The Blue Fox is another spellbinding story from Icelandic author who writes under the name Sjon. Each of his novels is unique, both epic and lyrical, packed into a short 115 pages. A mixture of Icelandic history and myth, it reminds me of the traditional author Halldor Laxness stripped to the essentials.
The rim of daylight was fading.
In the halls of heaven it was now dark enough for the Aurora Borealis sisters to begin their lively dance of the veils. With an enchanting play of colours they flitted light and quick about the great stage of the heavens, in fluttering golden dresses, their tumbling pearl necklaces scattering here and there in their wild capering. This spectacle is at its brightest shortly after sunset.
Then the curtain falls; night takes over.
Part One: January 9-11, 1883, portrays the dance of hunter and fox. The vixen is a rare blue fox, trickier than the white, able to hide amongst the stones. The hunter bides his time.
Part Two takes place two days earlier, and deals with the funeral of a young girl with Down's syndrome. Once rescued as a child from a pirate ship by Fridrik Fridjonsson, she lived with him in the Dale and was once promised to her sweetheart, the eejit Halfdan. We return to the hunter as he pursues the fox, through an avalanche and the Aurora Borealis, before discovering what binds these stories together.
The dark backdrop of the Icelandic winter casts a magical spell over the tale. These read like traditional fables, and may be. The simple structure is surprising complex, a poetic story of survival in a harsh landscape told with a unique choice of language. Sjon has worked with filmmaker Lars von Trier and written lyrics for Bjork.
The Blue Fox won the 2005 Nordic Council Literature Prize - the highest Nordic literary honour.
2004 / Tradeback / 115 pages
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