Sjón: The Blue Fox

[snakeling]

Title: The Blue Fox

Author: Sjón

Sjón is from Iceland, and among other things, he's a very good friend of Björk's, and wrote the lyrics to several of her songs. He's also a writer, and one of his novels has been translated into English: The Blue Fox. It's a really strange book (though to be fair, not as strange as the one I'm reading right now, which is not available in English, Sur la paupière de mon père/On my father's eyelid), but I adored it, so I'm passing along the love :)

You've got the story of a man hunting a blue fox (from the point of view of the fox as well as the hunter, which is excellently done), and in parallel, you've got the story of a burial, which is both sad (because someone who was loved died) and funny (because of the way it happens; I won't say more). At first, you may think that the connection between both tales is very tenuous, but it turns out it isn't so much. And of course both tales are pretexts to disgressions about everything and anything, and without noticing, you find yourself learning things about Icelandic culture.

Sjón is a poet, which shows, because his writing is absolutely beautiful, and he uses words as other people use brushes, to paint small pictures of Icelandic life in the late 19th century. The book's got a very dreamy quality, especially because of its non-linear structure.

It's very beautiful, and I hope people end up liking it as much as I did. :)

Comments

[stellar_dust]

Ooh, definitely going to look that up. Thanks!