Your Absence is Darkness

A Novel
By Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Translated by Philip Roughton
Biblioasis International Translation Series

Whew!

This is a roller-coaster of a tale from one of the leading modern Icelandic authors.

On its surface it is the story of three generations of over-lapping Icelandic families and their successes and failures in love. It is told from the point of view of an anonymous narrator (who is also the author of the book) sprinkled with dialogs between him and a mysterious coach-driver (who happens to have a faint smell of sulfur about him.) As the tale unwinds, the coach driver interacts with the narrator—even suggesting rewrites!

It begins with the narrator finding himself in a church in a northern town in Iceland. He suffers from amnesia; people know him, but he only has glimmerings of who they are and why he is there. The narrator has fits of automatic writing from time to time, wherein he tells the story of a woman in Snæfellsness who, years ago, wrote a monograph about earthworms that caused her to look beyond her bleak existence and passionless marriage. There are about 20 other characters who interact with the story line, fortunately there is a dramatis personæ.

While it is set in modern, post-Covid, times there is a lot of rural Icelandic life and the narrative is quite earthy at times. There is also a playlist of mostly modern pop songs! 

What the book is really about is how passions and mortality shape our lives. Stefánsson also delivers numerous little digressions about various meanings of life throughout:

Each person has his own way in life. Some are open, other less so. Some people have a great need for companionship and a social life, others are inclined toward solitude. In whatever direction you lean, it doesn’t necessarily imply anything about your disposition towards your neighbour, those who matter to you. each has his own way, and no one should go against his nature. And naturally, everyone carries his own luggage. His wounds. His knots. Some struggle with them all their lives. And it appears that certain knots can only be undone by death…

There is a distinct presence of Halldór Laxness’ influence felt throughout, Under the Glacier in particular. It is, like all of Stefánsson’s work, well-written, but it becomes a bit much at times. Roughton’s translation is as invisible as one could hope for, given the novel’s peculiar nature.

Qualified recommendation.