Moonstone The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón
The skies are always gloomy due to the eruptions of the Katla volcano. Life in the little capital continues as usual despite the natural calamity, the coal shortage, and the ongoing Great War outside. Máni Steinn, who is sixteen, is a movie addict. He is awake and resides on the periphery of civilization. He has vivid dreams while he is sleeping, with scenes from his own life woven into the plots of the movies he enjoys. The shadows that linger on the outskirts of life grow darker when the Spanish flu epidemic arrives, killing hundreds of town residents and sending thousands to their beds. Máni is then compelled to reevaluate his place in society as well as the society around him.
This is the tale of a misfit who is changed by his experiences in a world where life and death, reality and imagination, secrets and revelations struggle for supremacy. It evokes the moment when Iceland’s saga culture met the new narrative form of the cinema and when the remote island became entangled in world events.
Moonstone The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón
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In Moonstone, a youngster—and a fairly peculiar boy at that—experiences the effects of the Spanish flu in Iceland in 1918. The less I reveal about what happens, the more you may enjoy the book. It is an astonishing narrative about an extraordinary youngster. This is strong material—a tale of tragedy and death, but also of development and hope.
The Spanish flu is raging in Reykjavik at the time. We follow Mani, a teenage call guy who is floating in and out of sexual encounters and who is standing on a feverishly thin line between life and death as the virus sweeps across the Icelandic city.
What a fascinating small book it is! Our story’s protagonist is a fascinating, nuanced, and amazing character. His unconventionality gives us readers a unique perspective on the culture he lives in that we otherwise would not have. He is very much an outsider and, like Ramquist’s character, he was forced to fend for himself in a hostile environment.
I found the story to be both smooth and graphic. It appeared to be scribbled in black chalk and was translucent, dusty, and quite graphic. In addition to being a tremendously fine story about sexuality, euphoria, illness, and death, it is like an artwork.
