Recent Reading: Moonstone

I decided to find a book by an Icelandic author and saw Sjon’s Moonstone: The boy who never was recommended. This book is a short experimental novel set, mostly, in 1918 Reykjavik when the Spanish flu pandemic has come to the island. Much of the book focuses on the main character’s work as a hustler or gay prostitute — although neither the word hustler nor the word prostitution ever appear, at least in my English translation. Be aware that there are many graphic descriptions of male-male sex. A good part of the novel concerns the importance of movies — there were only silent movies then. In particular, the serial film Les Vampires (ten episodes, roughly seven hours in length), a crime thriller that is now seen as one of the progenitors of both crime thrillers and experimental movies. I have seen the series as well as the 1996 film remake and the 2022 miniseries so those sections of the book stood out for me. Be aware that the most experimental aspect of the book is the ending and you may wonder just what to make of the story when you finish. I recommend this book if you have a certain tolerance for both explicit descriptions of sexual activities and experimental writing.

Have you read any Icelandic writers?

Do you have a favorite experimental novel? (For me, Nabokov’s Ada or Pale Fire were quite memorable.)