troisoiseaux

Finished Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, a slice-of-life novel set in "a village of four hundred souls" in '90s(?) Iceland, narrated in a sort of anonymous, collective community voice (opening line: "Now, we'd almost written that what made our village unique was that it wasn't unique at all, but apparently that isn't true"). Something of a short story collection feel in the way each chapter does follow a different, specific story arc/plotline from beginning to end, but even then, there's a meandering, kaleidoscopic feel— I'd say it's somehow both sprawling and narrow in focus?— and a few running plot/story threads throughout. (I've seen the author described as an Icelandic Charles Dickens; I found myself thinking more of South Riding.) Particularly enjoyed this for having recently traveled to Iceland, because although we only drove past/through the type of very small, rural town/village where this is set, I did have enough of a sense of the buildings and landscape and the vibes to picture it as I read. (More than if I had read this before I went to Iceland, anyway...)

Finished Buffet for Unwelcome Guests by Christianna Brand, a collection of short stories categorized into "Cockrill Cocktails" (featuring her recurring detective Inspector Cockrill), "Entrees" (longer stand-alones), "Petit Fours", and "Black Coffee." There was something generally flippant about the "Petit Fours", including two separate stories that made me think of the Mmm Whatcha Say SNL sketch, only one of them was about a jewel heist* and one about blackmail and murder; the latter also featured some cheerfully callous children, making two for two on a reaction of o__O towards the children in Brand's mystery stories, which does make me curious about the vibe of her novels for children. The "Black Coffee" stories were, as the name suggests, just plain dark: a kind old woman takes in a young, pregnant couple and becomes convinced the baby is the second coming of Jesus, only for the young couple to murder her like they did their previous landlady; a woman is cornered in her home by a stalker who'd been making obscene phone calls, whose calm discussion of/his self-justification for his hobby of stalking and rape and murder makes this maybe the creepiest story in the collection. (Although she ends up killing him in self-defense, so, y'know, could have been worse.) Bit of a grab bag, quality-wise, and I did skip a couple of stories— one had such a baffling opening sentence that I was like, you know what? I'll come back to this and then I didn't; one was just virulent fatphobia for the first couple of pages and I safely assumed it would not improve— and it ended on a sour note, since the second-to-last story hinged on an intentionally false accusation of sexual assault in a way that has aged extremely poorly. (Not sure when it was written, but this collection was published in the early '80s?) There were some good stories, though— particularly among the Cockrill ones, where I found I liked him more than in Brand's novels— so not an entirely disappointing experience.

* Actually, on double-checking, that one was filed under "Something to Clear the Palate" rather than a "Petit Four"— presumably as the one story in the collection that did not involve murder?— but I don't want to rewrite that whole sentence at this point.