Sjón

An elusive fox leads a hunter on a transformative quest, while a naturalist endeavors to build a life for a young woman with Down syndrome whom he rescued from a shipwreck years earlier.

A Novel

The Blue Fox

Hanscho

The sun warms the man's white body, and the snow, melting with a diffident creaking, passes for birdsong.

Blue foxes are so curiously like stones that it is a matter for wonder. When they lie beside them in winter there is no hope of telling them apart from the rocks themselves; indeed, they're far trickier than white foxes, which always cast a shadow or look yellow against the snow.

There he took off his haversack and removed his gloves, skin-shoes and knitted stockings, laying them to dry on the rock beside him. No, damn it, he took off every stitch and sat there as he was created: in nothing but his skin. He was the child of Earth Sun's-daughter.

Leafling

The Blue Fox is so interesting that I almost don't know how to talk about it. It starts in Iceland in the 1883 where a hunter is trying to pursue the elusive and mystical blue fox. From there, it jumps back to a few days earlier where we meet a naturalist who is struggling with the death of a young girl with Down's Syndrome who he cared for. He rescued her from a shipwreck years ago where she appeared to have been abused. In the end it loops back to the tale of the hunter. It's all linked beautifully, and I really don't want to spoil it for you.

Sjón's writing is concise and beautiful. The landscape and story are bleak. There's a little bit of humor in his writing, and there's also magical realism. This book is basically a fable, and the emotional impact I experienced was real. You'll feel like you're in a dream as you read, because Sjón seems to have some incredible control over time and his writing is so haunting. Once you're done, you'll want to flip through it and read bits again, and it will continue to linger long after you've put it down.

Full review: http://outlandishlit.blogspot.com/201...

Bram Bogaerts

Lindsy Rice

Rifqaiza Pravangesta

Jane Mount

Morgan Thomas

"The Blue Fox is a magical novel."--Bjork The year is 1883, and the stark Icelandic landscape is the backdrop for this spellbinding fable that is part mystery, part fairy tale. The fates of a priest, a naturalist, and a young woman with Down syndrome are intrinsically bound and gradually, surprisingly unraveled. "Sjon's fable...describes its world with brilliant, precise, concrete colour and detail while at the same time making things and people mysterious and ungraspable...The world of 19th-century Iceland is brilliantly and economically present: the bareness of the dwellings, the roughness of the churches and congregations, the meager food...The novel is a parable, comic, and lyrical about the nature of things."--A.S. Byatt for The Times Sjon was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1962. A novelist, playwright, lyricist, and poet, he wrote the lyrics to Bjork's hit songs "Isobel," "Joga," and "Bachelorette" and was nominated for an Academy Award for his lyrics to the music for the film Dancer in the Dark, directed by Lars von Trier.

The Blue Fox A Novel

Reviews

Highlights