Heaven and Hell is a ghost story. No, that’s not true. Heaven and Hell, by Icelandic novelist Jón Kalman Stefánsson, is merely narrated by ghosts. This tragic chorus of post-mortal souls belonging to an isolated fishing village bear witness to one boy’s tragic loss.
Heaven and Hell is a quiet, internal novel about a few crucial days in the life of a lonely boy who loses his only friend. No, that’s not true. In Heaven and Hell, translated by Philip Roughton, the boy’s friend, Bárður, makes a fatal mistake while preoccupied with the words in a borrowed book, and the boy risks his own life to return the copy of Paradise Lost. These are only the events in the book.
Heaven and Hell, like the book that killed Bárður, is an epic poem revolving around the very central questions of existence: Why bother living, when it is so hard? Why should we who live be allowed to do so when so many others are dead? Is it even possible to be truly alive when we are truly alone?
When there is a choice between life and death, most choose life.
This much is certain. But almost nothing else is. Read More