Books

I just finished reading ‘Miss Iceland’ by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. I enjoyed it very much. It’s an atmospheric novel set in Iceland in the early 1960s. In this time of COVID, sometimes we want to be transported to another place and this book will do it. A fair warning though, Iceland of 1963 is not a particularly wonderful place.

The story is narrated by Hekla, named by her father after a volcano. She is a talented young writer but she encounters many roadblocks to publication in a time when the only acceptable roles for women are beauty queen and plaything of men, or wife and mother. Hekla leaves the family farm in Dalir ( spent some time looking up place-names in Iceland) and takes the bus to Reykjavík to pursue her dreams. She meets two childhood friends there, David Jón John Stefánsson Johnsson, and Isey.

Jón John, named for both a famous poet and his unknown father is gay in a place and time where that is simply not tolerated and considered criminals and pedophiles. He feels he will never fit in anywhere. He’s periodically suicidal because of the treatment he gets and the only jobs he can get are horrible voyages on fishing trawlers where he is punished by the other crewman. He allows Hekla to share his attic garret.

Ísey, Hekla’s other childhood friend, leads a suffocatingly lonely life, married to a barely literate construction laborer and homebound in a dark basement flat with one baby and another on the way. She struggles to stay sane by keeping a clandestine diary in which, since so little happens, she records what doesn’t happen.

Hekla lands a job as a waitress and discovers that her pay is exactly half that of the male waiters and she is constantly harassed by the male patrons (and that’s considered part of the job). One constantly remarks on her figures and tries to get her to become ‘Miss Iceland’. She works all day and writes all night.

She finds a boyfriend – a poet. Reykjavík appears to be overrun with poets and aspiring poets – all men of course. She moves in with him. She knows that what he wants is a subservient, attractive girlfriend so she hides the fact that she is a writer until he discovers her typing in the middle of the night. After he pries the truth out of her, he transfers his jealousy of her close friendship with Jón John, whom he invariably refers to as “the freak” or “the queer,” to her disciplined output and clearly superior talent.

There is a lot of discussion of volcanoes, which are a constant feature of Iceland. While she is in Reykjavík she notes a number of volcanic eruptions as well as events such as JFK’s assassination. Eventually it becomes clear to her that she will never be allowed to succeed in Iceland and she and Jon John leave for Denmark.

Denmark turns out not to be the place they thought it would be although Hekla does make some progress in her career. Eventually, they opt for something else in an ending that is a bit surprising but believable.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a fairly easy read except for the Icelandic names. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it and it will open your eyes to, perhaps, a new author and a new world.