In many ways, Iceland’s Bell isn’t a modern novel. And that is its great strength.
The integrity and vitality of Icelandic culture, as subtly celebrated by the Nobel-winning author (1902–98) of Independent People (1946) and, most recently, World Light (2002).
Laxness’s previously untranslated three-part novel (1943–46) is set in the late 17th to early 18th century, when Iceland was effectively a Danish colony—and its initiating action is in fact the prosecution of saturnine farmer Jon Hreggvidsson (a cynical misanthrope akin to Independent People’s prickly protagonist Bjartur) for having insulted Denmark’s king. Hreggvidsson is also (falsely) accused of murder, a slander that motivates his escape from prison and subsequent efforts to clear his name through litigation. He’s encouraged and defended by magistrate’s daughter Snaefridur Eydalin (one of Laxness’s great women), a proud, stalwart beauty who herself escapes an unhappy marriage (albeit through widowhood) and grows into a fierce embodiment of her country’s independence. This transformation occurs through her increasingly intimate relationship with Arnas Arnaeus, an antiquarian professor and failed political idealist (modeled on a real historical figure) obsessed with creating an authoritative collection of indigenous manuscripts and documents. This is the most resolutely Icelandic of Laxness’s work—and it’s probably safe to assume that its emphasis on Denmark’s threats to his homeland’s sovereignty conceals a warning about the perils of a mid-20th-century world dominated by acquisitive global powers. But if Laxness’s characters preach and pontificate, their very human (and often extremely amusing) foibles imbue them with extraordinary energy. Furthermore, the intricacy with which these flinty souls are set into contrast and conflict, and the tenacity with which they cling to endangered and compromised ways of life give this a fabulistic texture quite reminiscent of the classic sagas that influenced all of their author’s best books.
In many ways, Iceland’s Bell isn’t a modern novel. And that is its great strength.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2003
ISBN: 1-4000-3425-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
