A review by jenmcmaynes
The Whispering Muse by Sjón

3.0

In preparation for my trip to Iceland, I picked up this book by Icelandic author Sjon. And discovered, oops!, it isn’t actually set in Iceland but on a Scandinavian cargo boat, and the plot revolves around Greek mythology. Oh well, it was different from most English language fiction and interesting, though not amazing. It is basically a “story within a story within a story” tale. A cranky, eccentric Icelander is traveling on a 1940s-era cargo ship; each night, the crew listens to tales of the second mate, Caeneus, who tells of his time on the Argo with Jason. Sometimes, characters in Caeneus’ story tell Norwegian folk tales. There is a bit of humor in the narrator, who is eccentric and often misses the point of those around him and the tales. And I guess the point of the story has something to do with the universality of myths? But it all felt very slight to me and I was expecting a bigger pay off at the end. So, not terribly but not great.