ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE

by Einar Mar Gudmundsson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 1997

This claustrophobic portrayal of schizophrenia and withdrawal won its Icelandic author the 1995 Nordic Council Literature Prize. It is divided into unequal halves, the first of which details its protagonist Paul's hesitant, troubled childhood and youth in a culture sunk in supernaturalism and an obsession with its legendary past, as his family and friends fail to detect his increasing distance from their world and immersion in a fantasized one of his own creation. The balance of this tense novel, which takes place mostly in a psychiatric hospital and focuses both on Paul's accommodation to dementia and his relationships with fellow patients, is far less involving, and far too imitative of its obvious model: Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. But Gudmundsson's presentation of a sensitive adolescent firmly rejecting the ""normal"" life around him has an eerie and disquieting power.

Pub Date: March 12, 1997

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 176

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997

Categories: FICTION