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A review by larsinio
Icelander by Dustin Long
3.0
Icelander is an interesting book that think its a lot clever than it winds up being.
This is a novel for writers, which i guess makes sense since its on Dave Eggar's. There are winks at the reader throughout - from story driver "Shirley MacGuffin" (funny the first time, ugh by the 500th time) to the unreliable narrators, to the unreliable "editor", to the unrealiable "author". These are all "clever" machiniations that any writer would enjoy, in theory.
For the first third of hte book, when Our Heroine is the the sole narrator, this works well. I liked hte ideas of person involved in real-life mysteries then subject to mystery novels hating her own fame. I liked the two literary investigators. I liked the plot about the origins of Macbeth. I liked the bookish plot, the bookish characters, 5 stars at this point.
Then it becomes a mess in the middle. Multiple voices, multiple timelines, it just loses its cohesion. The sum of the parts in the middle is less than the whole. Not much plot actual advance,s but just a lot of scattered background.
This goes on for a while and then act III kicks in when ALL THE PLOT HAPPENS IMMEDIATELY. Too much action, too late, with no real pay off. You dont really care about the characters because after switching narrator so many times in the middle, it just becomes a tastesless blur. Characters utlimtaely have no arc - its just to a race to reveal the "mystery" sorta. And then the book ends with the editor clashing with the author clashing with the content of the story, so nothing really conclusive can be said. uh ok? its "clever" i guess.
Other tidbits:
The dramatis personae was needed but it forgets to include like half the characters.
I like the idea of this book and its play on conventions, but i feel someone else could have done a better job.
For a book about Iceland there is almost 0 here about iceland. Id expect every character to have an icelandic name. The icelandic setting never really comes into play other than steam tunnels - which isnt unique to iceland. It should be called Nordicer because its a non-researched mishmash of Scandinavia.
Finally - this is an interesting book that i think should be read in a class about writing plots, as a way to give you ideas about turning conventions on its head. But way too ambitious for Dustin Long to handle
This is a novel for writers, which i guess makes sense since its on Dave Eggar's. There are winks at the reader throughout - from story driver "Shirley MacGuffin" (funny the first time, ugh by the 500th time) to the unreliable narrators, to the unreliable "editor", to the unrealiable "author". These are all "clever" machiniations that any writer would enjoy, in theory.
For the first third of hte book, when Our Heroine is the the sole narrator, this works well. I liked hte ideas of person involved in real-life mysteries then subject to mystery novels hating her own fame. I liked the two literary investigators. I liked the plot about the origins of Macbeth. I liked the bookish plot, the bookish characters, 5 stars at this point.
Then it becomes a mess in the middle. Multiple voices, multiple timelines, it just loses its cohesion. The sum of the parts in the middle is less than the whole. Not much plot actual advance,s but just a lot of scattered background.
This goes on for a while and then act III kicks in when ALL THE PLOT HAPPENS IMMEDIATELY. Too much action, too late, with no real pay off. You dont really care about the characters because after switching narrator so many times in the middle, it just becomes a tastesless blur. Characters utlimtaely have no arc - its just to a race to reveal the "mystery" sorta. And then the book ends with the editor clashing with the author clashing with the content of the story, so nothing really conclusive can be said. uh ok? its "clever" i guess.
Other tidbits:
The dramatis personae was needed but it forgets to include like half the characters.
I like the idea of this book and its play on conventions, but i feel someone else could have done a better job.
For a book about Iceland there is almost 0 here about iceland. Id expect every character to have an icelandic name. The icelandic setting never really comes into play other than steam tunnels - which isnt unique to iceland. It should be called Nordicer because its a non-researched mishmash of Scandinavia.
Finally - this is an interesting book that i think should be read in a class about writing plots, as a way to give you ideas about turning conventions on its head. But way too ambitious for Dustin Long to handle