Book Review

By Derryll White

Jónasson, Ragnar (2015).  Snowblind.

I like the slow Scandinavian pace. I don’t need cliffhangers in every chapter because I don’t want to make a Hollywood movie out of it.  – Hakan Nesser

‘Snowblind’ is Ragnar Jónasson’s first published novel.  He is an Icelandic author born in Reykjavik in 1976.  The novel is set in Iceland’s most northern community, Siglufjördur, just south of the Arctic Circle.  The setting contributes to the Icelandic noir cast of the story, an isolated fishing village in the fjords of northern Iceland which was the home of the author’s grandparents and a place he visited every summer.  The freezing Icelandic winter and the isolation enforced by avalanches produces a pervasive melancholy that affects all the characters.

The author translated 14 Agatha Christie novels into Icelandic before publishing his own first work.  Her influence is apparent in the ‘closed room’ tradition of the small town rimmed by large, impressive mountains closing it off from the rest of the world.  The author builds tension in a small cast forced to continually encounter one another.  There is no question, however, that the novel’s real appeal to Kootenay readers is the majestic mountain setting whipped by snowstorms and enclosed in freezing winter weather.  Just like home

Jóhannson is a good writer, supported by an excellent translator.  ‘Snowblind’ reads well and draws the reader into rookie policeman Ari Thór’s challenging circumstances. This will become part of the sweeping Scandinavian literary legacy invading the North American markets.

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Excerpts from the novel:

TRADITION – His parents had always given him a book for Christmas.  The Icelandic tradition of reading a new book on Christmas Eve, and into the early hours of the morning, had been important in his family’s home.  When his mother and father died and he was left an orphan at the tender age of thirteen he had gone to live with his grandmother.  From then on he had made a point of buying himself a book at Christmas, something that he particularly wanted to read.

NORDIC NOIR – He needed warmth and reassurance now more than ever.  His nightmares were getting steadily worse and the same could be said about his claustrophobia.  To begin with he had simply feared being snowed in, but now that it had actually happened in this remote spot, he almost felt that he couldn’t take much more.  And this bloody darkness didn’t help either.  He had to keep working just to stay sane.  The road was still closed, and another avalanche, smaller this time, had fallen that evening.  He desperately needed someone.

ICELANDIC LIFE – The weight of the snow on the road was almost too much for the little police 4×4 to cope with.  Maybe it would have been more sensible to stay at home and become gradually cocooned as the drifts piled up.  The houses all looked the same through the falling snow: shadowy detached buildings hidden in the swirling snowflakes driven by the northerly gale.  Having parked the car once, only to find it was outside the wrong house, Ari Thór finally found the right one.

– 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.

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