Algleymi / Oblivion

It is safe to say that Hermann Stefánsson is one of the more interesting authors to make his appearance in Icelandic writing in recent years. He has published three novels, a volume of verse - Borg í þoku/City in a Mist (2006), and Sjónhverfingar/Illusions (2003), a cultural study in which he takes an original approach to subject of Icelandic reality from the viewpoint of European philosophy. In literary criticism Hermann has often been classified as a post-modernist, an innovative voice is heard in his works, which has otherwise been rare in Icelandic fiction;.

Algleymi/Oblivion (2008) is Hermann’;;s third novel; all three are about the couple Guðjón Ólafsson and Helena. The novel begins with writer Guðjón Ólafsson waking up in a hospital bed: he has lost his memory, and hence his control of his life. He does not know how he ended up in hospital: an accident, even a violent attack? Gradually he regains command of language, and sets out to reassemble the fragments. During his rehabilitation treatment, Guðjón must relearn his life; his father does what he can to help, while Helena gives up and goes out into the country to translate a crime novel. As a consequence of his amnesia Guðjón loses control of himself, his sense of time and place, and embarks on a chaotic journey through human history. The controversial CERN laboratory’;;s experiments, aiming to recreate the Big Bang, crop up in the story, when a Swiss boffin tries to enlist Guðjón’;;s time-roaming capabilities in the service of science.

Hermann’;;s first novel Níu þjófalyklar/Nine Skeleton Keys (2004) was an experimental short-story collection/novel which explored the boundary between fact and fiction. The book attracted considerable attention when it was first published, mainly because it “borrows” from other well-known Icelandic writers. Phrases from a story by the colourful Davíð Oddsson, former prime minister and director of the Central Bank, now a newspaper editor, turn up in the book, and novelist Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson appears in all the stories as a character; the title is a reference to his short-story collection Níu lyklar/Nine Keys, published in 1986. In his next novel Stefnuljós/Blinking Light (2005) Hermann revisits the protagonists of Nine Skeleton Keys, writer Guðjón Ólafsson and his girlfriend Helena. Like its predecessor, Turn Light broke new ground in Icelandic fiction; once again the author applies a self-referential narrative approach in a conscious manner; these works are “metafictions,” in which the reader is constantly reminded that he/she is reading a work of fiction, and the writer plays with the referential properties of fiction.

In Oblivion Hermann continues upon the same path. Conflicts between fiction and fact play a key role; in this story the conflicts take place mainly within the minds of the protagonists, Guðjón and Helena. Hermann is also addressing human history, and our interpretation of it: what is right and wrong; truth, or lies disseminated by those in power at the time. On the back cover, the book is called a “thriller of ideas,” and this gives a clue to what the reader may expect: innumerable interesting ideas are jumbled together in the narrative – whether quantum theory, or man’;;s understanding of the progress of human history. Notwithstanding Guðjón’;;s pitiable state, and theories of physics which sound to the layman like unadulterated science fiction, the story is told with humour and wit, showcasing Hermann’;;s comic side, as in his previous books. Oblivion is in many ways unique in Icelandic writing – a stage of Hermann’;;s oeuvre which has consciously introduced ideas and approaches hitherto unknown in Icelandic fiction.

Critics were unanimous in their praise of the book: some declared Oblivion to be a pioneering work of Icelandic fiction, and Hermann Stefánsson blazing the trail of metafiction in Iceland. Literary scholar Gunnþórunn Guðmundsdóttir wrote on the Icelandic Literature website bokmenntir.is/literature.is: “As in other thrillers, the reader is keen to find out what happened [...] In the story, this amnesia and sensory disorientation is placed in the context of quantum theory, producing an interesting discourse on time-travel, fiction, imagination, brain-damage and the nooks and crannies of quantum theory.” Hjalti Snær Ægisson identified the avant-garde nature of the work in his review on radio magazine Víðsjá (RÚV): “A challenging novel [...] Oblivion [is], like the author’;;s two previous novels, a truly pioneering work. Hermann Stefánsson is busily introducing a literary genre which has hitherto been unknown in the Icelandic literary system.” And literary scholar/editor/writer Þröstur Helgason remarked simply that “Hermann Stefánsson has written a novel you must read.”