I just finished reading the Dutch translation of the The King’s Book by Arnaldur Indridason, a write from Iceland. The book focusses on the manuscript of the Edda. The story is what I like to call a historical adventure, it takes place in the present day/century but focusses on historical ‘facts’ (like The Da Vinci Code).
The King’s Book is written from the perspective of Valdemar, a young student who moves from Iceland to Kopenhagen in 1955 to study old Icelandic languages. He meets his (Icelandic) professor who came highly recommended. However, he turns out to be a drunk. The professor is passionate about Icelandic manuscripts and believes that they should be, and will be, returned to Iceland one day, where they belong.
Slowly it becomes clear to Valdemar that the professor is in trouble and is searching desperately for the most important manuscript of the Icelandic people, the Codex Regius, the Edda. The Edda is the base of Icelandic identity, and the Codex Regius is the oldest version. The search of the professor is strange however, because the Codex was never lost… or was it? And it turns out not only Valdemar and the professor are looking for the Codex, and the other party does not shun violence.
The King’s Book was a book that I greatly enjoyed reading. I find that the story telling style of Scandinavian writers is different than that of American or British writers, and I like it. A lot of background information is given, though since the book was originally written in Icelandic, it does include a lot of Icelandic hero’s. That does enable the reader to learn about Icelandic history. I for one thing did not know that Iceland only became independant from Denmark in 1944. Some background of the struggle for independance and the pride of the Icelandic people is given in the book.
The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that I could see some of the bad things coming from a mile away, and even though they were logical and necessary for the story, I didn’t like to see bad things happen to the professor and Valdemar, or the manuscript.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes history and suspence, it is a good read and Iceland is a nice subject (instead of the millionth book on Da Vinci or Christianity in this genre).
