“Miss Iceland” incorporates world events and numerous references to Iceland’s rich literature
Grove Press; 256 pages; $16. Pushkin Press; £9.99.most celebrated authors, Audur Ava Olafsdottir writes quirky and beguiling fiction about people who leave familiar environments, venture into the unknown and end up learning more about themselves than about their new surroundings.
In “Miss Iceland”, her latest novel to appear in English—smoothly translated by Brian FitzGibbon—the protagonist embarks on a journey of self-discovery when she moves from her sparsely populated home region to the capital. Her attempts to settle down in a big city and achieve her ambitions in a conservative world make for an absorbing, bittersweet tale.
Hekla arrives in Reykjavik in 1963 with grand plans to become a writer. Almost immediately she is offered a different kind of opportunity. A board member of the Reykjavik Beauty Society tells her it is looking for “unattached maidens, sublimely endowed with both clean-limbedness and comeliness” to participate in the Miss Iceland contest. Hekla declines, but quickly learns that men call the shots and value her looks more than her literary talent.
One who doesn’t is her childhood friend Jon John, who gives her a room of her own in which to write. A gay man who wants to make theatre costumes but instead endures hard graft and homophobia on fishing trawlers, he is one of several characters stuck in a rut. Another is Isey, a housewife who battles loneliness and domestic drudgery in her basement flat while her husband is away.
In previous books, Ms Audur Ava Olafsdottir occasionally relied too much on eccentric foibles and hare-brained antics. In “Miss Iceland” she judiciously downplays the oddities, particularly when exploring weighty issues such as sexual harassment and discrimination. In other welcome changes, she incorporates world events and numerous references to Iceland’s rich literature.
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