Skip to main content

Frankfurter Buchmesse 2011 Challenge: Þar sem djöflaeyjan rís by Einar Kárason

I decided to review this book even if I didn’t read it in January because, frankly, I haven’t been to the library all month and it suddenly dawned on me that I only have 3 days left to do a Buchmesse review for January.



Genre: Generational novel
Year of publication: 1983
Setting and time: Reykjavík, 1940s to 1960s
English title, translator and year of publication: Devil's Island; David MacDuff and Magnus Magnusson; 1999
German title, translator and year of publication: Die Teufelsinsel; Marita Bergsson; 1997

This story covers, in realistic detail, a couple of decades in the life of an Icelandic working-class family in the years following the Second World War. Shortly after the end of the war they settle in a house in the middle of a neighbourhood of Nissen huts left behind when the American occupation ended. These neighbourhoods were seen as slums, but they were a much-needed solution to a housing problem caused by the hundreds of people who left their homes in the countryside and small towns and headed to the capital in search of jobs and better lives. The building industry wasn’t coping with the influx and so these people ended up living, often for many years, in the increasingly decrepit huts until they could find better places to live.

The particular family this book is about were a large and exuberant bunch and there was much drama and much that was funny that is described in the story. The central character is Baddi, grandson of matriarch Karolína, a young man raised in America who is sent back to Iceland apparently to keep him out of trouble, but he manages to find plenty of it in the old country.

Einar Kárason is one of Iceland’s most loved authors. His style is frank and funny and he pulls no punches in this semi-fictional novel, which is based on real people and real events. This is the first (and best) in a trilogy of books about several generations of this family, but can be read as an independent work (it will have to be in English, since it’s the only one of his books that has been translated into that language).

Although it was published over 10 years ago in translation, it is well worth seeking out. 5 stars.

P.S.
There is a movie, directed by respected Icelandic director Friðrik Þór Friðriksson and the script written by the author. It leaves out a lot of detail and side stories and is in no way a complete reflection of the story told in the book, but it's good nevertheless.

Comments

Dorte H said…
Djævleøen - ha, I could recognize that word.

Do you know if it is translated into Danish - or other Scandinavian languages?
Bibliophile said…
Dorte, it was translated into Danish and published by Gyldendal in 1997 as Djævelens ø. It has also been translated into Finnish, Faeroese, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Dorte H said…
I´ll try to get it from the library then.
Bibliophile said…
If you find it, I'd be interested in knowing what you think of it.

Popular posts from this blog

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...