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A review by chalicotherex
The Shapeshifters by Stefan Spjut
1.0
I have only myself to blame because I picked this up after being intrigued by Karl Ove Knausgaard's review:
I agree with his assessment, by the way, and this 'language of everyday reality we know so well' is engrossing and it makes you feel like the magical elements are or could be real.
It's harder to pinpoint what I didn't like about this book – and I really didn't like it overall.
It turns out trolls are real and so are shapeshifters, elves who can turn into little woodland creatures (squirrels, mice, lemmings, a gerbil, a fox) where they can communicate telepathically and also hypnotize you. It's actually impressive how the author makes you feel a handheld lemming is a dangerous weapon and not at all ridiculous. That's not the problem with the book at all.
It might be that the book takes so much time coming towards the inevitable conflict and what little there is reads like a bad procedural crossed with a bad Y.A. novel.
A fantastic novel in every sense of the word…not only because Spjut has accomplished the masterstroke of writing convincingly about the existence of trolls and other mythical creatures in the Nordic forests, but also because all this unfolds in a language that captures the everyday reality we know so well, with such precision and exquisite style that the words seem to sparkle on the page.
I agree with his assessment, by the way, and this 'language of everyday reality we know so well' is engrossing and it makes you feel like the magical elements are or could be real.
It's harder to pinpoint what I didn't like about this book – and I really didn't like it overall.
It turns out trolls are real and so are shapeshifters, elves who can turn into little woodland creatures (squirrels, mice, lemmings, a gerbil, a fox) where they can communicate telepathically and also hypnotize you. It's actually impressive how the author makes you feel a handheld lemming is a dangerous weapon and not at all ridiculous. That's not the problem with the book at all.
It might be that the book takes so much time coming towards the inevitable conflict and what little there is reads like a bad procedural crossed with a bad Y.A. novel.