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Ashes to Dust is slow, twisted and a little boring
Book Review
By Derryll White
Sigurdardottir, Yrsa (2010). Ashes To Dust.
It took me a while to get into this novel as there seemed a large cast of characters to figure out. This is book three of a series featuring the main character, lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir. She is divorced and has her young daughter Soky with her, as well as her 18-year-old son Gylfi and his wife and son. It goes from there.
But there is a sense of reality, a feeling that this type of social structure is common. Reading this volume in Sweden, I am struck by the youth of the population and the fact that, in Stockholm at least, there are strollers and babies everywhere.
‘Ashes To Dust” is a slow book, bound up in detail, and I don’t think that necessarily a bad thing. It reflects back on the author’s training as a civil engineer. Sigurdardottir creates textures of relationships, allows the reader into how an Icelandic woman’s mind works.
This does advance the story while at the same time revealing some of the fabric of Icelandic society. And the author does take some pains to give insights into Iceland’s legal system, both police and judiciary, and how Icelanders react – with reserve and some distrust.
Described as “tense, taunt and terrifying,” this novel might be also considered slow, twisted and a little boring. Yrsa Sigurdardottir does not, in my opinion, measure up to some of the other Icelandic authors such as Sjón, Halldor Laxness or Arnaldur Indridason.
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Excerpt from the novel:
DISCOVERIES – Thóra peered at the floor, but couldn’t see anything that could have frightened Markús that much, only three mounds of dust. She moved the light of her torch over them. It took her some time to realize what she was seeing– and then it was all she could do not to let the torch slip from her hand. ‘Good God,’ she said. She ran the light over the three faces, one after another. Sunken cheeks, empty eye-sockets, gaping mouths; they reminded her of photographs of mummies she’d once seen in National Geographic. ‘Who are these people?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Markús…
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
