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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