 Let me explain what I mean by "foreign feeling". I've enjoyed fiction from South Africa, Europe, South America, North America and books written in the distant past. I'm a foreigner living in a foreign country and I've lived in Africa and North and Central America. So, what's my point? My point is that I've been exposed to a perspective or two. But I have not encountered writing that depicts a social structure as strange as this book presents. The book is set in 1960 and follows the death of several people on a remote island called Flatey (a real place). Each chapter ends with a separate running dialogue that deals with the text of an ancient Icelandic epic. The chapters are very short, some no more than 2 sides of a page. The vignettes in the epic portions are bizarre, violent, & crude-- just what you'd expect from an ancient epic of a warlike people (not so different from the better-known Norse tales, Greek epics, and Beowulf). There doesn't seem to be any single main character, only a couple who get more exposure than the others. And we're talking some very weird characters, behaving in simple ways but motivated by bizarre impulses. Aaargg!! I'd like to say more about a couple characters, but I can't without ruining the story. The dialogue veers between stilted and extremely simple to hip and pretty funny at times. The first third of the book seemed to really dwell on food. And talk about some interesting food. I grew up on a fishery and thought we ate some pretty disgusting stuff. The stuff in this book goes to a new level-- fermented ray, fermented shark, puffin breast, baby seal fat, and on and on. So, anyhow, if you like murder mysteries I'd say check it out, just keep a really open mind. You won't have read many books with investigators like this one. If you think you are going to get the type of Scandinavian murder mystery book that is so popular right now you'd better think again. If you read books to escape this probably isn't it. If you read books that make you think "what the h#!1 is going on here?!" then you might like this. You certainly won't forget it in a hurry. |
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