101 Reykjavik: A Novel [Anglais] [Relié]

If you ponder life as an immature Icelandic slacker, then you'll want to check out Hallgrímur Helgason's novel 101 Reykjavík. Hlynur Bjorn lives at home, watches TV and porn when he's not getting high with his divorced mom and/or her lesbian lover, and sluffs off to bars most nights to put a dollar value on women (based on desirability) while hanging out with his equally bored friends. By the time Hlynur faces moral challenges, it's difficult to find reason to care. Hlynur's thoughts are detailed, shotgun style, with some wit and humor (though much is forced), and a strangeness one hopes is the result of Icelandic idiom lost in translation. In a gay couple's bedroom, Hylnur and Hofy enter into this exchange, typifying Helgason's disjointed style:

"Why did you sleep with me?"

Spock.

Hofy turns and looks at me propped up on my elbows with Rosy's hat on my head. Must look pretty weird, I suppose. I tilt my head to allow the hat to fall off, and look up at the ceiling. Looking down at me are two fat, hand-painted, and pretty well-hung angels. Nice one, guys. It's like that chapel in St. Peter's. Michelangelo was gay. Yeah. Maybe it's all in the Bible. I look at her again.

"Why did I sleep with you?"

To be sure, 101 Reykjavík captures the ennui of a cold, depressed generation (and nation), but if "[w]ords are snowflakes. They fall," Helgason might have tried to clear a better path. --Michael Ferch

Hlynur Bjorn is, by his own admission, a 33-year-old mommy's boy. He lives at home, spends his days watching porn and surfing the Web, and his nights at Reykjavik's nightclubs drinking and taking Ecstasy. He assigns every woman he encounters a monetary value and refuses to commit to spending even a full night with his casual girlfriend, Hofy. When Hofy falls pregnant and his mother announces that her lesbian lover, Lolla, whom Hlynur slept with on New Year's Eve, is also pregnant, he must fight to protect his selfish and shallow way of life. Hlynur tells his own story; although he is clearly intended as a slacker antihero, his humor is so forced ("Iceland is a wind-beaten asshole and Icelanders are the lice on its edge") and his fixations so unoriginal (he likes "two kinds of women: mothers and whores") that his narrative becomes tiresome. Garbled prose ("I slowly return toward the body I left behind, like a car with a running engine") doesn't help, though the translator struggles valiantly with Hlynur's endless punning. When both Hofy and Lolla inform him that he is not the father of their babies, Hlynur becomes more bitter and callous than ever. Realizing that he needs to get out of Reykjavik for a while, he travels to Europe, where he ends up embarking upon his most loathsome attempt at self-destruction yet: trying to contract HIV by having unprotected sex with a prostitute. At this point the novel falls apart. Hlynur is so thoroughly unsympathetic, his antics such a dispiriting blend of pathetic, abhorrent and banal, that the reader ceases caring what happens to him (he neither redeems nor destroys himself). As Hlynur puts it himself, "Was I funny or plain idiotic? Yeah."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Dark, cold, and isolated describe both the setting of this novel (Reykjavik, Iceland) and its hero, Hlynur Bjorn. A thirtysomething who lives with his mother, he wakes up every day around 4 p.m., watches TV, surfs the net, and goes out to bars. Then, three pregnancies-that of his occasional girlfriend, his mother's lesbian lover, and his sister-force him to rethink his relationship with these women. While ruminating on females (to whom he attaches monetary value), the Pope's sex life, Icelanders' small noses, and many other things, he becomes more antisocial, attacking a girlfriend's mother and blatantly watching a couple making love. Other characters in his life include a gay pair, Rosy and Guildy; the mystic Timer, a bar regular who promises a telephone abortion; and Katrina, his Internet pen pal. He finally finds true love when he meets Katrina, and for one moment his world changes, but when she lets him know that she already has a boyfriend, he returns to his isolated ways. Winner of the 2001 Icelandic Literature Prize, this novel uses caustic and irreverent humor to paint a vivid picture of Icelandic youth ideas and culture. While the protagonist is confused, depressed, and futureless, the humor saves the book from being depressing, and there is a ray of hope at the end. Recommended for larger collections.
Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

101 Reykjavik, Iceland's answer to Beverly Hills 90210, presents a snapshot of life in one of Reykjavik's best postal codes. Although much of what's here is the all-too-usual Scandinavian ennui--dark days and depressed slackers on the dole--there's much good here as well. Thirtysomething Hlynur Bjorn mopes around all day, living on government aid in his mother's basement. He's a devotee of porn (illegal in Iceland), bad TV, and the Internet--where he has formed his most meaningful relationship with a Hungarian princess. Life comes crashing down on Hlynur when his mother tells him she's a lesbian and her girlfriend moves in; his girlfriend du jour becomes pregnant; his father, an alcoholic, starts hanging out with all Hlynur's friends; a good friend announces he is HIV-positive; and the clubs, drugs, and girls just aren't doing it for him anymore. Although happiness seems possible for everyone around him, Hlynur sees that it takes effort. A well-written, though bleak, picture of hipster life in a small, insular country. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Julie MyersonThe GuardianThis lusciously deadpan narrative is infused with a wild, anarchic take on the world that is caustically, worryingly truthful.

Hlynur Bjorn sleeps in. He surfs the Web. He tests the efficacy of various pornography. And at night, he hits the K-bar for a few drinks, maybe a tab of E, and perhaps a bit of sex before another crash. He'd blithely remain in this cycle forever, but when his part-time girlfriend reveals she's pregnant, his way of life is threatened. Hlynur withdraws and becomes obsessed with his mother's best friend, only to discover, after he's shagged her, that she's his mother's lesbian lover. And just when you believe he couldn't twist up his life any further, Hlynur finds a way.

Icelandic novelist HallgrÍmur Helgason inhabits his antihero's mind with marvelous acuity, subversive wit, and devilish charm. Hlynur is a true product of our postmodern global culture. Well beyond slackerdom, he lives at home with his mother and depends on social welfare. He's a quick-witted and articulate young man, and there's nothing wrong with him -- other than a total lack of ambition, an off-kilter sense of morality, and a nagging set of existential woes.

Against the backdrop of ReykjavÍk's storied nightlife and amid the swelling global presence of Icelandic culture, Helgason portrays with brutal honesty and humor a young man who takes uselessness to new extremes, and for whom redemption may not be an option. 101 ReykjavÍk is a spectacularly inventive, darkly comic tale of depraved and inspired humanity.

HallgrÍmur Helgason has published four novels and a collection of poetry in his native Iceland. His visual art has been exhibited in ReykjavÍk, New York, and Paris. 101 ReykjavÍk, recently adapted for film, is his first novel to be translated into English. His latest novel, The Author of Iceland, won the 2001 Icelandic Literature Prize. He lives in ReykjavÍk.