{"id":306066,"date":"2017-05-15T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2017\/05\/15\/win-a-copy-of-tomas-jonsson-bestseller-by-gudbergur-bergsson-from-goodreads\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:57:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:57:19","slug":"win-a-copy-of-tomas-jonsson-bestseller-by-gudbergur-bergsson-from-goodreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2017\/05\/15\/win-a-copy-of-tomas-jonsson-bestseller-by-gudbergur-bergsson-from-goodreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Win a Copy of "T\u00f3mas J\u00f3nsson, Bestseller" by Gudbergur Bergsson from GoodReads!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may already know, T\u00f3mas J\u00f3nsson, Bestseller<\/em>,<\/a> translated by Lytton Smith, is going to be the second<\/em> Two Month Review title. This “season” will take place in August and September, but you can get a head start by winning<\/em> a copy of the book through GoodReads. If you’re a GoodReads user, all you have to do is click on the button below (U.S. residents only). <\/p>\n

Here’s a bit from Sj\u00f3n about the novel:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The grand old man of Icelandic literature is Gu\u00f0bergur Bergsson and I keep being influenced by his modernist novels from the 60s as well as some of his later works. Luckily for English readers his early masterpiece Tomas Jonsson \u2013 Bestseller will be published by Open Letter in the U.S. next year. It is the greatest attack ever launched against the overblown ideas behind the official image of the Icelandic national character. It is a picaresque, Rabelesian, joyful experiment where the main character even assigns a passport to his penis: Occupation: Toy. Height: 18 cm. Eye color: Red. Etc. Like all works that are watershed events his best novels have made writing both easier and more difficult for those of us who followed in his wake. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And here’s a general description:<\/p>\n

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A retired, senile bank clerk confined to his basement apartment, T\u00f3mas J\u00f3nsson decides that, since memoirs are all the rage, he\u2019s going to write his own\u2014a sure bestseller\u2014that will also right the wrongs of contemporary Icelandic society. Egoistic, cranky, and digressive, T\u00f3mas blasts away while relating pick-up techniques, meditations on chamber pot use, ways to assign monetary value to noise pollution, and much more. His rants parody and subvert the idea of the memoir\u2014something that\u2019s as relevant today in our memoir-obsessed society as it was when the novel was first published.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Considered by many to be the \u201cIcelandic Ulysses<\/em>\u201d for its wordplay, neologisms, structural upheaval, and reinvention of what\u2019s possible in Icelandic writing, T\u00f3mas J\u00f3nsson, Bestseller was a bestseller, heralding a new age of Icelandic literature. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Enter to win below, or read a sample here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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