Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, transl. by Brian FitzGibbon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A deceptive, quiet, slow novel with no real ending which grasps the
struggles of woman and gay men in 1960s Iceland and beyond. As the world
goes through tumultuous change both physically with the 1963 sea
volcanic eruption and creation of the new island of Surtsey, and
socially with the assassination of JFK in the USA, the civil rights
movement and Martin Luther King's 'I had a dream' speech and the suicide
of Sylvia Plath, the narrator Hekla, poet and novelist, struggles
against sexism in both workplace and in society at large. This is also
the time of Miss World contests, the parading of young women in bathing
suits, of measurement by vital statistics.
In Reykjavik she eyes
the poets in their cafe huddle but does not venture in to join them.
She moves in with one, Starkadur, but still keeps the fact that she is a
published poet secret from him. As he struggles to write and be
published, she writes and finishes her novel in secret. Inevitably he
finds out, inevitably she leaves him.
Her friend Ísey, having
gone down the socially expected route of marriage and family, finds
herself married to a man who can barely read while she hides her diary
in which she writes about what has not been said and what has not
happened. Her other friend, Jón John, wants to make theatrical costumes
but works and does not fit in to the traditional male domain of fishing
and life aboard long haul deep sea trawlers and whalers. Persecuted by
his work mates, in dreams of love and seeks escape.
How these four
people understand each other and support each other is the up side to
this novel - the power of friendship in times of powerlessness against
persecution and prejudice.
The novel barely has what could be
called an ending. I was disappointed that Hekla wasn't the volcano she
was named after and didn't break through the glass cage. I was sad that
escape was but a dream for them, that Jon John would have to wait more
that the 'seven minutes to midnight' for a change in the law and that
most likely the only dream likely to come to fruition would be Issy one
of delivering hoards of children.
What this novel does very well
is remind us who lived through these times how whilst everything may
not be ideal things have thankfully changed for many if not for all -
women can be successful published poets, novelists, writers; both men
and woman can express there sexuality as they desire in many countries.
But as I write this today we hear that after park bans and university
education were stopped the Taliban in Afghanistan are now ceasing girls
primary school education - yet another generation of dashed dreams and
future generations of illiterate women with unfulfilled potential.
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes