The Icelanders say everyone has a book in their belly, and they are better than the people of most nations at getting that book out. (Don’t think about the metaphor too much, though.) It makes sense that the annual Taste of Iceland would include a literary event. This year, author Andri Snær Magnason spoke at the Elliott Bay Book Company.
ByGD
Bonus Poetry at Taste of Iceland
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Book Report: The Story of the Blue Planet
My latest dive into Icelandic literature is The Story of the Blue Planet by Andri Snær Magnason, translated by Julian Meldon D’Arcy. At first every Icelandic novel I read was infuriatingly opaque. But with this book, I feel like I’m starting to get the Icelandic novel.
Now the dreamlike atmosphere that so confused me in The Children of Reindeer Woods has started to feel familiar; sometimes I can tell when something is supposed to be funny; sometimes I can even decode the symbols. Of course, Blue Planet is a kids’ book.
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Book Report: LoveStar
In the week running up to Iceland Writers Retreat, I really dove into Icelandic fiction. It turns out that Icelandic novelists can be pretty challenging, even when their books are fun. By the time I read Andri Snær Magnason’s dystopian novel LoveStar, my head was reeling – which is a shame, because LoveStar was right up my alley, and I wish I could do it justice. In all likelihood, I won’t be able to summarize all the ideas that LoveStar stirred up in my head, so let me just start by saying, “Read it.”