{"id":305686,"date":"2017-03-31T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2017\/03\/31\/moonstone-the-boy-who-never-was-by-sjon-why-this-book-should-win\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T14:40:41","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T14:40:41","slug":"moonstone-the-boy-who-never-was-by-sjon-why-this-book-should-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2017\/03\/31\/moonstone-the-boy-who-never-was-by-sjon-why-this-book-should-win\/","title":{"rendered":"“Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was” by Sj\u00f3n [Why This Book Should Win]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between the announcement of the Best Translated Book Award longlists<\/a> and the unveiling of the finalists, we will be covering all thirty-five titles in the Why This Book Should Win<\/a> series. Enjoy learning about all the various titles selected by the fourteen fiction and poetry judges, and I hope you find a few to purchase and read!<\/em><\/p>\n

Since I (Chad) used this book in my class this spring, I thought I\u2019d write it up for the series. Hi.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Moonstone<\/em><\/a> by Sj\u00f3n, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, FSG<\/span>)<\/b><\/p>\n

Chad\u2019s Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Making the Shortlist: 62%<\/b><\/p>\n

Chad\u2019s Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Winning the BTBA<\/span>: 9%<\/b><\/p>\n

Given Iceland\u2019s population, it\u2019s almost shocking that forty-six Icelandic works of fiction and poetry have been published in English translation since 2008. Over that time period, more books have been translated from Icelandic than from Czech. Or from Greek, Hungarian, or Flemish. In fact, there have been as many books translated from the Icelandic as there have from Hindi, Latvian, Persian, and Yiddish combined.<\/p>\n

Sure, 10% of all Icelanders will publish a book over the course of their lifetime, providing a pretty solid pool of titles for publishers to choose from, but still\u2014why Iceland?<\/p>\n

Last summer, the Icelandic men\u2019s soccer team took the world by storm, becoming the beloved Cinderella side of the Euro Cup. They rolled into the semifinals behind a slightly disconcerting nationalistic celebration, a feisty style of play fed by a \u201cwhat do we have to lose?\u201d underdog mentality, and some incredibly fun Twitter taunts from The Grapevine<\/em>, Reykjavik\u2019s English language paper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Iceland was having its moment.<\/p>\n

But then again, Iceland\u2019s been having its moment for decades.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bj\u00f6rk. Sigur R\u00f3s. M\u00fam. Of Monsters and Men. The Blue Lagoon.<\/a> Skyr.<\/a> Northern Lights. Renewable energy. Women\u2019s Rights. J\u00f3n Gnarr\u2019s mayorship. Damon Albarn\u2019s bar. The fifth gait of an Icelandic horse. Fermented shark and Brenniv\u00e9n. Cheap flights to Europe if you stay overnight in Iceland. There are dozens of things about Iceland that make it really cool, that have made it an incredibly hip place to visit, or culture to import. (Except maybe the shark and Brenniv\u00e9n. Iceland can keep those.)<\/p>\n

Although all of this interest in Iceland and Icelandic culture seems like a boon, there is an underlying tension at play. This is an island nation after all, one that, for most of its early history, was more or less cut off from the rest of the world, floating in the middle of nowhere. Its culture is uniquely Icelandic because it was able to develop on its own, somewhat removed from globalizing trends. Reykjavik is the only capital in western Europe without a McDonald\u2019s or a Starbucks\u2014almost all the restaurants and shops originated in Iceland.<\/p>\n

This tension between being separate from the rest of the world while also wanting to participate in global culture plays itself out in Sj\u00f3n\u2019s most recent novel, Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was.<\/em><\/p>\n

The novel centers on M\u00e1ni Steinn (a.k.a. Moonstone), a young, gay boy who was born in the island\u2019s leper colony, and who is obsessed with the movies. Moonstone<\/em> has more of a plot than some of Sj\u00f3n\u2019s earlier books, but it\u2019s still somewhat secondary to the poetic writing and atmosphere of the novel. A Danish ship arrives bringing the Spanish flu, and lots of people die, especially those who congregated at the movie theater. M\u00e1ni Steinn also falls ill, giving Sj\u00f3n the opportunity to show off his musical abilities in a three-chapter fever dream awash in symbolism, gray ooze, and body parts.<\/p>\n

The toe of the shoe is thrust out from beneath the skirt and stamped down with such force that the floor creaks. Gray slime wells up between the boards. The air grows thick with the stench of rotting fish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014A little closer, dear, a little closer . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hands reappear. The figure flings a pair of eyebrows onto the lid. Pain lacerates the boy. He raises a hand to his forehead, but it is shaking too much for him to feel whether his own brows are still there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014A little closer, dear, a little closer . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The figure withdraws its hands inside its clothes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014A little closer, dear, a little closer . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The gramophone voice buzzes inside the wooden box.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sense of danger from the outside pervades the novel, not just in relation to the actual, literal infection that the Danes bring with them on their ship, but also in the corrupting power of foreign films. Dr. Garibaldi \u00c1rnason details this in a mini-manifesto:<\/p>\n

_In the same fashion, the cinema audience scrutinizes the light-puppets on the silver screen, and whether it is the curve of Asta Nielsen\u2019s back, Theda Bara\u2019s naked shoulders, Pina Menichelli\u2019s sensual eyelids [. . .] the body part in question and its position will become the focus of the viewer\u2019s existence and etch itself into his psyche, while the size of the image and the repeated close-ups of lips, teeth, and even tongues will exacerbate the effects until few have the strength to resist them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Film is thus immoral by its very nature, transforming the actor into a fetish and fostering perversion in the viewer, who allows himself to be seduced like a moth to the flame.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The doctor\u2019s viewpoint is brought into even sharper view after M\u00e1ni is caught with another man:<\/p>\n

\u2014It\u2019s clear that the lad is not like other people . . . a homosexual<\/em> [. . .] Hardly any cases known in this country . . . hasn\u2019t become established . . . will proliferate if . . . My theory . . . a word of warning . . . men are rendered more susceptible to homosexuality<\/em> by overindulgence in films . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m definitely oversimplifying this book, but reading Moonstone<\/em> shortly after Gudbergur Bergsson\u2019s T\u00f3mas J\u00f3nsson, Bestseller<\/em>, I\u2019ve become fixed on the ways in which these books address the complexities of Iceland in the world, and, more specifically, of the idea of the \u201cIcelandic Man.\u201d Although using vastly different approaches, both novels open up a space through which to examine these tensions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I think Moonstone<\/em> deserves the Best Translated Book Award for fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the announcement of the Best Translated Book Award longlists and the unveiling of the finalists, we will be covering all thirty-five titles in the Why This Book Should Win series. Enjoy learning about all the various titles selected by the fourteen fiction and poetry judges, and I hope you find a few to purchase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[35996,64586,48766,6476,1976,65336,18826,18916,37876],"class_list":["post-305686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-btba","tag-btba-2017","tag-btba-fiction","tag-chad-post","tag-fsg","tag-moonstone","tag-sjon","tag-victoria-cribb","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396822,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305686\/revisions\/396822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}