Butterflies in November by Audur Ava
Olafdottir
Our main character is having an
interesting time of it. She is dumped by
her lover and her husband in the same day.
She also wins two lotteries: a portable summer cabin to be placed
anywhere in the country, and millions of Icelandic kronor. And her best friend is laid up in hospital,
on mandatory bed rest for the health of her unborn twins, so her deaf-mute four
year old son Tumi is left with nowhere to go.
Our main character takes all these circumstances and shoves them
together. She is now Tumi’s guardian and
he is comfortably seat-belted in the back of her car, the glove compartment is
filled with money and the cabin is transported to the east of the island. Road trip!
This book has been described by some
reviewers as humorous. I didn’t see
it. I guess the parts that others would
find funny I just saw as being Icelandic.
I have spent less than three weeks in Iceland but that is long enough to
know that its uniqueness is its charm.
If you want to know more about how Icelanders see the world (and what to
do if you accidently run over a sheep on the Ring Road) this would be a good
book to pick up.
Know that there are recipes at the
back of the book of the foods the characters experience. Some of it is good, some is definitely
Icelandic. And no, that isn’t exactly a
compliment.
Also, like much Nordic literature,
it starts out rather slow before it gets going.
The road trip doesn’t start until about halfway through the book. Again, I love Iceland, so I enjoyed the book
but I can’t see every reader sticking with it to take a ride with these quirky
characters.
