Nordic chill. “A Fist or a Heart” by Kristín Eiríksdóttir

“A Fist or a Heart” 

by Kristín Eiríksdóttir

Translated by Larissa Kyzer

A review

Kristín Eiríksdóttir (born 1981) is a novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from Reykjavik. Her novel Elín, ýmislegt won the Icelandic Literary Prize 2017, the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize 2018 and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2019.  English-language readers can now explore this award-winning novel through this translation by Larissa Kyzer, retitled “A Fist or a Heart”.

The novel is an insightful psychological study of two lonely and eccentric individuals with a tenuous grip on their sanity.  The protagonist and narrator Elín Jónsdóttir, is a theatre and movie prop creator in her late sixties. One of the latest projects in which Elín is involved is the production of a new play by a teenage writing prodigy - Ellen Álfsdóttir.  Ellen happens to be the daughter of a famed playwright with whom Elín was acquainted.  Elín, who has spent all her life pushing people away from her, now seems strangely drawn to the disturbed teenager and starts following her.  The narrative is purportedly written by the older woman, and it alternates between her reminiscences, written in the first person, and scenes involving Ellen, written in the third person and incorporating poems Ellen wrote.

The scant plot details of A Fist or A Heart (such as they are) are revealed slowly and tantalisingly.  In this respect, I found the novel gripping and atmospheric.  On the other hand, I cannot say I “loved” the book.  My reservations were two.  

The novel is built on a premise of ambiguity.  It is quite clear,  that Elín and Ellen are meant to be reflections of each other. Both are lonely, both had an upbringing with an ‘absent’ father, both had problematic relationships with their respective mothers. In a way, Ellen’s mother Lilya could be read as yet another aspect of one composite character.  By the end of the book, however, the ambiguity is taken to extremes.  As Elín becomes more and more confused, it’s not even clear whether what we’ve learnt about the (younger) Ellen or, for that matter, Elín herself, should be taken at face value.  Has Elín made up everything? Is Ellen partly or completely the product of Elín’s imagination?   These questions (and other, less important ones, which also remain unanswered) kept bothering me after I finished the book.  I’m sure some would hold this in the book’s favour.  I’m more conservative in that respect and prefer greater “closure”.  

My second reservation, although less central to the novel, I found possibly more troubling.  Throughout the book there are frequent references to violence and violent acts.  Elín’s props are, more often than not, meant for some Nordic crime film or shocking play: the grisly list includes severed limbs, decaying corpses, scarred bodies, a doll to represent an abused minors.  In what is quite a short book, there is also a chapter about quite a stomach-churning episode of sexual violence (no further details here to avoid ‘spoilers’) and a sub-plot involving an unlikely meeting with a serial killer.  I’d like to think that I’m not a squeamish reader (I’ve read my share of horror stories), but I did feel that these unsavoury details were not essential to the novel.   

Reservations aside, I am still pleased at the opportunity of discovering a new author in her English language debut, and (given it’s unlikely I will ever learn Icelandic) I will seek out translations of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s other works once they – hopefully – become available.  

Kindle Edition, 202 pages

Published September 24th 2019 by Amazon Crossing (first published 2017)