Moonstone The boy who never was by Sjon
Icelandic fiction
Original title – Mánasteinn – drengurinn sem aldrei var til
Translator – Victoria Cribb
Source – personal copy
Well a new book Sjon is always a welcome treat, I have reviewed a couple of his books on the blog and met the translator of this book and his earlier books at the IFFP a few years ago so I knew there was other books to come out by him as she had translated more books by him. Sjon is maybe one of the best known names from Iceland not only as he is connected to the band sugarcubes in the past who were one of the first connection I had with Iceland .They are also making the first appearances in a major football championship and one of the players was the first I remember playing in Britain is still in the Iceland team Eidur Gudjohnson was part of Big Sam’s Bolton team back in the day with his fellow club mates from all round the world 17 years later it was great to see him part of the team last night for the first euro match.
She appeared on the brink like a goddess risen from the depths of the sea, silhouetted against the backdrop of a sky ablaze with the volcanic fire of Katla; a girl like no other, dressed in black leather overall that accentuates every detail it is intended to hide, with black gloves on her hands, a domed helmet on her head, goggles over her eyes, and a black scarf over her nose and mouth
Imra Vep in her death like outfit in the film Les Vampires that engulfs Mani as he watches it .
Anyway back to the book Moonstone is for me one of his best books the story of Mani Stein he is a 16-year-old boy , but one of those boys that almost fell out lf a dickens novel this is a boy who lives on the edge of society in Iceland making his way through encounters with men. But at the same time living his life in a dream world of the cinema and imaging his life drawn into the films and heroines of the films he loves to watch in one of the two cinemas in the capital. Add to this it is 1918 and a boat has just arrived and brought the Spanish flu to the capital. So as death rides over the town we see one boy trying to avoid death as it calls on Iceland. Will he avoiding him as he swoops like the black glad figures he loved so much in the films of the time.
He overhears them saying that some of the Botina’s crew are ill with the same influenza that swept through the country last summer, and that the ship will be delayed while new hands are found to take their place. The boy knows the illness from personal experience. He was sick as a dog for five days, with a headache and a high temperature, a cold and an upset stomach, and missed the films From Headquarters and The black owl, neither of which, to his great dismay, had been shown again.
He had got through last time but will he this time when one boat brings it back to Iceland
Sjon shows his love of early cinema this book is a treat for anyone interested in what films to watch from the early year of cinema such as Les Vampires a french epic told in ten parts starring Imra Vep the heroine Mani so looks up too as a black dress vampire committing crime in Paris. THe images of the film in me also evoke Bergmann death in his film seventh seal and you feel death is a character in this book never mention but always in the hinterland. I love Mani the way he loved film this is a darker northern version of Cinema Paradiso a young boy in love with the moving image but also in trouble in his own world. But this boy has no Alfredo to save him or for him to save. As ever Sjon walks the line between fairytale and reality without ever making the story feel to surreal but with the sense of otherness we all love in his writing.I may also remind you Sjon has been interviewed by me here
Have you a favourite Sjon book ?
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