One of the privileges of moonlighting as a book reviewer is the fact I sometimes receive literary gems I might otherwise never pick up.
Moonstone, winner of the 2013 Icelandic Literary Prize, is one such treasure.
Written as a tribute to the author's Uncle Bosi - sailor, alcoholic, booklover, socialist and gay - it is not so much a novel as a portrait of a life in miniature that encapsulates a pivotal moment in time for the story's protagonist, 16-year-old orphan Mani Steinn, and Iceland.
It opens in Reykjavik at the end of 1918, where Mani's life revolves around the cinema, which he attends twice a day (an indulgence he funds by prostituting himself to both townsfolk and tourists alike) and through whose lens he reimagines every aspect of the world.
A natural loner, the boy is content to spend his time alone in the darkness of the town's theatres and imagining adventures with the daughter of the local broker, Sola G-, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Musidora's vampiric heroine Irma Vepp.
Then reality and imagination collide when the cinemas are closed due to the Spanish flu, and Mani and Sola G- travel through the disease-ravaged city searching for survivors and disposing of the dead.
Moonstone's author, Sjon (pen-name of writer, poet and lyricist Sigurjon Birgir Sigurdsson), is one of Iceland's leading surrealists, and this is clearly evident in the story's construction.
Mani's life is presented as a series of symbolically layered scenes (and occasional photograph); servicing a client as Mount Katla erupts behind him, being discovered in flagrante with a Danish sailor on the day of Iceland's independence, returning as a black butterfly to visit Bosi's grandfather at the leprosy hospital where he spent his own earliest years.
Given the sexual content, a degree of reader discretion is advised, but Moonstone paints a haunting and evocative portrait of a specific time, place and character that should appeal to anybody willing to take a step outside their comfort zone.
- Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.
