A joyful, cheeky and big-hearted book set in the year 825 AD that is immediately relevant to now. Highly recommend this unconventional novel about the lives of Vikings and Irish settlers on a remote Scottish island.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Scottish Literature
Publisher: Europa Editiions
Review in one word: Exuberant
It might sound weird to pitch the Book of I as being exuberant when its set in the Middle Ages about a Viking ship invading a island, but hear me out. This debut novel by acclaimed Scottish playwright David Greig is anything but gloomy and sad.
The novel starts off with a wave of graphic violence as one would expect for a Viking invasion of a sleepy monastery on the remote Scottish isle of Iona in the year 825 AD.
Following this massacre, the novel’s three main characters are brought bound together by circumstance and the raw necessity of survival on the island.
The narrative centers on this unlikely trio: Brother Martin, a young and timid monk who is the sole survivor from the local monastery after hiding during the massacre; Una, a resilient beekeeper and mead-maker who finds a grim sort of freedom after her abusive husband is killed in the raid; and Grimur, an aging Norse raider left for dead and buried by his own companions .
These three characters navigate the slow movement of the days in the murmuring of cows and sheep, rustling winds and buzzing of bees. A glorious quiet peacefulness descends into which the main part of the novel is set. The result is a honey-sweet and enjoyable banquet of life filled with small joys.
This is a book about intimacy, lust, connection, slowly burgeoning relationships, spiritual beliefs of both the pagan and Christian kind and what happens when people opt for peace, quiet and laughter instead of war. It’s a strange and amusing book filled with exuberant moments of pure joy.
The dialogue is sharp, witty, and exquisitely rendered, breathing life into the distant past and making the characters’ ninth-century struggles feel very contemporary.
Although this is a short novel I found myself savouring every page and (unlike most of the time with other books) I really wished that this novel was much longer…it was that good!
Content Catnip 