Woman in a tight spot

Audur Jónsdóttir portrays a woman of conscience struggling to break free

Nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Award

Audur Jónsdóttir
Fólkid i Kjallaranum ("The Cellar People")
Mál og Menning IS

By Erik Skyum-Nielsen

Some of the attention which has been paid to Audur Jónsdóttir (born in 1973) may well be due to the fact that she is the grandchild of no less a celebrity than Iceland's Nobel Prize winner, Halldór Laxness (1902-98). Besides two children's books, she herself has written two adult novels, and has been acclaimed in both genres. But it was with Fólkid i Kjallaranum ("The Cellar People") that she made her literary breakthrough in 2004.

The events, in this mercilessly self-critical novel about the generation gap, take place during the course of one evening and one night. Klara, 31, makes her living as a graphic artist out of books, periodicals, newspapers, CD-covers, book-covers, lunch-boxes and websites - by using her art to beautify and distort reality, in other words. In the course of a very few hours she reviews her chaotic life, and, finally, we suspect, may end up changing her situation radically.

When the novel begins, Svenni, her husband, has invited some friends to dinner. They are going to have pâté de foie gras, bacalao, and an incredibly delicious lemon mousse, and oodles of wines and spirits are to be consumed. But Klara is strangely reserved. Her thoughts go back to her childhood and youth, to her spineless, hippie parents, who wanted to save the whole world, and spent most of their time sleeping around - but also to her best friend, Fjóla, who was like a sister to the main character, until they grew out of each other.

Why? - Perhaps because Klara allowed herself to be blinded by the superficial, to be caught up in an alien life-style. She embraced the post-modern freedom of the individual, but forgot who she was and where she came from. She became a "winner", with only contempt for "losers".

To whom, of course, the cellar people belong. There is a man down there who lives with his cat. Not so long ago, a fat woman used to live down there, too, but she died. That this woman was actually Klara's childhood friend, Fjóla, is something the reader understands long before Klara dares to admit it to herself.

What else happens? - Well, during the course of the evening, Embla, Klara's deeply alcoholic little sister, turns up and asks her to look after her son, Nonni. And later the reader even gets to meet the two sisters' drunken parents. Tension builds up to a tragic climax, where Embla has a car accident and Klara ends up - almost too symbolically - down in the cellar. Which is where, perhaps,   her new life can begin - in the first instance by her taking care of Nonni during her sister's convalescence.

What Audur Jónsdóttir describes is the inner anguish and ambivalence of a modern woman who is a typical product of her generation. But the aesthetic achievement of the novel is the way in which poor Klara is analysed through the language which she herself produces. With its over-stimulated humour, and occasional satirical bull's-eyes directed against contemporary society, the author lends credible expression to the main character's scepticism, and it seems perfectly convincing that, at one and the same time, Klara is part of the problem and part of its solution.

Erik Skyum-Nielsen is lecturer at Copenhagen University and an active literary critic

Translated by Philip Edmonds