Ice Land

After my trip to Iceland last month I felt it would be nice to read some fiction by Icelandic authors or at least set in Iceland. I did borrow a book by Vigdis Grimsdottir and another by Kristin Steinsdottir, neither of which is available in English. Vigdis Grimsdottir's Z -A Love Story, which is a novel about a lesbian couple, has been translated into English, but not the newer book I now have in my TBR pile. There is a short snippet of Z -A Love Story available on Literature.is here.

The book I most wanted to read, though, was not by an Icelandic author, but an American born writer now living in Britain i.e. Betsy Tobin. Her novel Ice Land had cought my eye already earlier, but after visiting Iceland I really, really wanted to read it. Not only was it a story about the land I just had spent a few days in, it was set in the times of the Vikings (in year 1000 AD, to be more exact) and many of the old Norse myths and happenings from the Icelandic sagas were incorporated into the story. I love the Viking Age, it is a very interesting historical period. When I was 20, I actually spent a semester in Oslo, Norway, because I wanted to study history in the land of the Vikings! (If you ever go to Olso, you simply have to visit the wonderful Viking ship museum in Bygdoy!) Anyway, as you might guess, my expectations for the book were both high and very positive.

Ice Land did not dissapoint me. The love stories were sweet, the describtions of Icelandic nature well researched, beautiful and lively, and the way Tobin incorporated Old Norse gods and mythology and elements from the sagas into the narrative worked very well. All in all Ice Land was a delightful read! Now, however, I really regret I did not buy the collected Icelandic sagas in paperback from the Reykjavik airport!