The Creak on the Stairs - by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is talked about as the new kid on the block of Icelandic thriller writers. Is she up to the task? With only one novel in her pocket, the answer is not  easy. But it is an award winning one, so I took some time out of my quite busy reading&writing schedule to give it a go.

Elma comes back to little, quiet Akranes after some years spent working with Reykjavik police. To bring her back is a personal event that will be explained during the course of the story. It is a pity that the explanation comes at the cost of the pact of trust between writer and reader, but let's put this aside for one minute.

Arkanes being a little "quiet place" becomes object of discussion, though, when the sea reveals the body of an apparently unknown woman. It's only Elma's careful investigation - fortunately she is not distracted by connections in town like the chief of the local police - to dig slowly up the secrets that are somehow always nested in provincial towns. In this respect, it's really a small world, because provincial life is the same in Iceland like in (my) Italy.

The story makes a pleasant reading, and the solution to the crime is not a simple one. The homicide might be just one, but the tragic events of the past and the crime committed along the way are multiple. The formula adopted of coming and going from past to present, alternating chapters, is well performed and very congenial to the plot. 

I think that if you choose to read a thriller set in Iceland it has also something to do with the unusual setting. At least, this is one of the reasons for me. The author here gives us a chance to know something about her island. Yes, there is crime. And yes. There is traffic!

There are some imperfections in the narration, including a very slow pace at the beginning (I mean too slow, but keep reading, it gets definitely better), the violation of the pact I mentioned above (I understand building tension but you cannot do that through cheating your reader so ouvertly) and some threads left open at the end. These loose ends are not of the type letting you wondering after finishing the book, but of the disappointing type. Not all the bad guys are brought to justice, for example. And this is not acceptable, given that we are talking about serious crime here (i.e., pedophilia).

But I hear that the author is working on a new book and I do hope it will be another episode of Elma's adventures, because I do intend to read on and check if she is satisfying my curiosity and thirst for justice.  

 

Published by Orenda Books

                                       
 

Creative writing: Foe by J. M. Coetzee

Susan Barton lands on an island in the middle of the ocean after a mutinee takes place on board the ship she is travelling on from Brazil. This particular island is not deserted. It's the kingdom of 60-year-old Cruso, a silent man who has lived here for many years after a shipwreck together with his man slave, named Friday. 

Nobody can tell how many years Cruso has spent on the island, not even himself - not having kept a record of the passing of time. He has not saved any useful tool from the shipwreck - just a small knife. He has not kept a journal of his adventures for future generations. What adventures, then, since he just moves stones to terrace the island, hoping to see some day a ship pass by and leave some seeds to plant? Why, it is not indeed Cruso's dream to leave the island, he doesn't even attempt to do it. And Friday just does what he is told to, uttering no sound. Somebody cut his tongue out.

I can see faces perplexed about this recounting of the life of the most famous castaway in the history of literature. Is this the very same adventurous Crusoe by Daniel Defoe? Is it the same Friday, who learnt English from his master and became a Christian?

It's Susan Barton who gets saved, with Friday, and dreams of passing on her, their stories. To do so, she contacts a man of letter, Mr. Foe. Can her story work? With a woman as protagonist? With just one cannibal, dumb Friday? No hordes of cannibals, no pistols saved from the wreckage to use against attacks? No attempts to build a ship to leave the island with?
It is by this line of reasoning that questions start, and not about the plot itsself. What is, for example, the task of the Writer: telling the truth?
 "It is not whoring to entertain other people's stories and return them to the world better dressed"

 Pleasing the reader?
More is at stake in the history you write, I will admit, for it must not only tell the truth about us but please its readers too.

The castaways' tales are just an excuse for a more philosophical approach, to talk about writing, the Writer, his creative power, inspiration, words and the unspoken. And those initials on a trunk, M. J. Who do they belong to? Is it maybe Coetzee's inverted initials, to confirm his presence, puppet master and god of his characters? (May it not be that God continually writes the world, the world and all that is in it?)

Susan slowly becomes clearly a Muse for the writer, even though the creative act is joked about: 

And he gave me sixpence, which, though no great payment for a visit from the Muse, I accepted

The book is full of innuendo on how to write. Were it not so complicated at times, it reads almost as a creative writing manual. As creative writing teachers tell us, storytelling responds to an urge to tell our stories:  

Without desire how is it possible to make a story?

 They also say that not everything must be really told:

In every story there is a silence, some sight concealed, some word unspoken, I believe

Foe by JM Coetzee (first published in 1986)

The re-telling of Crusoe's adventures takes up only a mere 20% of the books. The rest is another thing. Should you be looking for some Stevenson's style approach, you have definitely landed on the wrong shores.