ByGD
Here’s a first: I am writing about a book I didn’t finish. My fascination with Icelandic literature is well documented (I couldn’t even pick a link for that one – I have a tag for Icelandic authors on this blog.) So, when I saw Tómas Jónsson, Best-Seller by Guđbergur Bergsson in an article about books in translation, I immediately put it on hold at the library. But I just couldn’t get through it.
ByGD
Björk’s new album is deservedly getting a lot of attention, but there is another, much quieter release from an Icelandic artist – literally quieter. It’s not an album, it’s a poetry chapbook. Wait! Don’t go! I know what it sounds like. It sounds like photocopied, stapled pages sold out of a backpack on the sidewalk by attractive yet poorly groomed, self-absorbed youths. If you buy a copy (out of an impulse to support the arts, and greatness might appear anywhere, even in a homeless kid; or you want to help the homeless; or simply because you’re charmed by the poet’s combination of sincerity and homemade tattoos) inside the pages you will find verses without rhyme or meter or quite possibly, meaning. I know. That’s usually what it means. But I’m talking about Sjón here. Read More
ByGD
I took a Reykjavík city break last weekend without ever leaving Seattle, thanks to the Taste of Iceland event sponsored by Iceland Naturally and KEXP (among others). After visiting the Odin’s Eye exhibit at the Nordic Heritage Museum, the next item on my itinerary was the Reykjavik Writing Jam. Read More
ByGD
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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ByGD
You’re supposed to read the book first. The movie is never as good and it will limit your imagination when you do read the book. I know this. But I watched Baltasar Kormákur’s movie, 101 Reykjavík, before I knew it was based on Hallgrímur Helgason’s novel. I really liked the movie. It felt a lot like an Icelandic Slackers; that’s the primary difference between the book and the movie. Read More