Fish Have No Feet

by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Philip Roughton (Translator)

Keflavik: a town that has been called the darkest place in Iceland, surrounded by black lava fields, hemmed in by a sea that may not be fished. Its livelihood depends entirely on a U.S. military base, a conduit for American influences that shaped Icelandic culture and ethics from the 1950s to the dawn of the new millennium.

It is to Keflavik that Ari - a writer and publisher - returns from Copenhagen at the behest of his dying father, two years after walking out on his wife and children. He is beset by memories of his youth, spent or misspent listening to Pink Floyd and the Beatles, fraternising with American servicemen - who are regarded by the locals with a mixture of admiration and contempt - and discovering girls. There is one girl, in particular, he could never forget - her fate has stayed with him all his life.

Lost in grief and nostalgia, he is also caught up in the story of how his grandparents fell in love in Nordfjordur on the eastern coast, a fishing village a world away from modern Keflavik, at a time when the old ways still held sway. Their tragic love affair unfolded against the backdrop of Iceland's harsh nature and unforgiving elements.

Fish have no Feet is at once the story of a singular family and an epic of Icelandic history and culture. It offers a unique insight into modern Iceland, and how it has been shaped by outside influences. A sparkling novel of love, pain, loss, and lifelong desire that marries the poetic, elemental style of Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels, and The Heart of Man to a modern frame of reference and sensibility.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Scandinavian Literature, Literary Fiction, Roman, Novels, Family

361 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Jón moved to Keflavík when he was 12 and returned to Reykjavík in 1986 with his highschool diploma. From 1975 – 1982 he spent a good deal of his time in West Iceland, where he did various jobs: worked in a slaughterhouse, in the fishing industry, doing masonry and for one summer as a police officer at Keflavík International Airport. Jón Kalman studied literature at the University of Iceland from 1986 until 1991 but did not finish his degree. He taught literature at two highschools for a period of time and wrote articles and criticism for Morgunblaðið newspaper for a number of years. Jón lived in Copenhagen from 1992 – 1995, reading, washing floors and counting buses. He worked as a librarian at the Mosfellsbær Library near Reykjavík until the year 2000. Since then he has been a full time writer.

His first published work, the poetry collection, Með byssuleyfi á eilífðina, came out in 1988. He has published two other collections of poetry and a number of novels. His novel Sumarljós, og svo kemur nóttin (Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night) won The Icelandic Literature Prize in 2005. Three of his books have also been nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize.

He was the recipient of the Per Olov Enquists Prize for 2011, awarded at the book fair in Gautaborg in September 2011.

Reviews

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words and music are at the core of this contemporary story set in Keflavik.
Surrounded by miles and miles of black lava fields and a fishless sea, the town has lost its natural sustenance to regulation and globalized modernity.
This is the desolate place Ari returns to when he hears of his dying father after having run away to Copenhagen in a desperate attempt to escape his failures as a husband and son. Haunted by his remorse and inadequacies, he is confronted with a stream of unsummoned memories that shaped his youth and later adulthood, and the past, as short as a hesitation, but as deadly as a dagger, drags him down into an existential journey that threatens his zest for life, his love for poetry, his faith in the healing power of music.

The beauty and menace of the Icelandic landscape that inspired Ari to make of writing his livelihood is of no use to find words to express the inexpressible; and the music of the eighties, the silence of snowstorms in wintertime and the legacy of his ancestors’ struggles to survive blend into a subdued chorus of voices that, conducted by an anonymous first-person narrator, navigates the ocean of time back and forth, taking the reader alternately into the inner depths of Ari’s subconscious and his grandparents’ life story in a remote village on the eastern coast of the island.

Stefánsson composes his tale of sorrow and woe painting a tapestry of recurrent, paradoxical imagery.
Words that were missing to becalm the stirred waters between Ari’s grandparents are still missing between Ari and his wronged wife or his detached father, but they give meaning to otherwise meaningless lives in this small community at the end of the world.
Fists clenched tight that are a symbol of a love declaration, a mute poem to youth and beauty, can also be the means to abuse women and girls who kissed the world with their innocent freckles before they were misused as disposable objects.
The cold moon that sings a lethal serenade that lures lost souls into the sea also sparkles with hope against the darkness of night and the disillusionments of daily life, welcoming the helpless, the hopeless and the exiled.

Present and past, remembrance and forgetfulness, oblivion and guilt, life and death, light and darkness co-exist in this novel, summoning the eternal battle between good and evil and the ancient forces that define mankind.
In spite of the delicate tint of Stefánsson’s lyrical writing style, he doesn’t shy away from the ugliness and brutality that taints human nature and fights them instead by elevating the power of literature, language and music to the divine, with words to guide our steps, past the treacherous shadows of fear, to where the sanctuary of love and forgiveness awaits us.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Image: Monument to Might (of the sea) by Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir on the outskirts of Sandgerði

"It all began with death… In every death, there’s a new life."
The heart is a muscle, light is kindled, the sea and snow enhance and limit life, eyes are vividly described, words and stories have mystical power, and angels look out over tussocks. Reading the first thirty pages was like snuggling into the welcoming embrace of a beloved grandparent. But like the aged relative, things are not quite as remembered.

This book deserves to be reviewed in its own right, but I can’t. Every page has a shadow of the white wings of the (separate) Heaven and Hell trio, that I reviewed here. There's familiarity in the language and themes, and the way phrases are reworked and repeated, acquiring the hypnotic power of liturgy.

But as I settled into the tangled timelines, I craved the simple, incisive, and more ethereal beauty of the passages set in the past, rather than the teenage angst, iconic music, mid-life crises, and socio-economic and political history of the more contemporary chapters. I was less interested in Ari and his narrating cousin than in their grandparents, Oddur and Margrét.

A Family History?

This is subtitled “A Family History”, but the family is wider than Ari and his immediate relatives. This is a Bildungsroman of a nation. Individuals relish and abhor the opportunities and pain of adolescence, plan and cultivate their place in the adult world, and look back with affectionate nostalgia, stained with regret. Women - and men - challenge the limitations and expectations of their traditional roles. And underpinning them all, Iceland shakes off the shackles of Danish and US imperialism and forges an independent identity in the iconic black lava of the land.

“A human being’s life becomes, at most, a few isolated notes without a melody, random sounds instead of music - which is why we’ve brought you this account of generations… So that you’ll know and hopefully never forget that everyone was once young, so you realise that sooner or later we all must burn, burn with passion, happiness, joy, justice, desire, because these are the fires that light up the darkness, that hold the wolves of oblivion at bay, the fires that heat up life, so that you don’t forget to feel.”

Plot and Themes

The major points of Ari’s life are revealed at the start, with details added in later chapters. He achieves his ambition of being a writer, but he’s a wordsmith who can never find the words to talk to his father. In his forties, he leaves his wife after a trivial argument and goes to Denmark. A couple of years later, he returns because his estranged father is dying. His own journey from discovering music, drink, and girls in the 1970s through to middle age in the 2010s has parallels in the lives of his grandparents and his fellow Icelanders.

The recurring themes are mostly similar to the Heaven and Hell trio, but with added music: words, stories, and truth; time, change, and memories; eyes, heart, fists, and embracing arms; snow; fish; regret; family, generations, and inheritance; political history; gender stereotypes and the changing role of women; battling depression and alcohol; finding happiness, love, life and death.

Quotes - Weather and Landscape
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “Keflavik is a bright embrace in the darkness.”

· “In Keflavik there are three cardinal directions: the wind, the sea and eternity.”

· Black lava is “an old scream, and then moss-covered silence” and “that expletive of the soil”.

· “Spots of green grass: the lava’s dreams.”

· “The sea… larger than language… but… the sea has nothing to say… The sea probably understands its fish, and even, in its own way, feels for drowned souls, but it likely has neither understanding of nor interest in our wounds.”

· “By the sea, all sorrows are soothed. Nearly.”

· “The fjord itself is as short as a hesitation… The mountain that halts storms and calms the world: the nights can be so silent and still that the fjord fills with angels, the air with the gentle rustle of angels’ wings. Then it’s as if no one will ever die again.”

· “The wind awakes and adds blowing snow to the falling snow, the entire world… turns totally white as if he has driven into the thoughts of angels.”

· “Where’s the snow that illuminates the darkness, where’s the cold that fetches stars for us?”

· “It starts snowing again, placidly... as if the sky were dreaming.”

· “Snow, white fury that has fallen silent, is still, motionless, welcoming the moonlight and making so many things beautiful.”

· “It’s snowing. A white message sent from Heaven to us here in the blackest place, but the wind sweeps it aside and tears it to pieces as if to prevent us from reading what Heaven wanted to say to us.”

· “The rain is falling like melancholy, falling like a merciless sentence.”

· “The hail pours down like a punishment from Heaven, hard, tiny fists that lash me.”

· “The wind always seems able to swirl something up to dirty the sky, limit visibility: dry soil, dust, sea foam, disappointment, unemployment.”

· “The sky is blanketed with stars, it’s like musical score, it’s like what’s beautiful and what we desire.”

· Block of flats/apartments: “Exclamation marks above the harbour, the storage space for fishermen who are unable to go to sea.”



Quotes - Love, Memories, Regret
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “Your name is carved into my heart with the knife of eternity.”

· Love “is the force that holds the plants in place, that causes the universe to expand and black holes to form. Human will is nearly powerless against this force… It is God’s answer to death, when the Lord failed to save humanity from the darkness of death and instead bequeathed it this peculiar light, this flame that has warmed people’s hands ever since and burned them to the ground, transformed slums into stairways to Heaven, palaces into desolate ruins, joy into solitude.”

· "Memories are heavy stones that I drag behind me. Is it heavy to remember? No, only what you regret or long to forget - regret is the heaviest stone."

· “I can hardly offer you happiness… oblivion is my embrace.”

· “The heaviness of driving past your own son as if he were a stranger.”

· “One of humanity’s greatest misfortunes that it’s quicker to forget than remember.”

· “If we don’t dare remember… we’re finished… We become distortions. We betray.”

· “The three strings of his instrument: loneliness, regret, longing.”

· “Remember to be grateful for your tears.”

· “Why isn’t it enough to be loved… Why doesn’t it heal our wounds?”



Quotes - Life and Death
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “Life… is a ray of light that scratches the darkness, and then disappears.”

· Death’s eyes: “Pupils so black the night itself brightens around them… they’re like two graves.”

· “Stagnation is the sister of death.”



Quotes - Time
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· Wearing a watch is “like being handcuffed by time”.

· “Time changes all of us: it hurtles along while slowing us down.”

· “Time has no regard for people’s dreams; rather, it penetrates everything and eventually turns life into death.”

· “Those who can foresee the future are always taken for madmen.”

· “It isn’t always easy to remember time… It’s almost like hearing death’s footsteps” and if you think about it too much “it unsettles us… reminds us that life passes more quickly than we can understand.”

· “Most translations seem to age more quickly than their original texts… as if they’re bound more closely to their own time periods than the original works.”

· “Time changes everything, turning lustful messages into shopping lists, knickers into hoover bags.”

· “Every single event of the past… condemned to oblivion… solely because no one remembers it.”



Quotes - Words and Stories
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “Life grows out of words, but death dwells in silence. This why we must continue to write, to narrate, to mutter verses and curses, and thereby hold death at bay for a while.”

· For Oddur, who is not a man of words, his “clenched fists were his love poem”.

· Poetry is “more closely related to music than to words… the longing of the heart or blood”.

· “The unsaid slips more swiftly into our hearts… We can silence words but not hints.”

· “No one knows which events deserve to be told…
Where should one stop in a story?”

· “The truth isn’t always as beautiful as the stories we tell.”

· “He'd read too many poems and thus lost sight of normality."
Isn't that partly why we read?

· “We cry because language is imperfect and fails to reach all the way down to the bottom-most depths of life.”

· “Poetry can undoubtedly save the world, but there are so few people who read it.”

· “What are our lives worth if no one wants to hear about them?”

· “Embrace must be the most beautiful word in the language. To use both arms to touch another person, encircle another person, unite with that person, momentarily, two people become one in the heavy currents of life, beneath an open, perhaps godless sky... We yearn to be embraced simply because we're human and the heart is a sensitive muscle.”



Quotes - Gender Roles
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “My diploma is like a past misunderstanding, and I feel as if I’ve been deleted from life.” (A housewife.)

· “Women turn into targets whenever they try to step outside the cramped space assigned to them.”

· “She’s stuck at home with the children… He’ll play with the children… making everyone happy but her.”

· Parenthood, “The years when the world simultaneously shrinks considerably and expands infinitely”.

· “The sea is what makes us men, but the land is for you women… We meet on the shore.”
“The sea makes us men… The eleventh commandment.”

· “The truth is masculine” - as portrayed in the newspapers.

· “It’s hard to be a man when everything is failing.”

· “In the old days, when men were men… they had no time for safety… they never gave in and would rather chew on stones than show signs of weakness, such as feelings.”



Quotes - Other
No plot spoilers; hidden for brevity and easy scrolling.


· “Kindled streetlamps… robs you of stars and scenery.”
“Streetlamps that stand so close together almost as if they’re afraid of the dark.”

· “Sometimes we seek out pain… And plunge into our wounds.”

· “Her eyes, blue-grey, big, gleaming as if, just then, they’d attracted all the light of the world, sun and stars, moonlight and auroras.”

· “Sex, the primal instinct that we hide and trumpet simultaneously, admit and deny” though all life springs from it.

· Postcards: “They show us our dreams... Show us the illusion, and the things we don't dare look in the eye.”

· “Greed is humankind's black hole... Whoever wishes to rule the world must above all convince us that we always need more... to make us insatiable. Change us into addicts.”

· “The outside world recedes… her family tightens its grim… Sometimes beautiful words are no help whatsoever - instead, they gradually settle over her like delicate wrappings, envelop her, tighten around her, tighten and change her slowly but surely into a living mummy.” (Depression or the down of bi-polar disorder.)

· “Guilt can also gnaw at a person who hasn't done anything wrong. A person who doesn't understand anything

· “Her fatigue turns into grains of sand in her blood and the days stretch her nerves between them, transforming them into a vibrating string plucked by the hours.”

· “Thou shalt have no other God… In other words, thou shalt not see the world through anyone else’s eyes but Mine.”

· “Ari is troubled by the unpleasant suspicion… that he sees life, the world, through conclusions drawn by others… that we have so few autonomous thoughts - that our minds have too few of the ptarmigan that cut through the darkness of delusion with their white flight.”

· “A world without music is like the sun without light, laughter without joy, a fish without water, a wingless bird. Like being condemned to live on the dark side of the Moon, with a view of darkness and loneliness.”

· “Eyes that were like two pop songs, one composed by Lennon and the other by McCartney.”

· “Freckles like kisses.”

· “Listening to good music is like setting a direct course for happiness.”

· “Mornings… so still it’s possible to hear eternity.”



Icelandic Trivia

· Iceland sold its fish quotas, leaving towns with fisherman, boats, and a sea full of fish they were not allowed to fish.

· Beer was illegal in Iceland until 1989, even though red wine was permitted from the 1920s (less than a decade after prohibition was introduced in 1915) and spirits from the 1930s. Beer was strongly associated with Danes, and therefore unpatriotic in a country striving for independence from Denmark: BBC article about beer ban.

Words to Live By

The message I took was to strive to understand, to preserve memories by telling stories, and to seize happiness when I can, lest regret, which is the heaviest stone, weigh me down.
Do we “seriously try to understand other people” or just “make others see the world as we see it?”
“What use is intelligence if it isn't accompanied by understanding?”
“When do we tell what really happened, and what's the correct version of the world?”
”Happiness… is the only victory that matters”.
That’s not a selfish message; it’s happiness in general, including, but not limited to me. Claim happiness, my friends.

This is a good book, maybe even great one. I enjoyed it. But for me, it suffered in comparison with the utterly sublime Heaven and Hell trio, reviewed HERE, with links to my reviews of the individual volumes. Fish is the first in a new duo or trio. I hope to regain my full passion with the next part.

“No one… can walk on water, and that’s why fish have no feet.”

[Héctor Genta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forse la bellezza non salverà il mondo...
ma magari mi aiuterà a salvarmi dal mondo. Jón Kalman Stefánsson: è lui il Virgilio a cui ho deciso di affidarmi per questo tratto di strada. Altri lo hanno preceduto (Pessoa e Leonard Cohen, Carver e Mark Strand, Rilke e Tord Gustavsen... sono solo i primi che mi vengono in mente), altri lo seguiranno. Ma adesso tocca a lui, a quella scrittura attenta che ho imparato a conoscere attraverso i suoi libri precedenti, alla scelta accurata delle parole e al loro accostamento quasi più da poesia che da prosa, che me lo fanno immaginare chino sulla pagina come un calligrafo giapponese, intento a trovare il gesto preciso che gli permetta di entrare in sintonia con la parola. Attenzione: il rischio di compiacersi troppo per la bella scrittura, di guardarsi allo specchio e di scivolare nel calligrafismo c'è, ma Stefánsson sembra non preoccuparsene troppo ed anzi sceglie di alzare ancora di più l'asticella, aggiungendo alle difficoltà della forma anche quelle del contenuto, avventurandosi in un terreno particolarmente ostico da affrontare, quello dei sentimenti. Amore, morte, amicizia, bellezza, speranza, sogni, passione, rimpianti, memoria, senso di colpa, tempo, Dio, avidità, felicità, affetti, inadeguatezza, oblio... sono le parole dell'alfabeto stefánssoniano che ricorrono per tutto il libro e che non spaventano l'autore perché, evidentemente, sente l'urgenza di parlarne, non se ne vergogna. Scrivere di sentimenti, si è detto, è un tema scivoloso, si cammina su un ciglio che affaccia sul burrone della banalità e a mettere male un piede c'è il rischio di finirci dentro nonostante le migliori intenzioni. Stefánsson i piedi sa benissimo dove posarli e non ha timore a porre questi sentimenti al centro del romanzo e a parlarne in maniera semplice ma non scontata: perché ne ha bisogno, perché ne abbiamo bisogno. Perché ha un animo sincero. Parlare della trama di I pesci non hanno gambe è poco importante: qui la trama è solo un pretesto per cantare la bellezza e il suo contrario, il Paradiso e l'Inferno, l'amore e la morte. Come nei libri precedenti. l'occhio dell'autore si posa sulla dualità dell'animo umano, sul suo essere al tempo stesso qualcosa ma anche qualcos'altro, sull'eterno oscillare tra due opposti che rischierebbe di deflagrare in conflitto in qualsiasi momento, se la scrittura e l'arte non si incaricassero di fare da collante per tenere insieme le cose. Accendere la luce su oggetti, luoghi e persone per non lasciarli andare via, perché le parole li sottraggano ancora un po' alla morte: questa – in estrema sintesi – è l'idea a a partire dalla quale muovono i romanzi di Stefánsson, un rivoluzionario delicato che espone le sue idee sul mondo e sulla società senza urlare, senza la pretesa di aver ragione. La vita è ricerca di uno scopo, ci dice, e così ci racconta quello che i personaggi cercano, ma anche quello che pensano e soprattutto quello che sentono, saltando tra passato e presente senza preoccuparsene troppo perché il suo tempo e quello dei protagonisti del romanzo è scandito da sogni e pensieri, non dalle lancette di un orologio.

[Chrissie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here is the gist of the story. A middle-aged Icelander, Ari, has returned from a two-year stay in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the beginning of the 21st century. He is a poet and a novelist. The person telling the tale is a friend from his youth. The story covers three time periods—Ari’s return to Iceland, his youth in Keflavik during the 1970s and 1980s and the lives of his paternal grandparents living out their lives in a small fishing community located on a fjord on the east coast. The telling flips haphazardly between the different time periods.

Problem one—the haphazard flips result in both confusion to the reader and repetition. The same events are returned to many times, each return telling the reader only a teeny bit more. The significance of events remains fuzzy, even after arriving at the book's end! I will cite one example. The statement is made that only after Ari’s cousin, at customs inspection on Ari’s return to Iceland, had put his gloved finger up Ari’s rectum, was it possible for Ari to leave behind the past, enabling him to forge a new path into the future. In other words, old problems must be resolved before one can move ahead, but who wouldn’t agree with this?! Moreover, the circumstances are so abstrusely drawn that one fails to understand how the maxim applies here. The book is overly philosophical. What is said has been said many times before and in a clearer fashion. Plot events fail to demonstrate the maxims proclaimed.

The book touches upon a plethora of themes. “Touches upon” are the words to note. The marital relationship of Ari and his wife, of his father and stepmother as well as his grandparents are dealt with. Family relations and acquaintance are numerous. Everyone on the island seems either to be related or know each other. It doesn’t minimize confusion that females have masculine names. Another theme is the dominant role of the Americans on the island. During the Second World War America established a Naval Air Station at Keflavik. I would have appreciated more historical information about the base, about the island’s fishing industry, its fishing quotas and that the quotas could be sold. Sold to the detriment of those living at particular harbors but profitable to big business—this being another theme. The hardships endured by the islanders, both in the past and in the present, morph into philosophical questions related to whether society is moving forward or backward. The situation for women must be alluded to too. The book tries to say and do too much. In attempting to do too much, it fails.

The role of the person telling the tale, Ari’s friend, is totally baffling. I have not the faintest idea why he is telling the story or even how well he actually knows Ari. How can one trust what he says? He can be totally unreliable.

The prose style shifts dramatically in different portions of the book. The harshness of the land and the inherent struggle for survival are drawn with words of raw emotion. There are lines of lyrical beauty, particularly in the sections describing the life of Ari’s grandparents. The other parts have lines that verge on the crude and vulgar—here harassment, sex, rape and obscenities pepper the telling.

The book’s occasional beautiful lines are simply not enough to counter the book’s numerous weaknesses. I have found writing this review difficult, basically because the book itself is confusing. I don’t clearly see what it is trying to say.

Saul Reichlin narrates the audiobook. The narration is fine. I have no idea if his pronunciation of Icelandic terms and names is accurate. The narration I have given three stars.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In Keflavik there are three cardinal directions: the wind, the sea and eternity.

'Nowhere in all of Ireland do people live as close to death.'(*)

The unrelenting wind seems to be able to blow from two directions at once, gusts bearing salt and sand took turns lashing us, the sky so distant that our prayers over ever made it halfway there, then dropped like dead birds or changed into hail, the drinking water as salty as the sea. This place isn't fit for habitation; everything is against it: common sense, the wind, the lava. Still, we've lived here all these years, all these centuries, stubborn as the lava, silent within history as the moss that grows over rocks and changes it into soil, someone should stuff us, pin medals on us, write a book about us."

(* from the 1714 Land Register by Arni Magnusson and Pall Vidalin, commissioned by the Danish Crown)

Jón Kalman Stefánsson's Heaven and Hell Trilogy, to which I was introduced by the excellent blog https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com, was one of my favourite fiction discoveries of the last 2 years. My reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

His 2013 novel, Fiskarnir Hafa Enga Fætur has been translated, once again by the excellent Philip Roughton, as Fish Have No Feet. Tony's review is here and strongly recommended https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.co...

Fish Have No Feet is also the first part of an intended trilogy, and the second, Eitthvað á stærð við alheiminn (English working title "Around the Same Size as the Universe") has been published recently in Iceland. [Footnote - the trilogy was actually a duology and the English translation wa s published as 'About the Size of the Universe in 2018]

Jón Kalman Stefánsson is a wonderful writer, and this novel contains the same stunning prose as his previous trilogy. But overall I have to say I didn't find this as distinctive or satisfying as the Heaven and Hell novels.

The novel centred on the character of Ari, a now middle-aged ex-poet and publisher, and has three interwoven strands set in different times.

In the present day, he is returning from self-imposed exile in Denmark, after the self-inflicted break up of his marriage, to meet the narrator in Keflavik. A second strand covers Ari and the narrator's teenage years in Keflavik in the late 1970s and 1980s, at the time when the town was the home of the US military. And a third strand reaches back much further in time to give us the story of Ari's paternal grandfather, Oddur, a fisherman, and his grandmother Margrét.

The effect is to create a slightly uneasy blend of the wonderfully evocative, unique and timeless prose of the earlier books, with a more conventional tale of Nordic life in 1970/80s which takes us into territory already firmly staked out by other writers. Knausgaard is an obvious reference but I was more struck by the resemblance to Lars Saaybe Christensen.

The book also suffers a little from it's nature as a trilogy combined with the non-linear nature of the story as exactly how it all pieces together is rather unclear. For example, by the time the novel finishes, Oddur and Margrét have 4 children but Ari's father and his aunt (Erin) have yet to be born. And the novel finishes on a teaser for book 2 "and tomorrow something will happen that's beyond our control."

The prose at times also seemed unnecessarily repetitive. I suspect the intent was to create a poetic sense of rhythm, but it instead came across (unfairly I know) as closer to lazy writing/translation. To give an example, in just the first 20 pages there were 5 metaphorical screams: a residue of lava "at first is an old scream", there is "a cliff jutting into the unsettled sea like a giant fist or scream", "a car screamed through the night", we journey past mountain "passes shaped like screams" and, most significantly for the story and what I suspect the other occurrences are intended to echo, Ari's hand "swept like a scream across the kitchen table" ending his marriage.

And the narrative device also doesn't quite work. The Heaven and Hell trilogy was narrated by, essentially, the voices of those lost at sea, enabling them to naturally interject at times with a commentary on events. Here, the narrator is ostensibly Aki's childhood friend / cousin, at times part of the story himself but at others remarkably absent from the same events. And the narrative voice at times observes Ari from the outside, at times knows things only Ari would know, and at times slips into the same style as the trilogy (e.g. "A stormy death and night are thus the beginning, the cause, the reason why we bring you this story."). Indeed the question of exactly who is the narrator - does he even exist or is this an alter-ego of Ari himself? - is never clear and became, to me, rather distracting. Perhaps another one for books 2 and 3.

My favourite parts of the story were the tales of Oddur and Margrét, but those are exactly the parts that largely echo the Heaven and Hell trilogy. Although it was interesting to see how fishing life has progressed since those novels. I was struck in the earlier novels that none of the fishermen could swim, and Oddur is a pioneer in challenging that convention.

Others gossip (but certainly not to his face) that Oddur is "something of a coward behind all that unbending toughness". He has learned to swim, insists his crew do as well, and "the very height of absurdity" even installed a lifeboat on his trawler:

"To waste valuable space on a lifeboat – in the old days, when men where men, all they thought about was catching enough fish; they had no time for safety. If something happened – an accident, a dangerous swell, you had to deal with it as best you could, show what sort of man you were, and if it wasn’t enough, well then, your time was simply up, time to pack your belongings and leave. Things have changed, obviously there’s a clear difference between the champions of the past and the present."

I have been a little critical in this review, but my benchmark is the wonderful earlier novels, and the book in it's own right is still a worthwhile read, and I trust Philip Roughton is already hard at work on translating Eitthvað á stærð við alheiminn (polishing the English working title may be his first task).

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Fish Have No Feet' by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (translated by Philip Roughton)

5 stars/ 10 out of 10

Ever since I was a child I have wanted to visit Iceland. Twenty years ago I made it there, albeit only for some hours at Keflavík airport, as a refuelling stop. A few years after that I spent a wonderful couple of weeks in Iceland, walking and sightseeing. Since then I have read anything available about the country; so I am very pleased that 'Fish Have No Feet' is now available in English (translated by Philip Roughton, published in August 2016).

This novel is ostensibly the story of Ari, who returns to Iceland after many years of living abroad. By his musings and inner thoughts we are also introduced to his childhood and growing up in Iceland, people and places that he knows from the past, and the lives of some of his ancestors.

The narrative is interspersed with reflective passages eg about love, and historical passages eg about the fishing quota system, in a way that really enhances the novel. The story line meanders to and fro, past and present. I found I needed to concentrate whilst I was reading this book, but it was well worth the effort.

I loved the reflective nature of the book. Perhaps my favourite passage was about the seven ptarmigans. I also liked that so much of the underlying themes related to literature, and especially to poetry.

The translation by Philip Roughton reads very easily. I found the footnotes very helpful in my understanding of some of the situations and people mentioned in the book. They gave me information that I now want to follow up eg re the Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson. It suited me that the footnotes were in fact at the bottom of the relevant page, rather than at the end of the book.

I have twice narrowly missed talks given by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, one in Copenhagen and the other in Edinburgh. I'm hoping that I organise the timing of my visits better in the future! My priority now is to read others of Stefánsson's novels, that have also been translated into English.

Thank you to Quercus Books and to NetGalley for an ARC.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I picked up in the library on the strength of vague memories of a few reviews several years ago, and my first experience of reading Stefánsson.

I found it interesting and enjoyable, but got a little distracted trying to work out exactly how the narrator is related to his friend Ari, the main protagonist - eventually one grandparent is described as common to both, but presumably part of the story was withheld deliberately for the sequel. The narrator has a comprehensive knowledge of Ari's youth in which their paths, including a string of casual jobs, coincided for long periods.

What remains emerges gradually from a fractured narrative whose chapters go backwards and forwards over a century, painting a vivid picture of an Iceland moving from a land of hardy fishermen and smallholders into a modern economy. This is all symbolised by the main location Keflavik, a former fishing port in the South West corner of the country that became a dead end town thanks to an American military base that eventually deserted it.

Ari does have biographical details in common with the author - in the modern part of the story he has just returned from Denmark, to which he fled after walking out of an apparently successful marriage.

I have yet to read Heaven and Hell, so I can't comment on how this compares to what many consider his best work, but I would like to read more by Stefánsson.

[Patrizia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Nessuno può camminare sul mare, è per questo che i pesci non hanno gambe”
Cento anni di storia di una famiglia, tanti volti, tante esistenze segnate dal mare e dall'attesa, da sogni non realizzati, da aspettative disattese. Donne e uomini in un paese, l'Islanda, al confine del mondo. Vite dure, difficili, amori, rimpianti, nascite e morti, in mezzo a una natura bellissima ma inclemente.
Una prosa poetica, immaginifica ed evocativa, ma tratti eccessivamente carica a discapito della narrazione, che procede discontinua tra flashback, salti temporali e riflessioni sul senso della vita.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il vento, il mare e l’eterno

Leggendo con occhio ipercritico si potrebbe affermare che Stefansson utilizza sempre gli stessi ingredienti per creare le sue storie, e non si può negare che in tale asserzione ci sia del vero. Il punto è che la prosa dell’autore islandese trabocca a tal punto di poesia (JKS ha pubblicato in patria raccolte di poesie oltre che romanzi) che inevitabilmente nel corso della narrazione degli eventi ricorrono passaggi che si colorano di un lirismo che colpisce al cuore senza mai oltrepassare il confine con la retorica benché talora rischi di avvicinarvisi.

In questo specifico romanzo Stefansson inserisce, molto più che nelle precedenti prove, elementi significativi del contesto socio-politico islandese e non solo come sfondo, ma con precise e importanti ripercussioni sulla vita dei personaggi. Uno di questi riguarda il “sistema delle quote nell’industria ittica”, una scelta politica nata per regolamentare i limiti del territorio di pesca fra l’Islanda e gli altri paesi che si affacciano sul Mare del Nord, ma soprattutto per disciplinarne il quantitativo fra i diversi distretti dell’isola, penalizzando gravemente un fattore vitale nell’economia della comunità di Keflavik, dove si svolge gran parte del racconto.

Inoltre, nella linea temporale del passato, riveste un ruolo importante la prossimità di una grande base militare americana con alcune migliaia di yankees che nel romanzo hanno scarse interazioni dirette con i personaggi autoctoni, ma influiscono con la ricchezza e la varietà delle merci trasportate in periodici rifornimenti (oggetto addirittura di avventurosi saccheggi da parte dei ragazzi del luogo in uno dei capitoli più divertenti del racconto); quando nel presente la base sarà stata smantellata, si chiuderà un'altra delle pochissime occasioni di reddito e sopravvivenza per i giovani abitanti di Keflavik, descritta come uno degli angoli più miseri e bui dell’intera Islanda.

Il fulcro di “I pesci non hanno gambe” resta tuttavia il racconto dell’esistenza dei suoi protagonisti circondati fra il mare e il paesaggio cangiante dell’isola, un racconto irrinunciabile perché …la vita cresce dalle parole, la morte dimora nel silenzio. Per questo dobbiamo continuare a scrivere, a raccontare, a mormorare versi di poesie e imprecazioni e così tenere lontana la morte, per un po’…; è la storia centenaria dell’avvicendarsi di generazioni che confluisce nel ritorno in patria, carico di nostalgia, malinconia e rimpianti, di Ari, il personaggio centrale del romanzo, anche se l’io narrante è un altro, un amico e coetaneo di cui non ci viene mai fatto il nome, forse lo stesso Stefansson. Non importa se col procedere della storia si rischia di confondere gli strani nomi islandesi, i rapporti di parentela, i personaggi secondari, perché il fascino del libro risiede altrove e può farne a meno.

Il racconto avanza a volte in modo lineare, articolato su tre archi temporali alternati, spesso procede per ellissi, intercalando come in dissolvenze cinematografiche poesie e meditazioni, oppure sorprendendo con divagazioni che sottolineano la solennità di un momento; come ad esempio l’incontro, dopo otto anni di separazione, di Oddur con Margret, emigrata in Canada tredicenne e ora destinata a diventare la futura compagna di tutta la vita e madre dei suoi sei figli. Fra l’attimo in cui i due incrociano lo sguardo e si riconoscono e l’esplicita dichiarazione, Stefansson interpone un capitoletto di una pagina (Breve saggio sulla forza che distrugge la vita, che rende abitabili i deserti) dedicato all’amore.

Banale e retorico, si potrebbe a questo punto supporre; e invece il talento (uno dei talenti…) dell’autore sta nel saper esprimere i sentimenti più comuni e abusati con un approccio rinnovato, lirico, evocativo e sincero di cui detiene l’arte e il segreto.

[Ratko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Средовечни Исланђанин Ари, враћа се након две године из Копенхагена како би видео свог умирућег оца и са њим провео његове последње дане. Самонаметнуто изгнанство уследило је после распада дугогодишњег брака и наизглед уређеног живота.

Место Кеблавик, у које се Ари враћа суморна је провинција, далеко од свега, економски угушена, оскудних природних богатстава, практично окружено пољима стврднуте црне лаве... У Кеблавику, каже Калман Стефансон, постоје три стране света – ветар, океан и вечност. Може ли се лепше исказати сва тамошња бесперспективност и сивило живота.

Након слетања на аеродром започеће реминисценције на претходни живот (додуше, наратор је Аријев неименовани пријатељ), а све то писац ће нам представити кроз три временска плана – један је садашњи тренутак у коме се срећу Ари и његов пријатељ из детињства, док су друга два временска плана у прошлости. Један је почетак осамдесетих година, тинејџерско доба Арија и његовог пријатеља, а други, најлирскији, смештен је на почетак ХХ века и ту ћемо пратити живот Аријевих бабе и деде. Осим личних судбина и прича, писац се дотиче и тзв. општедруштвеног плана – прича о неправедним рибарским квотама, америчкој војној бази, економији Исланда у осамдесетим годинама ХХ века, животу тинејџера у доба оскудице итд.

Иако сам већином уживао у књизи, крај без икаквог разрешења и јасног дешавања ме је оставио у недоумици (прочитах да је Калман Стефансон касније написао и наставак романа, можда је у томе квака). Такође ми је остало нејасно зашто је писац изабрао баш Аријевог пријатеља за наратора, а није се одлучио за интроспекцију самог Арија.
Осим тога, на нерве су ми ишли покушаји духовитог ускакања писца у причу, коментарисање поступања појединих ликова, као и његови интерлудији у виду коментара о пролазности времена и живота или коментари у стилу „Ех, како се данас живи брзо; куда се то данас креће свет...“. То изгледа као накалемљено, неинвентивно је и баш квари утисак.

Ипак, у читање овог романа заиста се вреди упустити, како због појединих изузетних, дубоко медитиативних, лирских реченица, тако и због упознавања једне дивне земље каква је Исланд.

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did a full, 17.5 minute review of this on my YouTube channel (link is in my bio), so I'm not going to bother with going into too much detail here. Suffice it to say that this book was a massive disappointment for me, despite being one of my most anticipated longlist reads.

In my honest opinion, this was a poorly written book with overly flowery language for the sake of having more words on the page. This writing didn't enhance the book at all, instead highlighting the fact that most of the imagery used had little to no meaning. There were moments of real sexism here too, and just so many eye-rolling instances that I almost put the book down. Thankfully, the sections in the past following the characters of Oddur and Margret saved it a little bit for me, along with the pretty excellent translation by Phillip Roughton.

Honestly though? I wouldn't bother with this one again, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Moira Macfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jón Kalman Stefánsson schrijft filosofisch, poëtisch, zwaarmoedig. Rijke volle zinnen met veel woorden en ruimte voor rust, een zekere traagheid, melancholiek, maar in oh zo'n stijlvol ritme. Daar moet je van houden en ik denk ook even het juiste moment voor vinden (want al die zwaarte kan anders wel rauw vallen), maar ik vind het stuk voor stuk mooie woorden waarin hij je meeneemt zijn wereld en gedachten in.

Hieronder de eerste bladzijde van het boek, die zo prachtig de toon zet van alle bladzijden daarna.

Voorspel

Zelfs de zon kan het niet stoppen en fraaie woorden als regenboog en liefde al helemaal niet, ze zijn absoluut zinloos, je kunt ze gerust weggooien – dit begon allemaal met de dood.
Wij hebben zoveel: God, gebeden, muziek, techniek, wetenschap, elke dag nieuwe ontdekkingen, steeds geavanceerdere mobiele telefoons, sterkere telescopen, maar dan sterft er iemand en je hebt helemaal niets meer, je tast naar God, omarmt teleurstellingen, je pakt zijn koffiebeker, de haarborstel met haar haar, bewaart hem als troost, als iets magisch, als tranen, als iets wat nooit terugkomt. Wat kun je er nog meer over zeggen, waarschijnlijk niets, het leven is onbegrijpelijk, onredelijk, maar toch leven we het, ontkomen er niet aan, we kunnen niet anders, het leven is het enige wat we met zekerheid bezitten, een kleinood, een waardeloos iets. Na het leven is er waarschijnlijk niets. En toch begon het allemaal met de dood.
Nee, dat kan nauwelijks steekhoudend zijn, want de dood is het einde, dat wat ons het zwijgen oplegt, midden in een zin ons potlood afpakt, de computer uitzet, de zon laat verdwijnen, de hemel laat branden; de dood zelf is futiel, we zouden hem helemaal geen begin moeten toekennen, het mag niet. De dood is het gebrek aan argumenten voor het bestaan van God, het is de reden dat God, misschien uit wanhoop, wreedheid en nostalgie samen kneedde omdat de draad van het lot niet leek te werken. Desondanks zit in elke dood nieuw leven...

[szadrienn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ez a regény alaposan megtépázza az olvasóját és ellenállhatatlanul söpör keresztül rajta, mint a csipkézett izlandi hegytetőkről lezúduló fékezhetetlen lavina. A szerző úgy tud írni a szerelem felforgató erejéről és lassú kimúlásáról a hétköznapok taposómalmában, az ifjúság bizonytalanságáról és a minden sarokban ott ólálkodó halálról, hogy szavai a felfedezés erejével hatnak, mintha friss tekintettel most először csodálkoznánk rá a könyörtelen törvényszerűségek létére a világban. Igazságai egyszerre egyetemesek és speciálisan északiak, mintha a szélsőséges éghajlat, a komor táj, az elszigeteltség még inkább kiélezné az emberlét végleteit.
A kerettörténet témája egy átgondolatlan menekülés az élet szürkesége elől és az emlékek feldolgozatlansága, amik most megmutatják igazi arcukat, felvillantva egy család több generációjának legfontosabb pillanatait. A regény nyelvezete felejthetetlenül szépséges és költői, a fordítás tökéletes, olvasás közben szinte halljuk a tengermorajlást és a süvítő északi szelet.

[Bellezza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have rarely reviewed the books I hold the most dearly on this blog. I am afraid that my words will tarnish them, that my words and their author’s words have no business being on the same page.

So it is with Fish Have No Feet by Jón Kalman Stefánsson. If I tell you that I read breathlessly, turning the pages without being aware of the paper, or the light, or the time, or my chair, you might say, “I’ve heard all that before.”

You might even be unconvinced of its power if I told you there was a line on nearly every page that I wanted to record in my commonplace book, write down to record exactly what Jon said so that I can read it again and again at my leisure.

Even though he writes a family history with some of the hopelessness of a secular viewpoint, he brings to mind questions that I often battle, feelings which I claim to have owned. A few examples:

“Question: What travels faster than the speed of light?

Answer: Time itself.

It whizzes like an arrow straight through us. First the sharp point penetrates the flesh, organs and bones, that’s life, followed shortly by the feathers, that’s death.” p. 51

“…how is it possible to make it through life relatively undamaged when so much wears out-when passions fade, kisses cool, and so little goes in the direction we choose?” p. 73

“Memories are heavy stones that I drag behind me. Is it heavy to remember? asked Ari. No, only what you regret or long to forget – regret is the heaviest stone.” p. 86

“Nothing but eternity matches up to God’s terrible implacability.” p. 91

“…we constantly try to suppress the feeling, the certainty, the fact, that humanity is ephemeral, our lives birds’ songs, seagull’s cries, then silence.” p. 84

“At some point, this thought assails us all. Why have I lived? Why am I living? Because if we never ask, never doubt, and pass our days and nights thoughtlessly, or dash through them so quickly that little stays with us but the newest mobile phone, the most popular song, it’s not unlikely that sooner or later, we’ll run into a wall.” p. 107

“It’s impossible to measure longing, nor is it possible to understand it, describe it, explain it, those who miss someone always have something dark in their hearts, a string of sorrow that time plays, strums, plucks.” p. 312

And the title? Fish have no feet, what does that mean?!

“The silly girl neither stops nor hesitates but steps into the sea, despite no-one having been able to walk on water since Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee two thousand years ago to charm a few fishermen. The girl from the north steps down from the rocks and one foot immediately enters the sea, as does the other a nano-second later. No-one, you see, can walk on water, and that’s why fish have no feet.” p. 331

Have you ever searched for something and then perhaps compromised, making do with what comes close enough to what you had in mind? And then have you ever had the rare experience of knowing, as surely as anything you ever knew, that you have found what you were looking for?

That is me holding this book right now. I’m not saying it will win the Man Booker International Prize 2017, or even that my fellow shadow jury panelists will feel that it should.

But I know, in my heart of hearts, that no book on the long list will surpass this one for me.

[Ellis ♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jón Kalman Stefánsson ha dato una nuova accezione a quella di romanzo esistenziale; come uno scaltro marionettista, manovra i fili di una storia che si snoda su diversi piani temporali coinvolgendo tre generazioni. L’io narrante è un amico di Ari, il protagonista, non sapremo mai il suo nome ma sarà quel faro che ci aiuterà a dissipare la caligine di malinconia e rimpianto che permea queste pagine.
L’Islanda – terra natia dell’autore – non spicca soltanto per il candore dei ghiacciai e il verde incontaminato, bensì preme maggiormente su quegli elementi che rendono poco “amena” questa Nazione, ad esempio la furia del mare oppure l’imperscrutabilità che contraddistingue gli abitanti.
La sua è una prosa poetica non convenzionale, niente di aulico e criptico, lo stile si fonda sulla concretezza pur narrandoci l’astratto tipico delle emozioni. E, infatti, anche stavolta non mancano passaggi di raro splendore che come una cassa di risonanza aumentano l’intensità di quanto stiamo leggendo.
Stefánsson è diventato uno dei miei “scrittori-rifugio” . Quando sento il bisogno di lasciarmi confortare dalla bellezza delle parole, mi basta aprire uno qualsiasi dei suoi libri e verrò accontentata. Lui sa quali corde pizzicare per scavare a fondo nell’animo umano, toccando insieme cuore e mente.
Ogni volta che mi accingo a leggere un suo romanzo, ho la certezza che sarà come fare un viaggio in lungo e in largo per queste terre da favola e stavolta la destinazione è Keflavík.
Ahimè, uno degli effetti collaterali di queste letture è proprio il crescente desiderio di visitare l’Islanda!

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first experience of Stefansson, so I cannot draw any comparisons with his other works. But I can say that, despite the occasional repetitiveness, there is some beautiful, poetic prose in this family saga. The book interleaves three story lines. Firstly, we read about Ari as he returns from self-imposed exile in Denmark to the Iceland of his birth and growing up. Secondly, we hear the story of his childhood and adolescence in Iceland with his friend (more on this later) who narrates the book. Thirdly, we read about Ari’s grandparents and learn the story of Oddur and Margret’s love. This last section contained most of my favourite bits of the book and I wasn’t quite so convinced by the other two.

Some of the writing is truly beautiful. It is intense and full of imagery. Often the author pulls an unexpected phrase or word out of the blue that really lifts the text. I found this extended quote to be a powerful piece of writing:

"A human being’s life becomes, at most, a few isolated notes without a melody, random sounds instead of music – which is why we’ve brought you this account of generations, this centennial history, or planet, comet, this pop song, this hit parade from the end of the world – because we want you to know that Margrét was once naked beneath an American dress, with her small, round breasts, her long, slender, yet strong legs, which shortly afterwards locked around Oddur, so that you know and hopefully never forget that everyone was once young, so you realise that sooner or later we all must burn, burn with passion, happiness, joy, justice, desire, because these are the fires that light up the darkness, that hold the wolves of oblivion at bay, the fires that heat up life, so that you don’t forget to feel, so that you don’t change into a picture on the wall, a chair in the living room, a piece of furniture in front of the T.V., into someone staring at a computer screen, into something inert, so that you don’t become something that hardly notices anything, so that you don’t grow numb and become a plaything of the powers-that-be, economic interests, don’t become insignificant, apathetic, at best the grease on a mysterious cogwheel."

The author throws out some though provoking comments. One in particular caught my eye because it seemed to say something quite different to what I saw as a key quote from one of the other books listed for the Man Booker International prize. In The Traitor's Niche we read "But recently people had come to understand that forgetting was more difficult and complicated than remembering", but in this book we read "…isn’t one of humanity’s greatest misfortunes that it’s quicker to forget than remember, undoubtedly because it’s more convenient,…"

Now I’m confused!

When I started this book, I had no idea it forms part one of an intended trilogy. I’m pleased that I’ve learned that and that I came across that whilst reading the book. I’m pleased because I’d like to read more and because there are untold things in this book that definitely make it feel incomplete (it ends with a statement that “tomorrow something will happen that’s beyond our control” and this would be incredibly frustrating if that actually was the end). Also, it’s a family saga centred on Ari and the story stops in this book before Ari’s father has been born, so clearly there is a lot left to be told. I think I would have been extremely annoyed to get to the end of the booking thinking that was all we were going to get of the story. Fortunately, I'd seen elsewhere that there are other parts to come, so that frustration was avoided!

Finally, unless I missed something, there’s a mystery to be resolved, hopefully in later parts of the trilogy. I do not know who the narrator is! He could be a close friend of Ari’s or some kind of alter-ego and I really can’t work it out (I’m tending towards the second explanation). Comments welcome if I am being thick!

In summary, I really enjoyed reading this book and would very much like to read both the other parts of this trilogy and other works by this author.

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Abbraccio è senza dubbio la parola più bella di ogni lingua".

Libri come quelli di Stefansson ti mettono in contatto con la natura, con il mondo, ti invitano a riflettere, a porti domande.
Dai paesaggi che Stefansson riesce a descrivere in modo magistrale, ti senti circondato da amore, meraviglia e da commozione.
Il viaggio che Ari intraprende è il viaggio non solo fisico, ma anche interiore, il viaggio di chi si pone domande, di chi cerca risposte agli interrogativi della vita. Dalle domande sulla nostra origine sino al nostro passaggio sulla terra, la storia di Ari e degli altri personaggi, come la nonna, danno luce e colore al paesaggio, alla vita e alla vicenda che si racconta. Qui si racconta l'anima di un paese, dei suoi abitanti, delle sue donne, dei destini di un popolo, della bellezza che è poesia, meraviglia, spettacolo di natura e di umanità.

[Szeee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nagyszerű szöveg, ha író lennék, így szeretnék írni.
Nem más ez a regény, mint egy gondolatfolyam, egy izlandi férfi emlékei, fájdalmai, élete. Semmi különös. Mégis teljesen beszippantott már az első oldalakon. Üvölt a jeges izlandi szél, a táj kopár, mar a hideg, mégis olyan bensőségesen és könnyedén siklik a szöveg, ahogy az enyhe tavaszi szellő lengedezik a rét felett. Hogy lehet ez? Biztos vagyok benne, hogy a fordítás is hozzájárul ehhez, meg kell hát jegyezni Patat Bence nevét, mert valamit nagyon tud, nagyon ért. Köszönöm az élményt.

[roberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mamma mia che scrittura pazzesca. Lirica, intensa, moderna, preziosa, ricca... eppure scorrevolissima, mai di troppo; ed è proprio questo equilibrio qui - quello in cui una prosa lavoratissima si consuma in pagine che scorrono da sé, in totale scioltezza - ad avermi colpito. O folgorato.

[Hana Zet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Zdalo sa, že ustavičný vietor fučal z dvoch strán súčasne, striedavo nás bičoval soľou či pieskom, nebo bolo také vzdialené, že sa naše modlitby dostali iba do polcesty a potom popadali ako mŕtve vtáčiky, alebo sa zmenili na krúpy a pitná voda mala slanú príchuť, akoby sme pili samotné more. Nedá sa tu žiť, všetko sa proti tomu búri: rozum, vietor, láva. A predsa sme tu prežili už toľko rokov, toľko storočí, tvrdošijne ako láva, ticho sme pretrvali v dejinách, ani čo by sme boli machom rastúcim na skalách, meniacim kamene na zeminu, mali by nás vypchať, udeliť nám čestné vyznamenanie, napísať o nás knihu."

Nikto vraj nepíše ako Jón Kalman Stefánsson a ja hovorím - chvalabohu. Keby všetci písali ako Stefánsson, boli by sme toho štýlu presýtnení, dovolím si tvrdiť, že by nás dokonca otravoval a konštatujem, že tento Islanďan je asi jediný, ktorému ho dokážem tolerovať, ba dokonca sa mi aj páči.

Som typ, ktorý sa rád kochá v krásnych vetách, slovných hračkách, nad dobre napísaným textom sa dojímam a rozjímam... slová skrátka vždy pre mňa mali o niečo väčší význam ako pre väčšinu ľudí. Na Stefánssona som si ale musela zvykať. Jeho schopnosť nájsť poetické prirovnanie všade, azda ešte aj pri ponožkách odhodených na zemi, je obdivuhodná. Na začiatku knihy som ale mala pocit, že by ňou predsa len mohol trošíčku šetriť. Ako však kniha pokračovala, vkĺzla som do stefánssonovčiny a už som si to len užívala.

Okrem schopnosti nájsť lyriku pri každom predmete v miestnosti a v každej situácii v živote má Jón Kalman Stefánsson pre mňa jeden podstatnejší talent: dokáže postrehnúť a pomenovať to, ako funguje život, človek, srdce. Zamýšľa sa krásne nad láskou, samotou, smútkom, vzťahmi, túžbou, motiváciou, rodinou a dynamikou v nej, ale aj nad takým postavením ženy. Á propos, ženy. Tento bod ma v Letnom svetle chvíľami dosť rozčuľoval, pretože som mala pocit, že ženy sú len objektom, ktorý má krášliť svet a tešiť mužov. V Rybách sa tohto postoja Stéfansson do veľkej miery zbavil - alebo som sa ja zbavila tohto neblahého dojmu. A čo ma potešilo - narozdiel od Letného svetla tu bol chvíľami aj príjemne vtipný.

Ryby nemajú nohy teda už aj mne priniesli ochkanie nad majstrovstvom tohto spisovateľa, aj túžbu prečítať si od neho ďalšie knihy. Mám taký pocit, že rovnako ako na stránkach tejto, Stefánsson sa môže len a len zlepšovať.

“Plačeme preto, lebo jazyk nie je dokonalý a nedosiahne až na samotné dno života, ba ani len do polovice tých najhlbších priepastí, začínajú sa slzy tam, kde končia slová, sú snáď odkazom z hlbín, z nedotknutých hlbín?”

[Portal in the Pages · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of these two stars belongs to the translator...

[gesztenye63 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vajon a múlt démonaitól való rettegés, vagy a jövőtől való félelem a domináns a férfiban? Talán ezért él a céltalan, „plasztik-má”-ban? Hiszen bizonyára csak ő – a férfi – lehet az ördög, hiszen az Isten csakis nő lehet. Aztán meg adott egy város, az ország legsötétebb városa, amely csak az emlékeiben él, nincs már jövője, de a mája is csak vegetáció – hiszen élnek még abból a generációból, akik emlékeznek az élő-lélegző közösségre, akik még bizonnyal tudták, miért kel fel a nap és miért kell pont arra a napra ébredni. Volt néhány egyszerű céljuk, kicsit szegényes életképük, de aztán elveszett. Elvették tőlük, nincstelenekké váltak. És van még egy kicsi ország is ebben a regényben, egy nagyra törő nemzet, amely még oly fiatal és kajla, hogy csak a sprintben erős, de nincs még benne kitartás a hosszútávfutásra.
Olvasd el ezt a regényt! Olvass egy száz évig tartó napról, annak minden fájdalmáról, veszteségeiről, olvass a mulasztásaid tonnás súlyáról, és saját privát felelősségedről. Gondold azt, hogy mindez csak – a nyerseségében, reménytelen lávamezőiben is végtelenül lágy és lírai – Északon, legalább évi nyolc hónap borongós-fagyos, mégis könnyezve gyönyörű valóságában történhet meg. Hiszen nekünk – közép-európai embereknek – erről szól a bolygó északi csúcsa, vagy talán nem… Itt még a gazdag nemzetek számára is lehetetlen a boldogság, amikor ott van a ködös, bús ébredés reggelente, a korai sötétedés, a kilátástalan kilátás az ablakokból, az egyetlen gyógyírral, az alkohollal a kezedben. Nem jellemző ez sehol másutt, csak Északon.
Aztán olvass még Borbély Szilárdot, meg Tar Sándort, esetleg Hajnóczyt is és rádöbbensz, hogy létezik ám kis magyar depresszió és nemzeti pokol is, létezik és regnál a kisember kiszolgáltatottsága, a kiüresedés, a céltalan, jövőtlen életek, a múlt emlékképeitől való szinte vallásos rettegés, a szembenézéstől való beteges félelem. Ez az egész igenis nemzetközi trend, mondhatni internacionalista kor(és kór-)tünet.

Jón Kalman Stefánsson maga is kiemeli a regényben, hogy mindannyiunk élete egyszeri és megismételhetetlen történet, így a szerző könyörtelen tollára bízatik, hogy abból mi fér a lapokra és mi az, ami örökre rejtve marad, hiszen a többi néma csend. Ami mégis megismételhetetlen és megkerülhetetlen darabbá teszi A halaknak nincs lábukat, az akárcsak az általam felemlegetett hazai szerzők esetében, az író érintettsége, amely pőrén őszintévé, hitelessé teszi az írást. Az már csak bonbon ezen a tortán, hogy Stefánsson csodálatosan érzékeny, szinte verssorokként formálódó, folytonosan idézni kívánkozó mondatai döbbenetes letisztultságról és írói bölcsességről árulkodnak. Ezt csak tovább erősíti Patat Bence ismét csak kiemelkedően tiszta, cizellált fordítói munkája.

Már csak az a kérdés, hogy valóban lehetne és kéne-e tanítani a szeretetet az ENSZ Biztonsági Tanácsában, és egy félórányi Bach-muzsika, vajon tényleg eltántorítaná-e a politikusokat a gonoszságtól, a lelketlen, embertelen döntésektől? Ezekre a kérdésekre akkor sem kapsz választ, ha elolvasod a regényt, de talán felmerül még ezer más kérdésed, amiért már megéri egy próbát tenni. Szerintem a 2017-es év egyik meghatározó magyar megjelenése, feltétlenül ajánlom.

[Carola Maselli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho deciso di rileggere Stefansson mentre le giornate si accorciavano e le temperature scendevano per accoccolarmi nel freddo tenendo tra le mani il confortevole formato Iperborea. È la lettura perfetta per l'inverno, da godersi piano piano mentre il tè si spande nella tazza bollente. Ripeto, piano piano. La lentezza in questo libro è d'obbligo, per prima cosa perché è una lettura che ne ha bisogno, che inciampa su se stessa, cade e fatica a rialzarsi. E secondo motivo: perché la prosa do Stefansson è poesia. Inizialmente l'ho trovato un po' troppo pieno di se', gongolante del proprio talento da sfoggiare anche quando non c'è un reale bisogno. Ma mentre le pagine scorrono, la sua voce si armonizza con tutto il resto, e diventa perfetta colonna sonora di una storia delicata.

Ari, "in un banale martedì", cambia bruscamente la propria vita, lascia la moglie, abbandona i figli e cerca di scrollarsi di dosso la banalità della propria esistenza. Eppure qualcosa lo spinge a tornare nella sua Keflavik, città dell'Islanda dove la terra è nera e le quote ittiche sono pari a zero. Ma Ari non è solo. È come se nel suo viaggio fosse seguito (fin dall'aereo) da una torma di personaggi, ognuno con la propria storia, lo seguono avanti e indietro nel tempo, sono amici, parenti, colleghi, familiari. Il passato se lo trascina dietro, come una pesante coperta legata al collo.
Ne viene fuori un romanzo corale che ripercorre la storia di un uomo, di una famiglia, di una nonna, di una ragazza dal seno troppo piccolo, di un pescatore che sa tante poesie a memoria, di un amico che aspetta e che comprende.
Non è stata una lettura facile, e quando ho finito ho dovuto ricominciare, certa che avrei colto qualcosa in più rispetto alla prima volta. Ed è andata proprio così: ho rallentato il ritmo, ho preparato di nuovo il tè. Ho trasformato il mio banale martedì

[Zuzulivres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Odložím si tu zopár myšlienok z knihy:
"Ale taký už je svet: čo pre jedného predstavuje hľadanie zmyslu života, je pre druhého iba rámusom a mrhaním. V ľudkom svete je očividne ťažké nájsť rovnováhu a zdá sa, že sa nikdy nepriblížime k vzájomnému porozumeniu. Možno vôbec nezáleží, koľko jazykov sa naučíme, lebo nesúlad, predsudky a nedorozumenie sú, zdá sa, pevnou súčasťou ľudskej reči, ako burina číhajú v každom slove, blízki sme si pravdepodobne len v hudbe. Do nej vkladáme vlastné sny, túžbu po lepšom živote, po krajšom svete, sen o tom, že by sme sa mohli zbaviť našich nedostatkov, závisti, nestálosti a malichernosti."

"Sú udalosti, ktoré všetko zmenia. Niekto umrie a ty začneš úplne inak rozmýšľať o planétach slnečnej sústavy, o kvetoch skláňajúcich hlávky v daždi, niekto ťa pobozká alebo nepobozká, a jazyk zbadáš v úplne inom svetle. Svet sa neustále mení, nemá jedno správne vydanie a nevieme ani, akými očami sa naň pozerá Boh, ako preňho vyzerajú hory, či sú fialovými bylinami alebo pradávnymi ružami, Božie oči určite všetko vnímajú inak než my, z neba možno obrovské sekvoje na západnom pobreží Spojených štátov pripomínajú vysokých anjelov. A isté udalosti všetko zmenia - ako sa na veci dívame, čo vidíme, cítime, ako počúvame..."

"Plačeme preto, lebo jazyk nie je dokonalý a nedosiahne až na samotné dno života, ba ani len do polovice tých najhlbších priepastí, začínajú sa slzy tam, kde končia slová, sú snáď odkazom z hlbín, z nedotknutých hlbín?"

"Umierame, keď bolesť prevýši život."
"Raz za čas určite každý potrebuje uniknúť zo všedností a urobiť niečo ľahkovážne, na chvíľu sa zbaviť zodpovednosti, bezstarostnosť pomôže zmierniť únavu a napraviť magnetickú chybu životného kompasu: kto nikdy neustúpi, časom prestane počuť hlas vlastného vnútra."

"Máme toho tak veľa: Boha, modlitby, hudbu, techniku, vedu, na každý deň nové objavy, dokonalejšie mobilné telefóny, výkonnejšie teleskopy, potom však niekto umrie a nezostane nič, tápaš po Bohu, siahneš po sklamaní, po jeho kávovej šálke, kefe plnej jej vlasov, nechávaš si ich ako útechu, ako čaro, ako slzy, ako niečo nenávratné. Čo na to povedať, pravdepodobne nič, život je nepochopiteľný, nespravodlivý, no predsa ho žijeme, nemôžeme sa mu vyhnúť, nemôžeme inak, život je jediné, čo máme s istotou, klenot či bezcenná haraburda. Po živote už nie je nič. A predsa sa všetko začalo smrťou...Smrť je Bohov nedostatok argumentov, niečo, čo vzniklo, keď Boh, možno v zúfalstve spojil krutosť a stratu, lebo sa zdalo, že pasians stvorenia nevyjde. V každej smrti sa však ukrýva nový život..."

"Všetci hlboko vo vnútri nosíme sen o nepremožiteľnej láske, nič ju nerozpoltí, ten sen živí a posilňuje prúd populárnych pesničiek a filmov s ešte náruživejšími bozkami, ich oheň sa rozhorí v každodennom živote, vzplanie, zmení sa na dobrodružstvo. Stal sa obsah pesničiek, filmov a ľúbostných básní podvedome normou nášho života, vysokými horami, ktoré sa na nás neskôr môžu zrútiť aj so svojimi tieňmi, sklamaniami, životunebezpečnými balvanmi? No náš život, ktorým sa zavše ťažko prechádza, je vzdialený šťastiu pesničiek, niet v ňom horúcich citov či zábleskov, takých, čo svetu vyrazia dych. Snáď pre toto sú podaktorí neverní, aby mohli opäť zažiť tie záblesky, iskry života, akoby bola nevera vojenským ťažením proti všednosti, hromadiacim sa rokom, hoci záblesk dokáže popáliť, zmeniť sa na ničivý oheň?"

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non può finire bene

“La vita cresce dalle parole, la morte dimora nel silenzio. Per questo dobbiamo continuare a scrivere, a raccontare, a mormorare versi di poesia e imprecazioni e così tenere lontana la morte, per un po'”.

In un Islanda che è il posto più nero del mondo e insieme un luogo che non esiste, un urlo arcaico tra la brughiera di Keflavìk e le montagne e la lava di Nordfjordur, il poeta e editore Ari vive il suo ritorno a casa, nella terra familiare della memoria e del dolore, in occasione della morte del padre: attraverso il contatto con quel che in lui è ferita e sventura, cerca un motivo per perdonare a se stesso di essere un uomo. Si è allontanato vivendo un sentimento di crisi, per desiderio di fuggire a un destino assurdo, all'inerzia di una vita che opprime il cuore, a un'esistenza svuotata di senso e disperata: di fronte a questa prossimità della morte ha bisogno di sapere chi è e di domandarsi se può ancora cercare di essere felice. Stefansson progetta quindi una trama irrisolta e aperta, ricca di riflessioni e musicalità, e compone così la storia irregolare, tra le generazioni e i decenni, di una famiglia di marinai e pescatori che vive un'esistenza integra e tormentata tra i fiordi, le pianure, i fiumi e i ghiacciai: Oddur e Margret, Jakob e Jon, Sigga e Pora lavorano e viaggiano, amano e odiano, ridono e piangono, lottano e scoprono, salvando vite dalla furia del mare, dal gelo silenzioso e dalla crudeltà del tempo. In una prosa accurata e fantasiosa, un linguaggio imponderabile genera figure di uomini che si misurano con il mare e accettano una dimensione di sacrificio e rinuncia, combinando passione e scoperta; di donne coraggiose che si prendono cura di ordine e bellezza, custodiscono l'amore e l'equilibrio e cantano nella fatica, senza sonno. L'autore nativo di Reykjavìk propone quindi una narrazione costituita da episodi e atmosfere, sentieri e percorsi, ripensamenti e inganni, frammenti e ricordi, a metà strada tra la rievocazione poetica e la leggenda intima e originaria: descrive tra dignità e sofferenza il cammino di una comunità che ha saputo contendere la materia vitale ad un mare immenso e tenebroso e che costruisce la sua forza e indipendenza nella determinata volontà di convivere con gli eventi di una natura potente e implacabile. Dove, al di là del simbolo e della poesia del racconto, il tempo e il caos rendono vana ogni cosa umana.

“Un uomo dev’essere provvisto di due cose per mantenersi abbastanza saldo sulle proprie gambe, per camminare a testa alta, per conservare lo scintillio dello sguardo, il vigore del cuore, la musica del sangue – una schiena forte e lacrime.”

[La mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una lettura inizialmente difficile. Tanti personaggi, piani temporali diversi e non ben definiti, una geografia complicata. Occorrono pazienza e tenacia, è un po’ come quei percorsi di montagna che ti accolgono con una salita repentina, poi si assestano in una salita morbida e piacevole, non devi più badare al fiato e puoi godere del paesaggio.
In questo caso il paesaggio è fatto di tante cose, al punto che mi trovo in difficoltà a fare una sintesi. C’è l’Islanda fisica, una terra desolata e difficile che plasma inevitabilmente le vite dei suoi abitanti. C’è l’Islanda politica, un Paese che non conoscevo, che fatica a trovare una sua identità, una sua ragione di esistere, una prospettiva. C’è la poesia, la sua forza e insieme la sua debolezza, l’inutilità delle parole e nello stesso tempo l’impossibilità di pensare una vita facendo a meno delle parole. Ci sono le persone, gli uomini, , le donne, i ragazzi, il diventare adulti, il tradimento, la violenza, l’affetto, la difficoltà di comunicare. Sembra troppo, detto così. Invece Stefànnson riesce a calibrare un grande libro, che colpisce, fa riflettere, ma al tempo stesso è bello da leggere, a tratti struggente, spiazzante. Quando lo termini ti rimane la sensazione che ti manchi qualcosa, quella sensazione dolce-amara che vale solo per i libri che veramente ti toccano.

[Zuzana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Všeprenikajuce krásno.

Island.

Život. Taký, aký je. Ťažký, nespravodlivý, bolestivý, krásny.
"Pamätaj si so mnou, že človek potrebuje dve veci, aby tú záťaž zvládol, aby dokázal stáť celkom vzpriamene, aby si uchoval žiaru v očiach, elán v srdci, hudbu v krvi - pevný chrbát a slzy."

Láska. Taká, aká je. Ťažká, nespravodliva, bolestivá, krásna.
"More z nás robí mužov, no vám ženám patrí pevnina. Strážite ju pre nás. My sa vydávame do nebezpečenstva, a to nás formuje, alebo nás zničí, to je náš život, a vy patríte na súš do bezpečia, kde chránite život. A stretávame sa na brehu."

Smrť.
"Smrť je Bohov nedostatok argumentov."
"Nehybnost je sestrou smrti."

Všeprenikajuce krásno. Také pomalé, vláčne, príjemné krásno.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have the Beatles ready to listen to after you have read this.

[Sini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Door mee te doen aan de win-actie van Hebban kreeg ik, mazzelpik die ik ben, zomaar Stefanssons tweeluik "Vissen hebben geen voeten" en "Iets ter grootte van het universum" cadeau. Wel tegen de voorwaarde dat ik minstens een van beide boeken zou recenseren, maar dat voelt eerder als extra pret dan als een verplichting. Want ik hou wel van Stefansson, en heb mij eerder - ondanks wat kleine bezwaren- met zijn trilogie prima geamuseerd (zie mijn recensie van "Het hart van de mens"). En zo ook met "Vissen hebben geen voeten", al vond ik Stefanssons trilogie net wat krachtiger en pregnanter.

"Vissen hebben geen voeten" is het meanderende en zwaarmoedige verhaal van Ari, gemankeerd dichter en ongeneeslijk romanticus in dromen, die op middelbare leeftijd vol treurnis terugkijkt op zijn jeugd in het deprimerende Kevlavik, op zijn mislukte huwelijk, zijn niet uitgekomen dromen, en zo meer. De eerste zin van dit boek zet meteen al de toon: "Zelfs de zon kan het niet stoppen en fraaie woorden als regenboog en liefde al helemaal niet, ze zijn absoluut zinloos, je kunt ze gerust weggooien - dit begon allemaal met de dood". In soortgelijke melodieuze, golvende en zwaarmoedige zinnen meandert en golft het verhaal dan op niet-chronologische wijze door de hele twintigste eeuw: door heden en verleden van Ari, door het verre verleden van Ari's voorzaten in de ruige Noordfjorden, langs de liefdesgeschiedenis van Ari's grootouders en langs de teloorgang ervan, langs Ari als jongeling en Ari als teleurgestelde volwassene die de krant leest, en dat alles op zeer poëtische en beschouwelijke wijze. Eigenlijk is het hele verhaal een langgerekte zwaarmoedige overpeinzing van een naamloze ik-figuur, die met een vertwijfelde weemoed allerlei vragen oproept over Ari's leven, over het leven van Ari's voorzaten, en over hoe het lot van Ari's voorzaten doorgewerkt heeft in Ari's leven. Wat was de betekeniskern van al deze levens, wat was het hogere waarom? De ik-figuur weet dit niet. En dat niet-weten bezingt hij ruim 340 bladzijden in meanderende, melodieuze en zeer poëtische zinnen. Want de wereld is een afgrondelijk raadsel, volgens de ik-figuur, en wij zoeken allen vergeefs naar een allesverklarend waarom, want er IS geen waarom.

Ik moet bekennen dat die continue zwaarmoedigheid soms wel wat al te zwaar en pompeus vond, en in sommige passages bekroop mij het gevoel dat er hoogst filosofisch diepzinnig werd gesproken over bijna niets. Maar de vorm van deze roman is wel prachtig: geen breukloos en chronologisch verhaal met kop en staart, maar tastende associaties die zich kris-kras door de tijd bewegen en die juist geen sluitend verhaal vormen. Een vorm die naadloos aansluit bij de inzet van de verteller, want die wil ons duidelijk maken dat de hele wereld een peilloos raadsel is, een stuwmeer van vragen zonder antwoord, een doolhof waarin wij ons op de tast bewegen. En dit tastende karakter komt heel mooi naar voren in de meanderende vorm van dit boek.

Maar nog mooier dan de vorm vond ik Stefanssons stijl. Oké, de continue poëtische zwaarmoedigheid en diepzinnigheid ervan werd mij soms wat veel, maar Stefansson produceert toch wel heel veel zinnen die bol staan van een imponerende poëtische kracht en een meeslepend ritme. Zinnen bovendien die prachtig voelbaar maken dat de verteller vol verbijstering en fascinatie staart naar een volgens hem volkomen ondoorgrondelijke wereld. Zie bijvoorbeeld de volgende passage, over een foto van Amerikaanse astronauten die naar IJsland kwamen om alvast aan het maanlandschap te wennen: "ze leken doelloos heen en weer over de Midnesheide te banjeren alsof ze naar iets op zoek waren, echter niet bijster optimistisch, naar iets ontzettend kostbaars, iets wat op de wereld niet te vinden was. De verlaten heide, haar eenzaamheid, was om de astronauten op het landschap van de maan voor te bereiden en op het ongemakkelijke en troosteloze gevoel dat een mens moet ondervinden als hij op het maanoppervlak staat, alleen in de vreselijke stilte van het heelal, kijkend naar de aarde, die blauwe oude bekende van ons, terwijl de kille eenzaamheid door het perfecte ruimtepak sijpelt". Geweldige zinnen, vind ik, met een ijzersterk en bijna bezwerend ritme, en op een prachtige manier tastend en meanderend. Typisch de taal van iemand die dwaalt rondom een kern die hij niet beet kan pakken, en die dat dwalen zo ongeveer tot het hoofdkenmerk van zijn taal maakt. Wat nog versterkt wordt doordat de verteller, ruim honderd bladzijden later, in even dwalende zinnen weer terugkomt bij die astronauten: "de foto van de astronauten, waar zou die gebleven zijn en hoever zouden ze in het heelal zijn gekomen, zouden ze dichter bij de sterren zijn gekomen dan wij in onze dromen, zouden ze iets gezien hebben dat aan God deed denken, iets wat ons mogelijk zou kunnen troosten, zouden ze ontdekt hebben dat het noorderlicht muziek is, een kerkorgel van de hemel?" Weer die foto van de astronauten. En weer weet de ik-figuur die foto niet te duiden, want hij barst zoals vaker los in vragen zonder antwoord.

Tegelijk echter klinkt er in die vragen ook een wanhopige maar erg intense hoop door, die ik heel ontroerend en meeslepend vind. Een soort oningelost verlangen naar verlossing en troost , dat ondanks de ontbrekende inlossing blijft branden. De ik-figuur BLIJFT bovendien vol passie te proberen om met zijn poëtische blik TOCH door te dringen tot de kern van het wereldraadsel, hoe onmogelijk dat ook zijn moge. In veel zinnen poogt de ik-figuur met zijn taal te tasten naar regionen waar taal geen vat op heeft, dus te grijpen naar het ongrijpbare, zoals astronauten die naar sterren zouden grijpen. En dat geeft aan zijn taal soms een werkelijk enorme intensiteit. Kijk maar naar de volgende passage, waarin Ari en de ik-figuur "Wish you were here" van Pink Floyd op maximale geluidssterkte afspelen om de dood te overschreeuwen en de doden te bereiken: "we willen dat de bewoners van de hemel het ook horen en dan vooral zij die veel te vroeg stierf [...]. Iedereen sterft alleen en het is heel pijnlijk te weten dat onze troost en aanwezigheid waarschijnlijk niet de hele weg tot in de duisternis reiken. Maar in plaats daarvan proberen we de muziek hard genoeg te draaien zodat die in de duisternis wordt gehoord, dat hij de hele weg naar de hemel toe draagt of waar we ook heengaan als alles afloopt, als de bomen ophouden met groeien, de woorden niet meer gehoord worden, de regen ophoudt te vallen, de zon te schijnen, de aarde te geuren. Wanneer alles zo afloopt dat we het niet kunnen begrijpen, niet willen begrijpen, het niet durven begrijpen, maar het waarschijnlijk toch altijd moeten proberen, de hele tijd, zonder te aarzelen, omdat als we het onmogelijke opgeven, namelijk te grijpen wat buiten de reikwijdte van het leven is, dan knappen wij af, dan knappen we zo totaal af dat geen enkele kracht het goed kan maken". Zinnen die gaan over het grijpen naar het ongrijpbare, en die de intensiteit naar mijn smaak prachtig voelbaar maken. Zinnen die even intens zijn als "Wish you were here" op afspeelapparatuur die sterk genoeg is om de hemel te bereiken. Wat onmogelijk is, zoals ook het grijpen naar het ongrijpbare onmogelijk is. Maar als we dat niet langer meer proberen, dan zijn we overgeleverd aan de stilte van de wereld en de zinloosheid van de dood. Aldus de ik-figuur. En aldus, volgens mij, Stefansson.

Ik hou van Stefanssons poëtische, meanderende stijl, en ik bewonder de compromisloze intensiteit ervan. Ik vind het mooi hoe hij 340 bladzijden lang vol passie de peilloze raadsels van ons bestaan peilt en verwoordt. Dus ik ga nu meteen verder met het tweede deel van dit tweeluik, en ik hoop stiekem dat dit tweeluik over een jaar een trilogie blijkt te zijn.

[Fren Carillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Ma noi che ne sappiamo, delle leggi della natura?

Quant’è profondo il cosmo, e perché alcuni dei nostri sogni raggiungono i pianeti più lontani del sistema solare, addentrandosi in qualcosa che sfugge alla nostra comprensione? Per quale motivo la maggior parte degli esseri umani crede nei sacri testi religiosi, che stridono con le leggi della razionalità, con le dimostrazioni scientifiche, secondo la logica bisogna essere dei bambini o degli ingenui per credere all’esistenza di Dio, ma cosa possiede più potere consolatorio della fede?

Allora è questo, il motivo per cui riusciamo a vivere discretamente incolumi con tutti gli opposti che ci vorticano dentro, lo sparo e il volo, il cacciatore e la preda, è questo il motivo per cui riusciamo a credere con tanta facilità all’assurdo, perfino costruire la nostra cultura, l’esistenza stessa, su storie illogiche?

Che ne sappiamo noi del mondo, se la pernice che si alza in volo in una sera d’ottobre sempre più buia sia soltanto un uccello della famiglia dei tetraoni, con il cervello delle dimensioni di un fagiolo, o se non sia la bellezza stessa che risiede nella speranza, se non sia ciò che fede il buio con il suo volo, se i gabbiano sul porto siano famelici necrofagi oppure un triste lamento per i tempi che furono - come può chi conosce l’essere umano, la sua storia, la sua cultura, la sua natura, il suo mondo interiore, escludere l’assurdo?»