Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Rochester, NY : Open Letter, 2008.
Description
"Dark, scary, and unbelievably funny."--Los Angeles Times "The best short novel I've read this year. . . .Small, dark, and hard to put down,The Pets may be a classic in the literature of small enclosed spaces."--Barnes & Noble Review Back in Reykjavik after a vacation in London, Emil Halldorsson is waiting for a call from a beautiful girl, Greta, that he met on the plane ride home, and he's just put on a pot of coffee when an unexpected visitor knocks on the door. Peeking through a window, Emil spies an erstwhile friend--Havard Knutsson, his one-time roommate and current resident of a Swedish mental institution--on his doorstep, and he panics, taking refuge under his bed and hoping the frightful nuisance will simply go away. Havard won't be so easily put off, however, and he breaks into Emil's apartment and decides to wait for his return--Emil couldn't have gone far; the pot of coffee is still warming on the stove. While Emil hides under his bed, increasingly unable to show himself with each passing moment, Havard discovers the booze, and he ends up hosting a bizarre party for Emil's friends, and Greta. An alternately dark and hilarious story of cowardice, comeuppance, and assumed identity, the breezy and straightforward style of The Pets belies its narrative depth, and disguises a complexity that grows with every page. Bragi Ólafsson is the author of several books of poetry and short stories, and four novels, includingTime Off, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1999 (as wasThe Pets), andParty Games, for which Bragi received the DV Cultural Prize in 2004.The Ambassador, available from Open Letter, was a finalist for the 2008 Nordic Literature Prize and received the Icelandic Bookseller's Award as best novel of the year. Bragi is one of the founders of the publishing company Smekkleysa (Bad Taste), and has translated Paul Auster'sCity of Glass into Icelandic. He is also a former bass player with The Sugarcubes, the internationally successful pop group that featured Bjürk as the lead vocalist. Janice Balfour studied literature and Italian at the University of Iceland. In addition to Bragi Ólafsson, she has translated two collections of short stories by Gydir Elíasson.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member lasomnambule
A dead guinea pig and rabbit pair, a murdered lizard, a drunken mental patient, an Icelandic linguist who loses his spectacles, and a forty-something lottery winner who can’t commit—these are only a few of the madcap chracters who populate Bragi Olafsson’s novella The Pets. The book is
Perhaps Olafsson’s greatest skill is his ability to evoke the oddball from the mundane. At the beginning of the novel, Emil, the protagonist of sorts, boards an international flight and hopes not “to end up beside a chatterbox or someone who was forever getting up to go to the toilet.” With comic dexterity, Olafsson crafts for Emil the seatmate from hell, or at least, Hades—a pedantic Icelandic linguist with a penchant for Opal lozenges, who ensures that the routine of a homeward journey is anything but. Similarly, the demises of the eponymous “Pets” are just the sort of deaths you could nightmare for your own small friends, but they’re a bit too bizarre to actually warrant your locking up your sacks of cement or hiding your chef’s knives from potentially whacko houseguests. At each turn, in each situation that should be mundane, something just to the left of ordinary occurs, and Olafsson skillfully wrings wry comedy from each slightly abnormal scenario.
The characters, likewise, are just this side of certifiable—at least, those who haven’t already been certified. Minor characters are drawn with scathing and hilarious detail, from Emil’s neighbor pottering in the garden, to the hickey-sporting woman on the plane, to Eyvi, the happy recipient of a better bottle of whiskey than he no doubt deserves. Emil, however, as the main character (if not exactly the protagonist), takes the oddball character cake. He’s divorced, he’s won the lottery, he’s squandered his winnings not on a livable flat or a dream vacation, but on booze, CD’s, and a short trip to dingy London. He’d very much like to trade up from his hotel maid girlfriend, but doesn’t have much of a reason. One senses Emil feels he deserves better, but he’s a prime example of what money won’t buy you: purpose.
Purposelessness is the greater “theme” of this comic short novel, of which the deaths of the “Pets” and the random party of Emil’s acquaintances in his own flat are the centerpieces. In fact, the novel’s only (albeit minor) failing may be its satisfaction with its own absurdity. The reader closes the book unsure whether to try to construct meaning from, for example, a metaphorical relationship between the Pets and the people, or just to laugh at the oddness of the entire conceit. Let’s hope, in the end, that The Pets will stimulate the further translation of Icelandic and other Nordic literatures—Olafsson’s just too funny to remain unknown.
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perhaps precisely what you might expect from a relatively unknown (at least, Stateside) Bjork-rocker Icelander novelist; that is, it’s refreshingly and completely unexpected at every turn. Perhaps Olafsson’s greatest skill is his ability to evoke the oddball from the mundane. At the beginning of the novel, Emil, the protagonist of sorts, boards an international flight and hopes not “to end up beside a chatterbox or someone who was forever getting up to go to the toilet.” With comic dexterity, Olafsson crafts for Emil the seatmate from hell, or at least, Hades—a pedantic Icelandic linguist with a penchant for Opal lozenges, who ensures that the routine of a homeward journey is anything but. Similarly, the demises of the eponymous “Pets” are just the sort of deaths you could nightmare for your own small friends, but they’re a bit too bizarre to actually warrant your locking up your sacks of cement or hiding your chef’s knives from potentially whacko houseguests. At each turn, in each situation that should be mundane, something just to the left of ordinary occurs, and Olafsson skillfully wrings wry comedy from each slightly abnormal scenario.
The characters, likewise, are just this side of certifiable—at least, those who haven’t already been certified. Minor characters are drawn with scathing and hilarious detail, from Emil’s neighbor pottering in the garden, to the hickey-sporting woman on the plane, to Eyvi, the happy recipient of a better bottle of whiskey than he no doubt deserves. Emil, however, as the main character (if not exactly the protagonist), takes the oddball character cake. He’s divorced, he’s won the lottery, he’s squandered his winnings not on a livable flat or a dream vacation, but on booze, CD’s, and a short trip to dingy London. He’d very much like to trade up from his hotel maid girlfriend, but doesn’t have much of a reason. One senses Emil feels he deserves better, but he’s a prime example of what money won’t buy you: purpose.
Purposelessness is the greater “theme” of this comic short novel, of which the deaths of the “Pets” and the random party of Emil’s acquaintances in his own flat are the centerpieces. In fact, the novel’s only (albeit minor) failing may be its satisfaction with its own absurdity. The reader closes the book unsure whether to try to construct meaning from, for example, a metaphorical relationship between the Pets and the people, or just to laugh at the oddness of the entire conceit. Let’s hope, in the end, that The Pets will stimulate the further translation of Icelandic and other Nordic literatures—Olafsson’s just too funny to remain unknown.
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LibraryThing member Marensr
The Pets by Bragi Ólafsson (in a translation by Janice Balfour) is a surprising, funny and ultimately deeply disconcerting little book. It is not surprising that the former bassist of The Sugarcubes would make his main character a music lover and reference bits of music and bands though out his
Emil Haldorsson is returning from London after having won the lottery and gone on a musical shopping spree. On the plane he meets Greta, a woman he has admired from afar for years, and in spite of having a girlfriend invites her over. In alternate chapters his former acquaintance and former mental patient, Harvard Knutsson, is steadily approaching Emil’s home.
Ólafsson skillfully uses the alternating narrative to create a growing sense of anxiety, and to slowly unfold the story of Emil and Harvard’s disastrous pet sitting in London some years earlier. Ólafsson manages to create dread in even ordinary gestures so that by the time Emil has hid under his apartment bed to avoid seeing Harvard and then must overhear a bizarre sort of party as Emil invites over friends and strangers to his apartment, the angst is palpable and hints at larger fears about identity and sanity.
I suspect that because I am not familiar with Icelandic, I may have failed to appreciate the little linguistic subtleties hiding in the deceptively simple writing-style. The pets are named for Moby Dick and Moby Dick is the book Harvard stole. Emil has bought a book on the whaling ship Essex and considers how his own name is an anagram of Ishmael.
I suspect the lack of transparency and enigmatic ending may frustrate some readers but those who are comfortable with ambiguity and a dose of self-deprecating humor will find The Pets an engaging read. It is appropriate that Ólafsson translated Paul Auster into Icelandic. I suspect fans of Auster will find much to enjoy in Ólafsson.
Open Letter Books is a branch of the University of Rochester Press devoted to new translations and I look forward to seeing what other titles they will produce.
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novel what is surprising is that he would also create such a darkly comic and anxiety-driven story.Emil Haldorsson is returning from London after having won the lottery and gone on a musical shopping spree. On the plane he meets Greta, a woman he has admired from afar for years, and in spite of having a girlfriend invites her over. In alternate chapters his former acquaintance and former mental patient, Harvard Knutsson, is steadily approaching Emil’s home.
Ólafsson skillfully uses the alternating narrative to create a growing sense of anxiety, and to slowly unfold the story of Emil and Harvard’s disastrous pet sitting in London some years earlier. Ólafsson manages to create dread in even ordinary gestures so that by the time Emil has hid under his apartment bed to avoid seeing Harvard and then must overhear a bizarre sort of party as Emil invites over friends and strangers to his apartment, the angst is palpable and hints at larger fears about identity and sanity.
I suspect that because I am not familiar with Icelandic, I may have failed to appreciate the little linguistic subtleties hiding in the deceptively simple writing-style. The pets are named for Moby Dick and Moby Dick is the book Harvard stole. Emil has bought a book on the whaling ship Essex and considers how his own name is an anagram of Ishmael.
I suspect the lack of transparency and enigmatic ending may frustrate some readers but those who are comfortable with ambiguity and a dose of self-deprecating humor will find The Pets an engaging read. It is appropriate that Ólafsson translated Paul Auster into Icelandic. I suspect fans of Auster will find much to enjoy in Ólafsson.
Open Letter Books is a branch of the University of Rochester Press devoted to new translations and I look forward to seeing what other titles they will produce.
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LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
A very unusual book that managed to keep me captivated long enough to get past the challenging, drawn-out introduction to the characters. In Part One there is a chapter narrated in turn by Emil and also Havard. Emil has won the lottery and has embarked on a trip from his Icelandic home, to London.
During his trip away, his elderly neighbour Tomas has informed Emil that a man has been knocking several times for him. From the description, Emil knows it is Havard. Low and behold, on his return, Havard knocks once more. Emil sees him, decides not to answer the door, instead hiding under the bed. Unfortunately, Havard decides to climb in through the open window and here’s where the entertainment commences. From here on in, this novel would make a great stage play, offering dramatic irony that would keep the audience hooked. From here, the plot develops into a farcical story that seems an impossible situation for Emil to get himself out of. As more friends arrive at Emil’s to welcome him home from England, Havard turns into the host of quite a bizarre party.
Whilst the novel is very readable and I thoroughly enjoyed it, there are two criticisms. The beginning is too drawn out and the ending is extremely abrupt. The reader definitely needs more; in fact it needs a conclusion. Having said this, the book is so well written that it still deserves a 4/5 even with these comments.
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Meanwhile, a one-time roommate who is also somehow left a Swedish mental institution lands is looking for him. During Part One the reader is privy to information about how they met, the story of the pets from the novel’s title and why Emil no longer wants to know Havard – this continues in Part Two. We also get to meet some of the other characters such as Greta and Armann who are on Emil’s return flight and play a part further into the novel.During his trip away, his elderly neighbour Tomas has informed Emil that a man has been knocking several times for him. From the description, Emil knows it is Havard. Low and behold, on his return, Havard knocks once more. Emil sees him, decides not to answer the door, instead hiding under the bed. Unfortunately, Havard decides to climb in through the open window and here’s where the entertainment commences. From here on in, this novel would make a great stage play, offering dramatic irony that would keep the audience hooked. From here, the plot develops into a farcical story that seems an impossible situation for Emil to get himself out of. As more friends arrive at Emil’s to welcome him home from England, Havard turns into the host of quite a bizarre party.
Whilst the novel is very readable and I thoroughly enjoyed it, there are two criticisms. The beginning is too drawn out and the ending is extremely abrupt. The reader definitely needs more; in fact it needs a conclusion. Having said this, the book is so well written that it still deserves a 4/5 even with these comments.
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LibraryThing member 60GoingOn16
As my reading of Icelandic literature has been confined to the classic sagas, I was curious to find out more about the work of contemporary Icelandic writers. As The Pets had picked up plaudits in Iceland and elsewhere in Scandinavia, this seemed like a good place to start.
It's a curious little
If you like your novels short and awash with references to excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption and what people do in a bathroom when they don't think anyone is watching, you'll probably enjoy it.
Quite possibly, like Bjork and the Sugarcubes - Bragi Olaffson played bass with the band - The Pets is an acquired taste. I did think of reading it through again to see if I'd missed something but just couldn't summon up the enthusiasm.
It's a curious little
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novel, with a small cast of characters, none of whom is particularly engaging - they're a pretty dreary, sad bunch. Other reviewers have provided a synopsis of the plot so I won't repeat it here. The style is fairly pedestrian of the 'this happened, then that happened; he went down this street and then down that street' variety. Very flat in style and tone.If you like your novels short and awash with references to excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption and what people do in a bathroom when they don't think anyone is watching, you'll probably enjoy it.
Quite possibly, like Bjork and the Sugarcubes - Bragi Olaffson played bass with the band - The Pets is an acquired taste. I did think of reading it through again to see if I'd missed something but just couldn't summon up the enthusiasm.
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LibraryThing member ellengryphon
Off-beat character study of two rather eccentric middle-aged Icelanders, one an arrested adolescent who just won the lottery, the other a mental patient. Very original concepts, and mostly fun to read (though the beginning drooped a bit). This was a LibraryThing early review copy; I'm grateful for
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the glimpse into Nordic urban life provided by a member of the (now defunct) great Icelandic post-punk rock band, The Sugarcubes. Show Less
LibraryThing member cerievans1
Emil has won a million kronor. He has been on a shopping spree in London to buy books and music. On the plane home he meets a woman he finds attractive, Greta and takes her phone number. Emil accidentally takes the glasses of the person sitting next to him on the plane. Emil gets home, he puts on
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some music and boils some water for coffee. At that moment, there is an increasingly loud bang on the door, Emil peers out of the window, it is a long lost accquaintance called Havard who Emil does not want to see. He therefore hides under his bed. Havard breaks in... then proceeds to drink a lot of whisky and wine and have a party with all of Emil's friends. Bizarre and a little pointless. However, quite nicely written. I think the writer is making a point but i'm not sure what it is. Perhaps, don't be a coward and hide under the bed..? Three stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member lucienspringer
A deadpan tale of a man avoiding emotional connection. The narrator goes to increasingly absurd lengths to escape from an annoying former friend, eventually hiding under his bed while his friends and family occupy his home. The novel is strongly reminiscent of the work of Donald Antrim in the way
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the increasingly ridiculous situation develops without a loss of psychological credibility. Show Less
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
An odd Icelandic story about a man hiding under a bed in his own apartment throughtout an evening in which his friends have a party without him. It is a quick read....mildly engaging with a disappointing ending. The characters are interesting and the plot is clever, yet pverall the story falls
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short somehow. Oh well...... Show Less
LibraryThing member seeword
Very funny tale about a man sort of trapped under his own bed whilst an odd group of friends, acquaintances and strangers have a sort of party in his flat. My copy.
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