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Bkasafn mmu Huldar
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Wikipedia article
'Bkasafn mmu Huldar' (literally 'Granny Huld's Library', but in the author's preferred English translation 'Grandmother's Library') is the third novel by the Icelandic author rarinn Leifsson. It won the Reykjavik Children's Book Prize in 2010http://eldri.reykjavik.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3801/2281_read-20964/6316_view-5015/2281_page-54/; Deena Hinshaw et al., 'Postcards', 'Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature', 51.4 (October 2013), DOI: 10.1353/bkb.2014.0005. and was nominated for the Nordic Children's Book Prize in 2011 an award given out every two years by librarians in the Nordic countries. The book was, in the assessment of Natalie M. Van Deusen, 'inspired by the recent Icelandic financial crisis'.Deena Hinshaw et al., 'Postcards', 'Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature', 51.4 (October 2013), DOI: 10.1353/bkb.2014.0005.
Plot
The novel is set in Reykjavk,cf. Tine Maria Winther, 'Islnding portrtterer dansk kannibal Hvad gr man, nr far der ens kammerater? Md islandske Thrarinn Leifsson', 'Politiken kultur', 12 December 2009, http://politiken.dk/kultur/boger/interview_boger/article858449.ece. in a dystopian future in which the world is largely controlled by a bank called Gullbanki ('Gold Bank'). Gullbanki was once a small bank but, by speculating on uncaught fish and on land, grew, and bought up first other banks and ultimately everything in the world. Schooling is merely instrumental, the Internet has been prohibited, people are discouraged from reading, and books are largely unavailable. The protagonist's elder brother Sli is brought into debt slavery during his teens through mobile phone bills, while parents find themselves effectively offering themselves as collateral for property purchases, and are taken away to work for Gullbanki when they default on their debts (as they inevitably do).
The novel's protagonist is Albertna Haraldsdttir, an eleven-year-old girl whose family has, at the start of the story, recently moved into a new block of flats, Gullbri ('Gilded Cage'), built as part of a housing boom and characterised by impersonality, and screens in every room which cannot be switched off and which continually broadcast adverts. Gullbanki's representative at Gullbri is the self-important but ultimately hapless Hvar M. Grmsson, who is shown to be able to use his wealth to control the mayor of Reykjavk. It emerges that Albertna's family, having defaulted on the loans for their pleasant house, has been sent to live in the flat by Gullbanki to advertise the new block; Albertna has to spend several hours a day standing in the window dressed in a frock as a living advertisement. Albertna's brother has already been taken away by Gullbanki and both Albertna's parents and those of her friends are also seized in the earlier part of the book.
Gullbanki's power is subverted by a number of forces. One of Albertna's schoolfriends, Valgarur (Valli) veira, has perceived and explains Gullbanki's business practices. Meanwhile, Albertna teaches herself to read by inspecting instructions on bathroom products. Crucially, the witch Arnheiur Huld, Albertna's cigar-smoking great-great-grandmother on her father's side and the Granny Huld of the book's title, escapes from her old people's home at the age of 158 to join Albertna and her family in Gullbri. With the help of a number of dwarvish minions whom she has used her magical powers to enslave, Huld moves in her million-book library, giving Albertna and her friends access to knowledge which they work voraciously to acquire. One of the more dramatic effects of this reading is that Albertna acquires the power to breathe fire like a dragon. Valli veira plans to become a suicide bomber in a futile attempt to resist Gullbanki's power but is eventually discouraged by Huld and Albertna, who instead lead a more effective assault on Gullbanki.
Huld uses her magic to fly Gullbri to the space-station where Gullbanki is based, taking the opportunity to curse Hvar into becoming another of her dwarfish minions, exposing his own powerlessness in the face of Gullbanki, along with his loneliness and need for friendship. It transpires that the parents and relatives of Albertna and her friends are working in the space-station, but so engrossed are they by their pointless labours for Gullbanki, and the spurious internal competitions that characterise the business, that they are unable to spare their children any time; indeed it is later only by adopting the hollow marketing methods of Gullbanki itself that the children are able to convince them to flee the doomed space station. Eventually, Albertna is at least able to free her brother Sli from Gullbanki's ideological grip and with him she, Huld and her friends find and face Gullbanki's director Bvar gamli. Bvar turns out to be an ex-boyfriend of Huld's and to have played bass in a band in which Huld herself played drums, and to have been driven to his megalomaniacal spree of financial acquisitions by bitterness at Huld's rejection of him. Eventually, Bvar and Huld kill each other, and the children are able to engineer the evacuation of Gullbanki's space station, reuniting with their parents in Reykjavk and ushering in a new age of enlightened living.
Illustrations
The book is extensively illustrated with pictures by the author.
Publication details of the original and translations
* rarinn Leifsson, 'Bkasafn mmu Huldar' (Reykjavk: Ml og menning, 2009), ; 9979330848 (Icelandic)
* Thrarinn Leifsson, 'Bedstemor Huldas bibliotek', trans. by Birgir Thor Mller (Hedehusene: Torgard, 2010), ; 8792286224 (Danish)
* rarinn Leifsson, 'Bestemor Hulds bibliotek', trans. by Tone Myklebost ([Stamsund]: Orkana, 2012) (Norwegian)
* Thorarinn Leifsson, 'Vanaema Huldi raamatukogu' (NyNorden, 2013), (Estonian)
* Thrarinn Leifsson, 'La folle biblioteca di nonna Huld', trans. by Silvia Cosimini (Milano: Salani, 2015),
References
Category:2009 novels
Category:2009 children's books
Category:Icelandic novels
Category:Icelandic children's literature
Category:Icelandic-language novels
Category:Children's science fiction novels
Category:Dystopian novels
Category:Novels set in Iceland
Category:Novels set in the future
Category:Icelandic speculative fiction
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