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unboxedjack's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Genocide, Infertility, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and War
bibliomanicpanic's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
Open this novel, step into a world of complex storytelling, and wonder…
Paradoxically, I was tempted to pick up this novel by a less than positive review by a friend. Her reference to a clay baby receiving the spark of life had me intrigued. Was this the story of a golem?
Jósef Loewe claims to remember the moment of his birth in 1962 and everything that has happened since. But while 1962 is significant, it is not the beginning. First, the skeleton of the story. The first book in this trilogy is a love story. Jósef’s father Leo, a starving Jewish fugitive in World War II Germany, is nursed back to health by a maid in a small town. Together they fashion a baby boy from clay. The second story in the trilogy is a crime story. Leo escapes to Iceland with the clay baby in a hatbox, but he cannot yet be born. Leo needs a magical ring. But Leo becomes caught up in a murder mystery: life is dangerous and complicated. Leo applies for citizenship of Iceland. In August 1962, Jósef is born. The third book is a science-fiction story. Now middle-aged in Reykjavík, Jósef attracts the attention of a geneticist. CoDex, a fictional company, wants to decode the country’s genome.
That is the skeleton (more or less) of the story, but Sjón has fleshed it out in interesting ways. This is a novel full of side-tracks and diversions, including history, theology, and folklore. I am sure that I missed the significance of some aspects, but various parts reached out and fully grabbed my attention. Such as the Berserker and the chick.
This is no linear narrative with a clear pathway from beginning to end. It is full of digressions and shifts in pace. It is a gallimaufry of ideas and stories, a book I may have to revisit.
‘With this book, as with any other, we should bear in mind that although the author has chosen to bring the story to a conclusion, it is in fact far from over.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Paradoxically, I was tempted to pick up this novel by a less than positive review by a friend. Her reference to a clay baby receiving the spark of life had me intrigued. Was this the story of a golem?
Jósef Loewe claims to remember the moment of his birth in 1962 and everything that has happened since. But while 1962 is significant, it is not the beginning. First, the skeleton of the story. The first book in this trilogy is a love story. Jósef’s father Leo, a starving Jewish fugitive in World War II Germany, is nursed back to health by a maid in a small town. Together they fashion a baby boy from clay. The second story in the trilogy is a crime story. Leo escapes to Iceland with the clay baby in a hatbox, but he cannot yet be born. Leo needs a magical ring. But Leo becomes caught up in a murder mystery: life is dangerous and complicated. Leo applies for citizenship of Iceland. In August 1962, Jósef is born. The third book is a science-fiction story. Now middle-aged in Reykjavík, Jósef attracts the attention of a geneticist. CoDex, a fictional company, wants to decode the country’s genome.
That is the skeleton (more or less) of the story, but Sjón has fleshed it out in interesting ways. This is a novel full of side-tracks and diversions, including history, theology, and folklore. I am sure that I missed the significance of some aspects, but various parts reached out and fully grabbed my attention. Such as the Berserker and the chick.
This is no linear narrative with a clear pathway from beginning to end. It is full of digressions and shifts in pace. It is a gallimaufry of ideas and stories, a book I may have to revisit.
‘With this book, as with any other, we should bear in mind that although the author has chosen to bring the story to a conclusion, it is in fact far from over.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
changwinnie's review against another edition
4.0
I have no idea what this book is about but I really enjoyed it.
ainoan's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
raisa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
thestoryofts's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
cirulputenis's review against another edition
4.0
“To be something, to have status in society, to be born at the centre of things, to live through momentous times, to be part of the world’s anthology of stories - if only in the gap between the lines, between the words, between the letters, or even in the minute blank space inside the lower-case ‘e’, just once in that dauntingly long book; could there be any more human desire than that? Don’t we all long to be something, to feel that we exist, that others notice our existence, for the brief space of time that we are here?”
dngoldman's review against another edition
3.0
The novel provides an imaginative, freewheeling take on how stories inform our reality. While creative, the book rarely has either the intellectual heft or emotional pathos to make it truly compelling. There are some interesting concepts that do arise. Note that book is hardly a trilogy in any traditional sense as none of the sections could stand alone. Rather this is a book in three sections.
Life is twice -once in living and once in the telling the story. Stories Change perspective between the story itself and the storyteller. We can never Tell who’s perspective the story is from
The novel plays with the idea on how much of one’s fate is based on individual action vs random circumstances; Meaningful or meaningless decisions
The book if full of creation stories, individual, societal, and universal. Myths, personal stories, and science all play off each other. Creation and death creation play off each other. Creation seems an offset against evil. Yet, the books final chapter recounting the miraculous deaths in the final book add depth.
Life is the sum of what they have witnessed or taken Part in, done or 412.
467. Call is to have something knowledge of being alive. Our stories a way of doing this?
Sticking to your own story. Stories it interrupt your life but exemplify it. 
Being the author of your own live. Stories as a way of doing that exemplifying that. Also as a way of hiding and avoiding the truth.
Life is twice -once in living and once in the telling the story. Stories Change perspective between the story itself and the storyteller. We can never Tell who’s perspective the story is from
The novel plays with the idea on how much of one’s fate is based on individual action vs random circumstances; Meaningful or meaningless decisions
The book if full of creation stories, individual, societal, and universal. Myths, personal stories, and science all play off each other. Creation and death creation play off each other. Creation seems an offset against evil. Yet, the books final chapter recounting the miraculous deaths in the final book add depth.
Life is the sum of what they have witnessed or taken Part in, done or 412.
467. Call is to have something knowledge of being alive. Our stories a way of doing this?
Sticking to your own story. Stories it interrupt your life but exemplify it. 
Being the author of your own live. Stories as a way of doing that exemplifying that. Also as a way of hiding and avoiding the truth.
kateofmind's review
5.0
I have thoughts and feelings flooding my brain right now. The epilogue to this trilogy dumps a complete re-contextualization on us. I suspect that, like Wallace's Infinite Jest and Gene Wolfe's Peace before it, this demands a very prompt second reading and will probably seem a completely different book!
Loved everything but the abundant male-gaze dreck in the third novel.
Loved everything but the abundant male-gaze dreck in the third novel.