This was another of the books I bought before travelling to Iceland, and just like the others, reading it had me right back there.

Who is this story for? What is it about? What is meant to be achieved in the telling? Well... it's not exactly clear. There's the framing story of an exiled journeyman healer, but it slips into flights of fancy and glorious metaphor that reminded me at times of "The Monk" by Matthew Lewis.

There's something in the language that does more of the telling than the narrative itself, and drives the reading forward, odd, given that this is a translation. It must be a faithful one.

It's a sort of Icelandic Ulysses (shorter!), or The Island of The Day Before with colder locations, a meandering missive that develops in layers rather than a single strand, potentially readable in any order, an unreliable or at least overtly intentful narration touched with subtlety and tact.

You might hate it, but I think I loved it, although I'm not even sure I could say why, I just felt a great sense of withdrawal while reading it, and a drive to stick with it.

(I know, I know. I've basically just described what the pleasure of reading is.)

It felt a little like reading one of the Icelandic sagas, many points of interest punctuated with sudden occasional deep dives into small moments, but with no real callbacks. Chekov's guns lay unfired, and Sharpe's doorways remained unopened.

I'll probably read more from Sjón and their translator with an equal level of zeal, even though there's still something in me that tells me it wasn't that amazing. Well, there it is.

Nick
xx