Customer Reviews

Angels of the Universe

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Einar Mar Gudmundsson's short but rich novel is dark, but it is not without humor -- and that's a good thing, since it's an 'inside' look at a young man slowly losing his grip on reality. He experiences paranoia and hallucinations, experiments with drugs, and is suffering from severe depression. He has his lighter moments -- in fact, he's an intelligent and lucid person much of the time -- but the weight of his madness slowly drags him further and further down.

The humor in the book comes in the form of some of his friends -- fellow-inmates at the Klepp Psychiatric Institute in Rekjavik. His portraits of some of the doctors, orderlies -- and police -- that he encounters will bring a smile to the reader as well.

The author is obviously pretty sensitive to the plight and conditions in which people suffering from mental illness live -- his characters, while embodying much humor, never come across as charicatures, but as real human beings. I've read that this novel has been (or is being) made into a film in Iceland -- like another reviewer below, I strongly hope that it makes it to the States. I'd love to see a well-made screen version -- I hope that the author has a great deal of control over it, to keep it true to the spirit of this enlightening and compelling novel.

I had to read this as a library book in Kansas because I have not been able to find it in English anywhere--not even an Icelandic version when I visited Iceland.
The story is schizophrenic in itself yet gives you a wonderful (i.e., thorough, emotional) impression of life in Iceland. The main character struggles through his increasing madness, as the other reviews explain in detail. It's just a great read.
I understand the Iceland film commission is making it into a movie, but I wonder if it will make it to Kansas. It should be in paperback and on bookshelves in all Barnes & Nobles, Borders, etc. and at Amazon!

In its own surreal, non-linear way this book tackles larger questions than cannot be answered: what is reality? Who determines what it is? More telling, who determines when you have stumbled outside the boundaries of reality and accepted norms?

Angels of the Universe tells a heartbreaking (to echo another reviewer's sentiments) story of Paul, an Icelandic man who slowly loses his footing in reality while giving the reader a glimpse into Icelandic life.

The tale is tragic, following Paul's slow descent further and further into himself. Nevertheless the book also illustrates the fact that madness, or perceived madness, or depression, or any kind of emotional or mental illness can befall anyone. Paul's friend Rognvald, who appears to be content, living a "normal" life, kills himself. Rognvald always visits Paul in Klepp Psychiatric Hospital and when Paul tells Rognvald that he wishes Rognvald had become a psychiatrist instead of the dentist he was, Rognvald replies, "Don't you reckon it's not enough trouble keeping yourself on the right side of the line?" Paul says that he cannot imagine anything more normal than being a wealthy dentist, adding that there isn't room for healthy sorts of folks like dentists at the madhouse. Rognvald replies, "But just bear in mind that the madhouse is in a lot of places."

What point could be made that is more true? Many places and stations in life are places that might just as well be asylums, and the book points out that there is illness and pain everywhere which is ultimately what made the book realistic and painful to read.

Although the book is out of print, it is available in Iceland in Icelandic and English. A film has also been made.

I won't go into the basics of this book since most of the other reviews have done that. What I'd like to add is how well the author balances and tangles the tragic and the humor together, which is rare to see done so well in modern literature. Also how the writing style seems minimalistic in many ways but then there come highly poetic parts out of nowhere, which makes the poetic parts so much better than when authors are trying to make every sentence into something poetical and it just gets boring. I also would like to add, for those of you who are interested, that you can (or atleast could) get a copy of the film from www.skifan.is, it's an Icelandic store. The film is great and Paul is portrayed brilliantly by the main actor. I just have a hard time wondering why the book/film didn't get more attention.

Iceland has one of the highest rates of literacy in the world and it shows. This book is one of the great results of that... it's one of the best books I've read on psychological breakdown and manages to avoid many of the cliches in that field. While it does sail close to the pretentious at points, it avoids going over that edge, and raises some serious social points.

There's some great social commentary in this book... about Dagny the rebellious bourgeois girlfriend of the "hero", NATO, the way we can treat the mentally ill much like criminals, society-as-a-whole's own insanity... and as one reviewer has already quoted that key line "The madhouse is in a lot of places"*. Our society is completely hypocritical about madness.

This book doesn't feel like a translation to read.

The film is excellent too, but since it isn't in English, will be overlooked sadly. :(

* I wonder in fact if Arthur Koestler's (non-fiction) "The Ghost in the Machine" has influenced this book. Certainly some key ideas seem to be common to both of them.

I read this book with an open mind. That's the only way you can read it, becuse it deals with a touchy subject. Gudmundsson tells the tale of a man that suffers from schizophrenia. He tells of the youth and teenage years of this man, all the while, the disease is building. And later it destroys this man's life. How does the man's family react and how does he live through this pain and trouble ?? This is a book about one of the hidden diseases in the world.

A must to have, plus,, the movie is out it's a pure combo!

Like the author, I too have a schizophrenic sibling, and have spent time in psychiatric hospitals myself. However, I did not want to read this book. I get very tired of reading things about mental health problems and have reached a point of almost deciding in advance that their portrayal will not live up to my experiences of them. A friend sent me this work and it shattered all of my prejudices about illness as literature. I would never have believed that anyone could evoke the utter sadness of the most mundane aspects of schizophrenia so well. I recently went to Iceland and on the road from Keflavik all I could think about was the breaking of the radio and just how monumental and devastating I found it, such a supposedly little thing. I have truly never come across a work like this.
I am amazed that anyone in a situation such as Gudmundssons's could have found the distance and composure needed to express such pain so beautifully. It is a brilliant achievement. (And normally I'm really harsh - I thought The Bell Jar was useless!)

Einar Gudmundsson is one of Iceland finest "younger" writers today. The story of his brother's psychiatric problems is an extraordinary story, told in a simple, matter-of-fact way that is moving beyond words. This book is a must read for everyone who claims to be tolerably well read. I must confess though that I may be rather partial, being the father of a young girl with the same diagnosis as Einar Mar Gudmundsson's brother. In that situation all I can say is, read this book, learn and enjoy

This book is excellent! It is a gripping tale of a man who is ravaged by a mental disease. Einar's accounts of the mental patients are hilarious and yet sad. I have read it twice and it is regrettable that it is not more popular. A must read for everyone.