Heaven and Hell

Description

There are novels that make something inside you come awake, and make you want to keep it awake. Maybe thats what a classic is: not only a work that endures but one that makes something endure in yousomething that lasts even after you may have forgotten the whole story and the characters names. Such is the case with the Icelandic novelist Jn Kalman Stefnssons Trilogy About the Boy.Salvatore Scibona,New YorkerIn a remote fishing village, a boy and his best friend spend the lonely hours on shore reading and talking about poetry. When the friend, absorbed in a borrowed copy ofParadise Lost, forgets his oilskin one morning and the crew is unexpectedly caught at sea in a savage winter storm, tragedy strikes. Overwhelmed by griefand his crewmates indifference to what has happenedthe boy leaves the village, determined to return the book to its owner. The hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence: hes already resolved to join his friend in death. But when he reaches the town where he intends to end his days, he couldnt have imagined the stories and lives he finds.Navigating the depths of despair to celebrate the redemptive power of friendship,Heaven and Hellis an incandescent story of community, resilience, and love from one of Icelands most celebrated novelists.Praise forHeaven and HellStefnssons narrative voice is the books most striking quality. It has something in common with the slow prose of Jon Fosse: run-on sentences, rich in repeated motifs, that tap into different layers of thought. A typical line in Philip Roughtons translation is flexible and supple, telescoping from close-up to wider view . . . Once the reader is settled into the rhythms of Stefnssons prose, well go anywhere with him.John Self,New York TimesThere are novels that make something inside you come awake, and make you want to keep it awake. Maybe thats what a classic is: not only a work that endures but one that makes something endure in yousomething that lasts even after you may have forgotten the whole story and the characters names. Such is the case with the Icelandic novelist Jn Kalman Stefnssons Trilogy About the Boy . . . few contemporary novels dare, as these books do, to confront the dilemmas of body, mind, soul, and spirit with equal urgency, to bring the reader right to the edge of the absolute, and leave you, after more than nine hundred pages, so elated that you feel the wind under your feet.Salvatore Scibona,New YorkerHeaven and Hellis an artfully crafted and arresting novel . . . Stefnsson excels at turning small places into the absolute centre of the world.Literary Review of CanadaA moving story of loss and courage told in prose as crisp and clear as the Icelandic landscape where it takes place . . . Stefnsson writes like an epic poet of old about the price the natural world exacts on humans, but hes not without sympathy or an ability to find affirming qualities in difficult situations.Kirkus Reviews(starred review)A perfect little novel . . . enthralling, seductive . . .Heaven and Hellembraces and defies the categories of storyadventure, historical, romance, ghost, metaphysical.Joy Williams,Book PostInfused with the lyrical poetry and dryly humorous worldview pioneered by Laxness . . . Stefnssons trilogy is an artistic achievement of the highest order, inviting us to walk in the frozen footsteps of another while recognizing our own path through life in each snowy print.Doug McIntyre,Los Angeles Daily NewsHeaven and Hell(the first part of a trilogy) is the most powerful novel Ive read in the longest time. An unforgettable depiction of life in the north of Iceland in the 19th centurya true masterpiece.Amitav Ghosh, author ofGhost-EyeSome novels are so extraordinary, its hard to do them justice in a review. This is one of them, remarkable for its alluring articulation of the daunting arctic weather, and the hovering uncertainty thats so bound up within it.Kassie Rose, WOSU The Longest ChapterStefnssons sentences come close to stream of consciousness, but so much more deeply, as he mines the emotions and perceptions of each character, conveying the confusions and anxieties of each with penetrating force.Timothy Niedermann,Ottawa Review of BooksStefnsson plumbs the depths of a young mans grief in this ruminative and piercing bildungsroman . . . Readers willing to go the distance will reap plenty of rewards.Publishers WeeklyThe novel is lyrical in detailing hardscrabble life along polar sea shores, where everyone has lost someone, yet the fishing boats keep launching . . . A poetic soul sets out on a quest to honor his lost friend in the aching, trilogy-opening novelHeaven and Hell.Foreword Reviews[A] brief, elegiac novel . . . Written in dense, poetic prose, with more emphasis on mood than plot, this novel circles through the many ways of surviving in a harsh place.Booklist[Heaven and Hell] combines old-fashioned drama with contemporary literary sensibility, a tale of loss and bravery that makes for a truly glorious read . . . What makes this novel succeed so well, and makes it such an entertaining and invigorating experience to read, lies in the musicality of the language and the strength of the characterizationroughghostsDespite its short 216 pages,Heaven and Helland Stefnssons writing are imbued with weight, the weight of the sea, the weight of death, the weight of the moon, the weight of lifes consequences.Under the RadarWith exquisite language, allegory, and an intense sense of place, the comparison to Cormac McCarthy is entirely appropriate.Mary Wahlmeier Bracciano, The Raven Bookstore (Lawrence, KS)Im still feeling the chills from Stefnssons description of cod fishing in a rowboat on the stormy open seas. An excellent author.Todd Miller, Arcadia Books (Spring Green, WI)The frigid winter weather couldnt be a more befitting context to read this novel so full of icy landscapes and the harsh, bitter cold that can take root in any of our darkest moments. But what Stefnsson provides here is a perfect balance, perhaps implied by the title, between the seeming permanence of that coldness, and the creeping promise of hope for a thaw. An elemental, lyrical, beautiful book, that both finds those unexpected moments of profundity without denying the depths of despair in which they occasionally must be found.Bryan Seitz, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)Deeply poetic, complex writing coupled with the frigid landscapes of Iceland and a poignant tale of grief and friendship;Heaven and Hellis nothing short of profound.Andrew, CoffeeTree Books (Morehead, KY)Praise forYour Absence is DarknessComparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefnssons book, nor the uniqueness of his prose, rendered here in a tumblingly beautiful translation by Philip Roughton.Daniel Mason,New York TimesStefansson uses the drama and comedy of everyday lives to dive into a broad range of topics: philosophy, music, faith, and even the science of earthworms.New York TimesLike fellow Scandinavian authors Jon Fosse and Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mr. Stefnsson joins plainspoken depictions of daily life to intimations of mysticism, creating a spectral, haunted atmosphere . . . Questioning, vulnerable and openly sentimental, this is an absorbing commemoration of what the author calls the paradox that rules our existence, the vivifying joy and paralyzing sorrow of loving another person.Sam Sacks,Wall Street JournalI couldnt put it down.Washington PostWhat makes this so irresistible is the narrators constant optimism as he probes profound questions from within the murk of his consciousness (Give me darkness, and then Ill know where the light is). Stefnsson is poised to make his mark on the world stage.Publishers Weekly(starred review)