: thematically, storytelling plays an important role. However, there isn't much of an overall story-arc. Rather, Jonas (the narrator, exiled to a remote island)simply relates different events in his life, run through with sort of a pantheistic Christian philosophizing. The religious aspects of this novel are interesting as well: in medieval Iceland, Christian and pagan myth became intertwined in fascinating ways. In any case, this is a pretty, gritty, and thematically dense novel that rewards attention.

Whimsical Icelandic novel that reads like a poem.

I shouldn't have read this after The Mercies, because the settings began to bleed together in my head — still a very viscerally harsh backdrop well executed, but the abstraction of time passing and my lack of familiarity with the mythos rendered my brain soup. Loved the Kidney Stone chapter — made me feel like I could breathe again.

I haven't read a book like this in a while. There wasn't a lot of plot and what plot was introduced wasn't really resolved and jumped around a ton... but I felt immersed in the story and the characters. Sjon creates images and scenery that seems real with just a few words. Most of what happened began in reality and ended in dream-like allegory areas, so it was more of an experience than a story. It was definitely interesting and immersive. The only thing that really annoyed me was the way that the narrators changed with no indication that they were changing, so I'd start reading a new chapter or section and be really confused for the first several paragraphs.

I picked this up at the Strand Books cart in Central Park to read on the train and I can't say that I would have had the patience or attention to finish this in other circumstances, so I'm glad that I came across it when I did.

Weird and wonderful, as so many good things are. Combines science, magic, medicine, Scandinavian lore, and poetry, possibly inspiring a return to edda-fication for me.

Ah jeez, do I really like this book? I dunno. It has its moments but it mostly reads like a flat Eco.
I like the way the page margins ape the handwritten scripts the protagonist spends his days filling. But I don't like how this formatting ruins the convention of recorded speech.
I like how the language is largely unadorned, beaten into non descriptive toughness and suggests items itself. I like how the language gets more descriptive and flowery when the protagonist comes to Denmark and is faced with civilisation.
I like how he is a man who looks into the world too try and see its workings. I like that his downfall is this curiosity which frightens others.
I like the poetic pacing.
There's a lot to like, but it's hard to get past that flatness.

This novel depicts, welcomingly so, a dirty, rough and violent era, far from the perfect aesthetics that is shown in many novels set in the seventeenth century. It is a mystical, strange, lyrical read. The translation made by Victoria Cribb was beautifully written and organically executed. It sweeps the reader right from the start, the story-telling is truly captivating. I loved the descriptive insertions regarding animals, herbal medicine and minerals with magical properties through out the novel. It is at times comical, at times brittle. It mixes the historical with surrealism.

It would've been interesting to read more about Sigga. With the small glimpse we read about her, she seemed like a fascinating character.

As an introduction to Icelandic literature, I was truly impressed.