Mani should seem a hopeless character: he’s alone in the world, poor, uneducated and illiterate. Reykjavik has, for the first time, assumed a form that reflects his inner life: a fact he would not confide to anyone. Mani is something of an outsider, a people-watcher who spends his time hustling for sex and watching silent movies, but who is later recruited by a doctor to help with the casualties. The narrative focuses around 16-year-old gay orphan Mani Steinn, at a time of immense change for Iceland, with the arrival of the so-called Spanish Flu, the recognition of Icelandic independence by Denmark at the end of World War I and the eruption of the huge Katla volcano. Set in Reykjavik in 1918, this one is a short (hurray!), intense novel.
I wish I’d counted the three “extra” books I read earlier in the summer! (Though that would mean going back and writing reviews.) Time is whizzing by and I’m not sure if I’m going to get through all the 20 books on my list.
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