The Whispering Muse - Couverture rigide

Sjon

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0374289077 ISBN 13 : 9780374289072

Editeur : FARRAR STRAUSS & GIROUX, 2013

Synopsis

Already celebrated far beyond his native Iceland, the novels of Sjón arrive on waves of praise from writers, critics, and readers worldwide. Sjón has won countless international awards and earned ringing comparisons to Borges, Calvino, and Iceland's other literary superstar, the Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness. The Whispering Muse is his masterpiece so far.
The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has had the extraordinary good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea. Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travelers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on its quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.
What unfolds is a slender but masterful, brilliant, and always entertaining novel that ranges deftly from the comic to the mythic as it weaves together tales of antiquity with the modern world in a voice so singular as to seem possessed.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

"The Whispering Mus is a quirky, melodic, ticklish, seamlessly-translated, lovingly-polished gem of a novel. Sjon's work deserves space on any self-respecting bookshelf of European fiction." --David Mitchell

"An extraordinary, powerful fable, travel-log, adventure story and metaphysical mystery. A marvel." --Alberto Manguel

"A wonderful tale - The Whispering Muse ties together tales from myth and antiquity with the modern age. Sjon writes like a man under a spell, filled with enchantment and magic and great wit. He is a rogue of the first order." --Keith Donohue

"This writer inspires a devoted following. Although his prose here is economical (and perfectly served by Victoria Cribb's translation), the effect of The Whispering Muse is prismatic: the reader feels that just beneath the surface there are strange and luminous things moving, leaving a series of small hidden detonations." --Barry Forshaw, The Independent

"Sly, dry and elegant, with a diamond brilliance, Sjón s The Whispering Muse is a wonderful story about stories, evoking comparisons to Borges, Nabokov and Calvino while remaining a complete original. What s more, it s a bundle of fun." --Chris Wilson

"It s a wonderful book. There are very few writers, and Sjón is one, who make everything from a phrase to a sentence all the way to the roof of a structure resonate like this from page one and long after the book is closed." --Ali Smith, Scotland on Sunday

"Long-term fans of Sjón, the Icelandic bard whose projects have included lyrics for Björk, volumes of surrealist poetry and several prizewinning novels, will recognise this trademark interweaving of myth and postmodern playfulness...For those interested in retellings of Greek mythology, such episodes as this one, the rape of Caenis and the grubby denouement of the argonauts' enchanted sojourn on the all-female isle of Lemnos will make The Whispering Muse essential reading." --Michel Faber, Guardian

"Once again, Sjón has chosen an unusual subject, interwoven the fantastical with the ordinary, and produced a complex and strangely compelling work of fiction." --Lucy Popescu, Huffington Post

"The Whispering Muse, a marine fable of rare beauty and originality, is sure to inspire the urge to return to Sjón s writing for the verve, humor, and verbal artistry one is sure to find in it." --The Quarterly Conversation

"When a poet such as Sjón (Sigurjón Birgir Sigurdsson) writes a novel, the reader may expect the elliptical in both senses of the word economy and ambiguousness. Seamlessly translated by Victoria Cribb, the book suggests there are those who scrawl along, ultimately becoming connoisseurs of their own drab blatherskite, and those who are provided with the gift of a compelling tongue. Here, no story stands alone. The legend of Jason and Hypsipyle leads to Sigurd and Gundrun, which leads to the Argo and the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen; stories are doubled, as though perceived through a Viking sunstone." --World Literature Today

"Sublime ... a work of coy humour and shape-shifting magic." --Wall Street Journal

"The Whispering Muse defies easy summary. Instead, it is one of those immersive, experiential works of art: exhilarating, then bewildering when one looks up from the page and tries to refocus on so-called real life. Through Sjón s skewed lens, a mythical yet modern world emerges." --Globe and Mail

"Sublime ... a work of coy humour and shape-shifting magic." --Wall Street Journal

"The Whispering Muse defies easy summary. Instead, it is one of those immersive, experiential works of art: exhilarating, then bewildering when one looks up from the page and tries to refocus on so-called real life. Through Sjón s skewed lens, a mythical yet modern world emerges." --Globe and Mail

Biographie de l'auteur

Author: Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjon is a celebrated Icelandic poet and novelist whose works include From the Mouth of the Whale and The Blue Fox (both by Telegram). He has won the Nordic Council Literary Prize, the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize, and 'Best Icelandic Novel' in 2005 for The Whispering Muse. His novels have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sjon is the president of the Icelandic PEN Centre and the director of the board of Reykjavik UNESCO city of Literature. Also a songwriter, Sjon has written lyrics for Bjork, including for her most recent musical project, Biophilia.

Translator: Victoria Cribb lived in Iceland for many years. She now lives in England, where she is completing a PhD in Old Icelandic Literature at the University of Cambridge. Her translations include three novels in collaboration with Olaf Olafsson, as well as numerous other pieces of fiction and non-fiction.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: FARRAR STRAUSS & GIROUX
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0374289077
• ISBN 13: 9780374289072
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 160
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible