Yo-yo

by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir (Contributor)

While examining the tumour of one of his patients, Martin Montag, a cancer specialist in Berlin, finds that its shape, resembling a yo-yo, brings back memories of a traumatic incident he suffered as a child. A drama of betrayal and friendship unfolds, intringuingly told by one of Iceland's best-known contemorary writers.

Genres: Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Steinunn Sigurðardóttir was born in Reykjavík in 1950. She finished her Matriculation Examination at the Reykjavík Higher Secondary Grammar School in 1968 and a BA in Psychology and Philosophy at the University College in Dublin in 1972.

She published her first book, the poetry collection Sífellur (Continuances), 19 years old and received immediate attention. In 1995 she received the Icelandic Literature Prize for the novel Hjartastaður (Heart Place). Her books have been translated into other languages and a French movie based on the novel Tímaþjófurinn (The Thief of Time) premiered in 1999.

Sigurðardóttir was a reporter at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV) and a news correspondent with intervals from 1970-1982. She has also worked as a journalist and written programmes for radio and television.

Steinunn Sigurðardóttir has lived for long and short periods of time in various places in Europe, in the US and in Japan. She currently divides her time between France and Iceland. She has one grown-up daughter.

Reviews

[Arndis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Var þetta skrifað fyrir bókmenntafræðinga? Það er held ég hægt að greina hverja línu í þessari bók! Þetta er toppurinn á sögunum sem ég hef lesið eftir Steinunni, ég er mikill aðdáandi þessarar!

[Evi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kort samengevat: ik verwachtte een Ijslands verhaal en kreeg een Duits/Frans/Pools. Verder waren alle personages misbruikt en werd er veel te veel psychiatrisch nonsens gebruikt zogezegd uit de mond van psychiaters. Wel word de lente gevierd met rosé en heel veel kaarsen. Dat kan iets goed maken, maar niet al te veel. Never judge a book by its... writer.

[Fríða Þorkelsdóttir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Þessi er blautur draumur bókmenntafræðingsins. Langar eiginlega að skrifa ritgerð um hana.

[Sóley Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Þessi er algjört æði, saug hana í mig.

[Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un livre qui décontenance par son style particulier et son manque de ponctuation dans les dialogues, ce qui le rend un peu plus difficile au début. En plus, les 2 personnages principaux portent le même prénom.
C'est vraiment le genre de livre sur lequel il est difficile de motiver son avis. Je ne connaissais pas l'histoire avant d'acheter le livre et je m'en réjouis car il est fort probable que je ne l'aurais pas choisi. Et j'aurais eu tort. Tout repose sur un sujet difficile, des actes de pédophilie (mais qui ne ressortent que dans les dernières pages) commis sur 2 personnes, par ailleurs amis intimes pour d'autres raisons : un médecin cancérologue et un clochard.
La suite pour ceux qui voudront le lire, mais mon bilan est très positif et je le relirai sans aucun doute.

[Irina (Lohe Loeb) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal rating: 2,5/5

The story was well written but quite bizarre. It kept jumping between things that happened in the past and those that were happening now and it was done in a way that managed to confuse me.

[Roland · Rating 4 out of 5]

What begins poetically and romantically turns into near chaos. Martin Montag, oncologist, Siegfried the cancer-killer, is madly in love with his wife Petra and wildly possessed with his mission. He is also quite strange. This seems to have something to do with his new patient, an unlikeable self-pitying macho, has obviously done something unspeakable to Martin when the now doctor was on his way home aged 8.
There is also the homeless intellectual Martin (!) Martinetti (!!), Martin Montag's friend (or his alter ego), just like there is also another Petra, a Turkish girl Montag knew in his youth. Petra's brother Mikka, Montag's best friend, killed himself or was killed. Alternative lives?
In the end Martinett turns out to have suffered Montag's stroke of evil fate a thousand times worse. Notice the close proximity of 'Martin' and 'Martyr' and that the worse afflicted Martin is also called Martinetti on top.
Montag eventually drives around a lot contemplating suicide (he has been contemplating murder ever since the deed).

[Chantal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Op de voorkant van dit boekje staat: 'Geen woord is overbodig, geen woord ontbreekt, niets is overdreven, niets te ingetogen, en het effect is zo krachtig dat het de nekharen van de lezer recht overeind doet staan'. Awel, het is nog waar ook!

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Martin Montag hat sich als Radiologe dem Kampf gegen den Krebs verschrieben. Er findet im Franzosen Martin Martinetti einen Seelenverwandten und tut alles, um ihn zu retten. Die Männer könnten nicht unterschiedlicher sein: der eine ist ein Muster an Disziplin, der andere verstößt mit aller Gewalt gegen alle gesellschaftlichen Konventionen. Aber beide teilen sich ein Geheimnis: sie denken beide über Selbstmord nach und versuchen verzweifelt, zu überleben. Dann bringt ein Patient von Martin Montag eine lange unterdrückte Begebenheit wieder zurück.

Dass er sich nicht mehr erinnern kann woher er den Patienten kennt, stört den Perfektionisten. Verzweifelt durchforstet Martin sein Gedächtnis, aber er kommt einfach nicht darauf. Ich kann mir gut vorstellen, dass ihn das stört. Sein Leben ist genau durchgeplant, vom Aufstehen über seine Laufstrecke, dem Frühstück und auch der Arbeit. Wenn ihm etwas dazwischen kommt, kann er damit nicht umgehen.

Deshalb wundert mich die Freundschaft der beiden Martins anfangs. Denn so starr wie das Leben des einen ist, so beweglich ist der Andere. Trotz aller Probleme, die das Martin Montag verursacht, werden sie Freunde. Der Arzt macht sich ständig Gedanken über seinen Freund und plant dessen Leben, nur um zu merken dass der das ganz anders machen will. Aber je mehr er versucht, das Rätsel um seinen Patienten zu lösen, desto mehr tritt die Sorge um seinen Freund in den Hintergrund.

Der Roman erzählt mehr als nur eine interessante Geschichte. Aber ich konnte der schwerfälligen Person Martin Montags nichts abgewinnen. Irgendwann sagt er selbst, dass er ein Roboter ist. Ob er durch die Ereignisse der Vergangenheit so geworden ist, wird in seiner Schilderung nicht klar. Und auch wenn Martin Martinetti ein sehr lebendiger Gegensatz ist, macht er die Trägheit seines Freundes nur bedingt wett.

[Alison K. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quietly devastating and beautiful novel about the way in which trauma is both processed and unprocessed through an adult's life, and the destructive nature of unexpressed grief and pain. I didn't know before reading it that the writer is also a poet, but this came as no surprise when I did discover it; it makes absolute sense. The novel is extremely visual, working with and subverting imagery, playing with time, memory and meaning in a poetic way. Time does not flow for the protagonist, not really; he is lost in something that happened to him in childhood, and because of the transformative nature of this event, and because he cannot process it nor discuss it, time for him is amorphous, caught in memory. Things repeat, and he is drawn to others who have had the same experience. This gives this the novel a non-linear narrative, because time and experience for the protagonist IS non-linear. He is stuck exactly where he is, reliving, being in one way defined by, something that he has no real means of coming to terms with, and from which he can't escape. I found it a very moving novel.

[Pascale · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two men in their early 30s, both called Martin, meet in Berlin. German Martin is a highly successful oncologist with a beautiful and devoted wife, Petra. French Martin is a suicidal hobo who has been diagnosed with cancer. The 2 become best friends, and furthermore French Martin finds a reason to live when he meets and falls in love with a Polish gatekeeper at the zoo. Meanwhile another of German Martin's patients turns out to be the man who raped him when he was a little boy by luring him to his house with a yo-yo as bait. German Martin toys with the idea of killing his patient in revenge, but his friend talks him out of it by revealing that he suffered even more egregious abuse at the hands of his own father, hence his descent into punishing voluntary homelessness. Buoyed by their friendship and their happy relationships, the 2 guys seem at last ready to put their trauma behind them. I am not sure how rape survivors would react to this but I found it rather tasteless and not very credible. Literarily, it's a dud.

[Blanka Maruszewska · Rating 1 out of 5]

Znacie te memy: jesteś w tarapatach, ratuje cię bohater ostatnio przeczytanej książki - kto to jest?

No to mamy: trzech gwałconych chłopców (jeden popełnia samobójstwo, dwóch usilnie ku temu zmierza), gwałcona dziewczyna po próbach samobójczych, siostra jednego z chłopców, którą tatuś (gwałciciel) z przyzwoleniem matki wsadza na oddział psychiatryczny, bo zechciała zeznawać, a gdy tylko jakaś lekareczka chce posłuchać dziewczyny, piany na gębie dostaje ordynator (przyjaciel tatusia - dziewczyna twierdzi, że tatuś wypożycza ją przyjaciołom).
Mamy żonę głównego bohatera - córkę psychicznie chorej kobiety, która musiała wychować swojego młodszego brata. Mamy rodziców tych innych gwałconych chłopców, niewiele lepszych od tatusia dziewczyny ze szpitala. Mamy młodą Polkę wyglądającą jak bliźniaczka Jandy (książka jest dość nowa), mówiącą biegle po francusku i grającą na fortepianie, ale zdaniem tłumaczki (Buerling) uczęszczającą do gimnazjum wieczorowego (?!). Mamy turecką rodzinę z utopionym w kanale synkiem. Dużo złych komunistów. A, no i jeden z gwałconych chłopców dzisiaj ma raka jąder i jest bezdomny. I parę nieuleczalnie chorych młodych ludzi, żartujących sobie z własnego umierania.

Potworny marysuizm. Przewidywalne, głupie, powtarzające się, nielogiczne. A ble.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

i picked this up on a whim from Oxfam and didn't realise until i came to read it that it's by the same author as the Icelandic-farmer-biography i read a while back. and again i suppose it's interesting, but this time without the interesting personality to drive it.

once you get past the lack of dialogue markers and duplicated character names, there's nothing of great surprise or interest, and i found myself motoring through through a sense of duty than anything else.

[Tim Cassauwers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zelden...
Zelden zo gevochten om een boek door te komen. Meestal verdwijnen ze terug in de kast, geef ik op. Iets stuwde me toch tot het einde, telkens net op tijd het rakende.
't Was het waard. Het einde, is het helemaal waard

[Lisanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly did not think this would be a book on such heavy topics.

[Linda Larsen]

Hætti í miðri bók.

[Anna Gunnarsdottir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok

[Skuli Saeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heillandi saga um Martin Montag lækni sem dag einn stendur frammi fyrir þeirri spurningu hvort hann eigi að láta undir höfuð leggjast að bjarga lífi sjúklings sem leitar til hans. Fyrir honum rifjast gamall glæpur sem læknirinn getur ekki fyrirgefið sjúklingnum. Á meðan hann glímir við sjokkið af minningunni flakkar sagan um tímann og lýsir sambandi hans við unnustu sína og besta vin auk umfjöllunar um persónugerð hans, tilfinningakulda og áhrif æskunnar á starfsval hans.
Eftirminnileg saga en aðalpersónan greip mig ekki og ég hefði viljað sjá endi sögunnar betur útfærðan þó Steinunn geri það að vísu í sjálfstæðu framhaldssögunni Fyrir Lísu.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing looped around and sometimes threw me off, and the central event of the story was apparent long before the book gets to it - and still I could not put it down. The word that keeps coming to mind is "compelling", although that feels weirdly academic. Anticipation mixed with unease comes closer.

Potential readers take note: there are two Martins, they are friends, and this information is not a spoiler or mystery (although it took awhile for my jet-lagged brain to figure it out).

[Örvar Steingrímsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fannst þessi bók ekki byrja nógu skemmtilega en svo skánaði hún í lokin og var því alveg ágætis hlustun. Svipaður stíll og Hallgrímur Helgason er með.

[Ilze · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boeiend geschreven maar ook voorspelbaar

[Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good,solid. Strong ending. Recommendation: worth reading but not a must read.

[Oryx · Rating 2 out of 5]

one to forget.