Sjón

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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Sjón
Legal name: Sigurðsson, Sigurjón Birgir
Birthdate: 1962-08-27
Gender: male
Nationality: Iceland
Country (for map): Iceland
Birthplace: Reykjavík, Iceland
Places of residence: Reykjavik, Iceland
Short biography: Sjón contributioned the unpublished manuscript for 2016 to the Future Library project, of ""As my brow brushes on the tunics of angels". See the Bookseller article.

Members

Reviews

Moonstone The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón

Despite it being clearly stated on the back cover, I didn't notice until I began reading that [b:Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was|26114180|Moonstone The Boy Who Never Was|Sjón|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453379926l/26114180._SX50_.jpg|26568063] is set in 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic. That'll teach me to skim blurbs. It was a disconcerting discovery, but I'm glad I persisted nonetheless. The setting is Reykjavik, Iceland and the narrative follows a young rent boy who is fascinated by cinema. As the flu pandemic takes hold, he becomes a doctor's assistant. The writing is episodic and vivid:

Although, as a rule, little in the papers captures his interest - anything that happens in Iceland seems too small, while overseas events affect him only if they are grand enough to be made into films - the news in the last few days about the Spanish Flu has held a lurid fascination for the boy.
He has a butterfly in his stomach, similar to those he experiences when he picks up a gentleman, only this time it is larger, its wingspan greater, its colour as black as the velvet ribbons on a hearse.
An uncontrollable force has been unleashed in the country; something historic is taking place in Reykjavik at the same time as it is happening in the outside world. The silver screen has torn and a draught is blowing between the worlds.

I read the whole novella in one go. There are some moments of wonderfully evocative imagery and beautiful description, however it all goes by swiftly and did not add up to a great deal for me. The experience was rather like viewing a selection of artful snapshots.… (more)

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annarchism | 21 other reviews | Aug 4, 2024 |

The Blue Fox by Sjón

A hunter sets out to hunt a blue fox, a vixen. But when a blizzard arrives, rather than do the sensible thing, he keeps following the fox for which there are consequences. Meanwhile, a gentleman comes upon a simple woman who has been obviously sexually abused en route to who knows where so he takes her in and they take good care of one another. What we don’t know until the end is who is the hunter and what is the fate of the fox. This book has received a major Nordic award and rave reviews. The ending left me not caring at all and why I rate it only so-so.… (more)

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KarenMonsen | 35 other reviews | Jun 9, 2024 |

The Blue Fox: A Novel by Sjón

Great

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k6gst | 35 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |

The Blue Fox: A Novel by Sjón

Oooof. Reading the first part of this slim novel, it seemed to me I was reading a modernized animal fable. Told in poetic language we read about a blue fox, “the vixen”, being tracked through the winter Icelandic landscape of 1883 by a hunter, universalized as “the man”. And then the story explodes into something else, signified by two short lines:

She raises her head.
Reverend Baldur Skuggason pulls the trigger.

The following sections of the novel gradually spool out a horrific and, alas, an all too human sort of story, told in more traditional though still lyrically heightened prose. I had not looked at reviews before reading this; if I had, I would have seen my Goodreads friend Meike’s review which points out the etymology of the Icelandic word skuggabaldur, the novel’s original title in Iceland, which according to Wiktionary has the meanings:

1. An Icelandic folktale creature, the offspring of a tomcat and a vixen (or dog)
2. An evil spirit
3. An evildoer who anonymously does their evil

Icelandic speakers, or people who read smart Goodreads reviews, would thus know right away that the name Baldur Skuggason bodes very ill. I got to find out more gradually. The Reverend Baldur Skuggason has done something hideously evil, unspeakable, and Sjón twines together that brutal story with the safer language of fable, where the moral is guaranteed its victory in the end.

There’s an interesting exchange between Reverend Baldur Skuggason and the vixen that suggestively takes place in a cave (underneath a glacier, being Iceland!). Skuggason challenges the vixen to a debate about electricity. He claims that God materially makes up the world, and that it is thus particles of God that are transmitted through electric wires. To treat God in such a way is a degradation of His nature. The vixen replies that if God causes the light to shine, and if God furthermore is light, then God is shining forth from every lamp, and shouldn’t the Church desire that? The Reverend cynically replies, “Do you really believe, Madam Vixen, that the radiance from these electric bulbs of yours can penetrate the human soul?” He then stabs the vixen through the heart with a knife he has grabbed while the vixen was composing her reply.

Digging out of the cave through the snow right after, the Reverend calls out: