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Leo Löwe Trilogy #1-3
CoDex 1962: A Trilogy
Spanning eras, continents, and genres, CoDex 1962—twenty years in the making—is ó's epic three-part masterpiece
Over the course of four dazzling novels translated into dozens of languages, ó has earned a global reputation as one of the world's most interesting writers. But what the world has never been able to read is his great trilogy of novels, known collectively as CoDex 1962—now finally complete.
Josef Löwe, the narrator, was born in 1962—the same year, the same moment even, as ó. Josef's story, however, stretches back decades in the form of Leo Löwe—a Jewish fugitive during World War II who has an affair with a maid in a German inn; together, they form a baby from a piece of clay. If the first volume is a love story, the second is a crime story: Löwe arrives in Iceland with the clay-baby inside a hatbox, only to be embroiled in a murder mystery—but by the end of the volume, his clay son has come to life. And in the final volume, set in present-day Reykjavík, Josef's story becomes science fiction as he crosses paths with the outlandish CEO of a biotech company (based closely on reality) who brings the story of genetics and genesis full circle. But the future, according to ó, is not so dark as it seems.
In CoDex 1962, ó has woven ancient and modern material and folklore and cosmic myths into a singular masterpiece—encompassing genre fiction, theology, expressionist film, comic strips, fortean studies, genetics, and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.
Over the course of four dazzling novels translated into dozens of languages, ó has earned a global reputation as one of the world's most interesting writers. But what the world has never been able to read is his great trilogy of novels, known collectively as CoDex 1962—now finally complete.
Josef Löwe, the narrator, was born in 1962—the same year, the same moment even, as ó. Josef's story, however, stretches back decades in the form of Leo Löwe—a Jewish fugitive during World War II who has an affair with a maid in a German inn; together, they form a baby from a piece of clay. If the first volume is a love story, the second is a crime story: Löwe arrives in Iceland with the clay-baby inside a hatbox, only to be embroiled in a murder mystery—but by the end of the volume, his clay son has come to life. And in the final volume, set in present-day Reykjavík, Josef's story becomes science fiction as he crosses paths with the outlandish CEO of a biotech company (based closely on reality) who brings the story of genetics and genesis full circle. But the future, according to ó, is not so dark as it seems.
In CoDex 1962, ó has woven ancient and modern material and folklore and cosmic myths into a singular masterpiece—encompassing genre fiction, theology, expressionist film, comic strips, fortean studies, genetics, and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
168 people are currently reading
3,389 people want to read
About the author
ó
58books621followersó (Sigurjón B. Sigurðsson) was born in Reykjavik on the 27th of August, 1962. He started his writing career early, publishing his first book of poetry, Sýnir (Visions), in 1978. ó was a founding member of the surrealist group, Medúsa, and soon became significant in Reykjavik's cultural landscape.
Since then, his prolific writing drove him to pen song lyrics, scripts for movies and of course novels such as The Blue Fox.
Since then, his prolific writing drove him to pen song lyrics, scripts for movies and of course novels such as The Blue Fox.
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May 25, 2024
Icelandic novelist and poet ó
CoDex 1962 - an epic trilogy composed of three novels: a love story, a crime story, a science fiction story.
From beginning to end, a cornucopia of stories and stories within stories and stories within stories within stories.
How to review this unique book? As my own modest attempt to click into ó's literary vibe, I'll shift to a mode of reviewing that embraces other reviews and reviewers, a mode of reviewing that also shares snips of a number of CoDex 1962 stories as if those stories tumble out, gush out, spout, surge and spurt out of ó's storytelling horn of plenty.
Why not? After all, when talking of his vast novel, ó describes a huge whale that swims through the ocean with its mouth open and swallows and digests everything that comes its way - so much like the novel (ah!, the grand novel form) that can swallow, digest, embrace and express all other literary and non-literary forms.
At any rate, here goes:
According to Parul Sehgal, "The book review belongs to the province of pleasure. It directs readers to ideas that will stretch their sensoriums, that will give them a gladness, an exquisite fright or sorrow." Perhaps Parul was reminded of such sensorium stretching when she wrote of CoDex 1962: "Everything I can scarcely bear in novels, I found in this book. I was spirited away - for a time."
What a novel! Parul tells us, "The plot is set in motion when a Jewish fugitive flees a concentration camp, carrying with him a lump of clay in the shape of a baby - a golem." Turns out, this lump of clay golem is Jósef Loewe, the tale's narrator. Parul goes on to say, "This book is a Norse Arabian Nights. Each section is a honeycomb. Stories are nesting in stories and crack open to reveal rumor after anecdote, prose poems, tendrils of myth." The New York Times is so very fortunate Parul has taken over for longstanding reviewer Michiko Kakutani.
Guardian Reviewer Eileen Battersby writes, "From the opening pages and through much of a chaotic if playfully executed narrative, the influence of Günter Grass's The Tin Drum is evident. ó has mastered the earlier fabulist's technique of merging history with high-speed comedy and surreal profundity." Added to this, Eileen observes that ó is heir to Mikhail Bulgakov and Laurence Sterne and creates a literary extravaganza where Bosch meets Chagall with an occasional touch of Tarantino. You gotta love all of Eileen's literary references.
ŷ reviewer Meike informs us how the second part of CoDex 1962, the crime story, is "based on a biography of the only known Icelander who survived a concentration camp" and how this section "shows Leo coming to Iceland as a refugee and, with the help of a Russian spy and a black scholar of religion, trying to get back his magical golden ring which he needs to bring Jósef to life."
Speaking of the tale's Part III, Meike lets us know "The title refers to a poem by ó who shows up in his own novel: He and Jósef were both born in 1962 and meet within the text. An integral part of this installment is the story of CoDex, a fictional company that is based on the real Icelandic biopharmacelutical enterprise deCODE genetics." Thanks, Meike!
And here are my favorite lines from Katharine Coldiron's review of the novel for Los Angeles Review of Books: "The sprawl of the trilogy, the messiness, the tonal contradictions, the storytelling that often confuses and occasionally bores - all these qualities offer a window into the broader human story that a novel coloring strictly inside the lines could never achieve. It's a risky, funny, sexy, entirely unique book, and its odd corners make it easy to love."
As for the stories themselves, in addition to the golem, a unicorn and angels, there's the one with a child spotting a dwarf on a train, one where a kaiser can magically disappear in a forest, one where two little birds sweetly sing woof-woof-woof while a chubby gingerbread boy has an erection.
Stories, stories: a grandma keeps a pet tigress in her kitchen, a robot talks, a flyer of a biplane is immortal, a tramp stitched together from corpses of WWI dead soldiers pays a visit to war widows to give them a round of pleasure, nannies' shrieks of horror sound like holy music, a berserker thinks it is his inner voice when a chick chirps inside his back tooth.
Stories, stories: Will a peaceful group of Aborigines defeat the Tasmanian Werewolf? Is the One-eyed Man terrorizing the townsfolk in Jósef's home town? Will the Nazis get away with employing their Machine of World Destruction? Are outer space aliens following an ice-breaker to Iceland?
And more stories: Is speaking in tongues pleasing to God? What's the major event following the birth of Confucius? Who's the first child of 1962?
Oh, I could go on and on and on. But I'll stop here and simply say if this string of reviewer snips and flashes of storytelling whet your appetite and you decide to give ó's novel a go, then I (with a little help from my friends!) have done my job as reviewer.
August 10, 2020
A golem in Iceland? A stamp-collecting werewolf? A black scholar of religion performing Mexican lucha libre in pursuit of a magical golden ring stolen from a Jewish refugee/alchemist? YES YES YES. ó's "CoDex 1962" is one wild ride, a three-part tome interweaving a myriad of ideas and thus illustrating how we are all made of stories. The main character is Leo Löwe, a Jewish man who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and, with the help of a maid working in the guest house where he hides, creates a son - not of flesh and blood though, but one of the variety (see ). Background story: In 1990, ó and were touring with and they performed in Prague; there, ó visited the Old Jewish Cemetery where the subject of the classic golem tale is buried, , a 16th century rabbi with, as the legend goes, mystical powers who brought the golem to live in order to protect the Jewish people (Loew / Löwe; Leo Löwe = lion lion). ó placed a stone on the grave and asked the rabbi for advice; in return, he promised him to bring the golem to Iceland.
And he did: The story of Leo Löwe is told by his son made of clay, Jósef. Written over a period of more than 20 years, the book is split in three parts:
Part 1: Thine Eyes Did See my Substance: A Love Story (1994)
This is the story of Leo hiding in a guest house in Lower Saxony and creating Jósef with the maid. The title refers to psalm 139:16: "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.". In the Hebrew Bible, this verse contains the word "galmi", from the same root as golem, so Adam says to God: "Your eyes saw my golem".
Part 2: Iceland's Thousand Years: A Crime Story (2001)
This installment shows Leo coming to Iceland as a refugee and, with the help of a Russian spy and a black scholar of religion, trying to get back his magical golden ring which he needs to bring Jósef to life. The title alludes to the , the Icelandic national anthem - Leo does apply for citizenship. This part of the book is based on a biography of the only known Icelander who survived a concentration camp.
Part 3: I'm a Sleeping Door: A Science-Fiction Story (2016)
Now we finally meet a living Jósef and hear whom he is telling the story to - all three parts are crafted like a spoken-word record, and there is a reason for it (no spoiler). The title refers to a poem by ó who shows up in his own novel: He and Jósef were both born in 1962 and meet within the text. An integral part of this installment is the story of CoDex, a fictional company that is based on the real Icelandic biopharmaceutical enterprise . deCODE aimed to catalogue the genome of the nation - as does CoDex in the book...
Around the main narrative thread portraying the destinies of both Leo and Jósef Löwe, ó spins numerous digressions, tales and stories our narrator Jósef adds in order to illustrate ideas, themes and feelings - and how the digresisons relate to the main thread is often a narrative riddle that adds suspense and involves the reader in the creation of the story - yes, this book is a golem our imagination can give life to. As usual, ó draws from Icelandic history and folklore, but never has his narrative been so shattered and complex, diving into different text forms, changing its pace and mood, gaining more and more momentum - this book is a maelstrom, and it's a pleasure to get lost in it. If you want to know who Leo and Jósef are, you have to pay attention to the stories which constitute them, one after the other. Will our stories still be told once we're passed into the world where those who went before us are already waiting? (Yes, that was also a hint to the book! :-))
Ancient codices where a pile of wax-covered tablets of wood, parchment or papyrus, bound together as an improved version of the scroll - but technically, modern books are also codices. In "CoDex 1962", ó manages to evoke a mythical feeling of timelessness, although the book is set during a particular time period: The timelessness lies in the mythical dimension, the meditation on the human condition exemplified in this particular story. A wonderfully playful, challenging and profound book, a gift for everyone who loves the power of stories.
I had the great pleasure to talk to ó about the book, you can listen to our conversation . You can also listen to my radio piece about the book , and to our podcast gang discussion the trilogy (both in German).
And he did: The story of Leo Löwe is told by his son made of clay, Jósef. Written over a period of more than 20 years, the book is split in three parts:
Part 1: Thine Eyes Did See my Substance: A Love Story (1994)
This is the story of Leo hiding in a guest house in Lower Saxony and creating Jósef with the maid. The title refers to psalm 139:16: "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.". In the Hebrew Bible, this verse contains the word "galmi", from the same root as golem, so Adam says to God: "Your eyes saw my golem".
Part 2: Iceland's Thousand Years: A Crime Story (2001)
This installment shows Leo coming to Iceland as a refugee and, with the help of a Russian spy and a black scholar of religion, trying to get back his magical golden ring which he needs to bring Jósef to life. The title alludes to the , the Icelandic national anthem - Leo does apply for citizenship. This part of the book is based on a biography of the only known Icelander who survived a concentration camp.
Part 3: I'm a Sleeping Door: A Science-Fiction Story (2016)
Now we finally meet a living Jósef and hear whom he is telling the story to - all three parts are crafted like a spoken-word record, and there is a reason for it (no spoiler). The title refers to a poem by ó who shows up in his own novel: He and Jósef were both born in 1962 and meet within the text. An integral part of this installment is the story of CoDex, a fictional company that is based on the real Icelandic biopharmaceutical enterprise . deCODE aimed to catalogue the genome of the nation - as does CoDex in the book...
Around the main narrative thread portraying the destinies of both Leo and Jósef Löwe, ó spins numerous digressions, tales and stories our narrator Jósef adds in order to illustrate ideas, themes and feelings - and how the digresisons relate to the main thread is often a narrative riddle that adds suspense and involves the reader in the creation of the story - yes, this book is a golem our imagination can give life to. As usual, ó draws from Icelandic history and folklore, but never has his narrative been so shattered and complex, diving into different text forms, changing its pace and mood, gaining more and more momentum - this book is a maelstrom, and it's a pleasure to get lost in it. If you want to know who Leo and Jósef are, you have to pay attention to the stories which constitute them, one after the other. Will our stories still be told once we're passed into the world where those who went before us are already waiting? (Yes, that was also a hint to the book! :-))
Ancient codices where a pile of wax-covered tablets of wood, parchment or papyrus, bound together as an improved version of the scroll - but technically, modern books are also codices. In "CoDex 1962", ó manages to evoke a mythical feeling of timelessness, although the book is set during a particular time period: The timelessness lies in the mythical dimension, the meditation on the human condition exemplified in this particular story. A wonderfully playful, challenging and profound book, a gift for everyone who loves the power of stories.
I had the great pleasure to talk to ó about the book, you can listen to our conversation . You can also listen to my radio piece about the book , and to our podcast gang discussion the trilogy (both in German).
January 25, 2020
I feel certain that had I read Codex 1962 at another time, it would have earned 5 stars from me. However, this is a novel that requires a fair amount of concentration and when you are unable to sleep, your brain becomes mush and concentration becomes impossible.
I began this with regular sleeping hours and loved the first book (it was originally published as 3 books in its original Icelandic, but published as one volume in English). Thewriting style, the story, the wit, the characters.... it all held my interest and delighted me. By the end of the first book, I was losing my ability to concentrate due to a lack of sleep from a medication issue. I slept almost a total of 3 hours in nearly a week -- and that was broken: 15 minute snatches here and there. If you have never experienced insomnia on this level, believe me, you don't ever want to. If you have, then you understand why sleep deprivation is sometimes used as torture by interrogators and why the UN condemns this practice. It leaves you unable to concentrate because your brain is like mush, zombiefied. You become obsessed with sleep; it's all you can think of. Your eyes hurt, your body hurts. Your BRAIN hurts. You wonder if you will ever again be able to turn off your brain and sleep. Death starts to seem like a good thing because then at least your brain would be off. Believe me, it is not fun.
It was in this state of extreme insomnia that I read the second and third books of Codex 1962 and I have absolutely no friggin' idea what I read! It made no sense, it was tedious, confusing. Is this the book's fault or is it the insomnia's? I do not know. I think for the second book, which did not flow with the first, it might be the fault of the book. However, I think the latter is to blame when it came to the third book because finally! Finally, finally, finally! Near the end of it I had the meds straightened out, I slept, my brain shut down enough to be able to think clearly again. I cannot begin to tell you what a wonderful feeling it was to wake up that morning after I got 4 or 5 hours of straight sleep. Sleep in which my brain entered REM. Sleep which I desperately needed! Aaaaahhhhhh.... there are no words to describe the relief and gratitude I felt!
Anyway, I digress....
As I neared the end of the book and was able to concentrate again, I fell back in love with it. ó writes amazingly well. His creativity is genius. Codex 1962 begins in pre-war Germany with a Jewish scientist on the run from the Nazis. He is hidden in an inn where a lonely young girl is tasked with taking care of him. She believes him to be ill and unconscious though he is not. After he "wakes", the two become close and fall in love. LeoLöwe invented a way to create babies using his own DNA (from nail clippings, phlegm, etc.) and clay. Together, he and the maid shape this lump of clay into a baby.
The second book: Leo arrives in Iceland and the clay baby comes to life. What happened after that? Dunno! The synopsis says it is a murder mystery so I guess that's what it was. Perhaps I should re-read that one but fear it would only remind me of my torturous week without sleep and so it shall remain a blur in my mind. I was miserable reading it, that's all I can tell you. Book's fault or my own, I can't say.
The third book: I was likewise miserable through much of it and much of it is a blur. However, as mentioned above, I did finally get sleep and with sleep came concentration. With concentration came enjoyment and understanding of what I was reading. It's set in the present day and is about a geneticist and how her studies lead her to Josef, the clay baby. Finally, the brief epilogue neatly wraps everything up.
So:
Book one: 5 stars
Book two: 1 star
Book three: 1-5 stars
Epilogue: 5 stars
This book is a mixture of genres and I love the way ó is able to do that. Historical fiction, mystery, science fiction.... all wrapped up in one. I should point out as well that the translation is excellent. Usually you can tell when a book is not in its original language but it was not apparent that this was not originally written in English. Kudos to the translator for a job well done!
If you're intrigued and want to read this,I think you will do well to heed my advice:Be sure to get proper sleep!
I began this with regular sleeping hours and loved the first book (it was originally published as 3 books in its original Icelandic, but published as one volume in English). Thewriting style, the story, the wit, the characters.... it all held my interest and delighted me. By the end of the first book, I was losing my ability to concentrate due to a lack of sleep from a medication issue. I slept almost a total of 3 hours in nearly a week -- and that was broken: 15 minute snatches here and there. If you have never experienced insomnia on this level, believe me, you don't ever want to. If you have, then you understand why sleep deprivation is sometimes used as torture by interrogators and why the UN condemns this practice. It leaves you unable to concentrate because your brain is like mush, zombiefied. You become obsessed with sleep; it's all you can think of. Your eyes hurt, your body hurts. Your BRAIN hurts. You wonder if you will ever again be able to turn off your brain and sleep. Death starts to seem like a good thing because then at least your brain would be off. Believe me, it is not fun.
It was in this state of extreme insomnia that I read the second and third books of Codex 1962 and I have absolutely no friggin' idea what I read! It made no sense, it was tedious, confusing. Is this the book's fault or is it the insomnia's? I do not know. I think for the second book, which did not flow with the first, it might be the fault of the book. However, I think the latter is to blame when it came to the third book because finally! Finally, finally, finally! Near the end of it I had the meds straightened out, I slept, my brain shut down enough to be able to think clearly again. I cannot begin to tell you what a wonderful feeling it was to wake up that morning after I got 4 or 5 hours of straight sleep. Sleep in which my brain entered REM. Sleep which I desperately needed! Aaaaahhhhhh.... there are no words to describe the relief and gratitude I felt!
Anyway, I digress....
As I neared the end of the book and was able to concentrate again, I fell back in love with it. ó writes amazingly well. His creativity is genius. Codex 1962 begins in pre-war Germany with a Jewish scientist on the run from the Nazis. He is hidden in an inn where a lonely young girl is tasked with taking care of him. She believes him to be ill and unconscious though he is not. After he "wakes", the two become close and fall in love. LeoLöwe invented a way to create babies using his own DNA (from nail clippings, phlegm, etc.) and clay. Together, he and the maid shape this lump of clay into a baby.
The second book: Leo arrives in Iceland and the clay baby comes to life. What happened after that? Dunno! The synopsis says it is a murder mystery so I guess that's what it was. Perhaps I should re-read that one but fear it would only remind me of my torturous week without sleep and so it shall remain a blur in my mind. I was miserable reading it, that's all I can tell you. Book's fault or my own, I can't say.
The third book: I was likewise miserable through much of it and much of it is a blur. However, as mentioned above, I did finally get sleep and with sleep came concentration. With concentration came enjoyment and understanding of what I was reading. It's set in the present day and is about a geneticist and how her studies lead her to Josef, the clay baby. Finally, the brief epilogue neatly wraps everything up.
So:
Book one: 5 stars
Book two: 1 star
Book three: 1-5 stars
Epilogue: 5 stars
This book is a mixture of genres and I love the way ó is able to do that. Historical fiction, mystery, science fiction.... all wrapped up in one. I should point out as well that the translation is excellent. Usually you can tell when a book is not in its original language but it was not apparent that this was not originally written in English. Kudos to the translator for a job well done!
If you're intrigued and want to read this,I think you will do well to heed my advice:Be sure to get proper sleep!
September 21, 2018
I think it’s written very well but at no point in the book did I have any idea what the hell was going on
February 4, 2019
Authors are as much in thrall as readers to these natural attributes of stories and books. Little do they suspect that most of what they consider new and innovative in their works is actually so old that millennia have passed since the idea first took shape in the mind of a female storyteller who passed it on by word of mouth until it was recorded on a clay tablet, papyrus, parchment or paper, wound up in a scroll or bound in a book, finally ending up as a literary innovation.
CoDex 1962, translated by Victoria Cribb from ó's original, comprises three parts, the first two of which were published in the Icelandic separately. written over a span of more than 20 years.
Augu þín sáu mig (1994): tr:Thine Eyes Did See my Substance - a Love Story
Með titrandi tár - glæpasaga (2001): tr:Iceland's Thousand Years - a Crime Story
(see below for a comment on the translation of the title)
and the third part
Ég er sofandi hurð (2016): tr: I'm a Sleeping Door - A Sci-fi Story
which was not published separately but rather with Parts 1 and 2 as a combined novel CoDex 1962.
The novel arises from a pledge made by the author at the graveside of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi , creator of the :
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect;
The Hebrew word translated as 'my unperfect substance' is גלמי from which we take the term golem.
The book has an acknowledged influence from three books given to the author when he was 17 by the artist Alfreð Flóki: by Bruno Schulz, by Mikhail Bulgakov and by Gustav Meyrink, as well as Icelandic folk stories and Icelandic modernists like and .
The story is told by Jósef Loewe to an unidentified female interlocutor and set mostly in the small (fictional) German town of Kükenstadt during a war. It tells the story of Jósef's birth, or rather the story of how his father Leo, an alchemist, met his mother, while seeking refuge in a tavern (and former house of ill-repute) and how she helped him breath life in to the golem that was to become Jósef.
Hinted at in the text, but never at all explicit, is that the setting is the 1940s, the war World War II, and that the emaciated Jósef is a Jewish escapee from a concentration camp.
As well as the influences acknowledged above, other clear points of comparison, stylistically and thematically, for what is a how-I-was-born-story, told in digressive and sometimes bawdy shaggy-dog style, with a strong dose of magic-realism and angelological overtones, are Sterne's , Grass's and Mulisch's .
An excerpt from the beginning gives a good feel for the style:
The 2nd part takes its title from the Icelandic national anthem, ǴڲöԲܰ, quoted in the novel (my emphasis):
Ó, guð vors lands! Ó, lands vors guð!
Vér lofum þitt heilaga, heilaga nafn!
Úr sólkerfum himnanna hnýta þér krans
þínir herskarar, tímanna safn.
Fyrir þér er einn dagur sem þúsund ár
og þúsund ár dagur, ei meir:
eitt eilífðar smáblóm með titrandi tár,
sem tilbiður guð sinn og deyr.
Íslands þúsund ár,
Íslands þúsund ár,
eitt eilífðar smáblóm með titrandi tár,
sem tilbiður guð sinn og deyr.
translated:
O God of our land, O our land's God,
We worship thy holy, holy name.
Thy crown is woven from the suns of heaven
By thy legions, the ages of time.
For thee a single day is as a thousand years,
And a thousand years a day are as but a day,
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and dies.
Iceland's thousand years, Iceland's thousand years,
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and then fades.
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and then fades.
I am not normally a fan of changing titles in translation, but here the English translator/publisher presumably felt that 'Með titrandi tár/with a quivering tear' would be rather more evocative for an Icelandic audience, and the more explicit reference to 'Iceland's thousand years' seem better for English speakers, and the biblical link to Psalm 90:4, itself quoted in 2 Peter 3:8, is made clearer.
This second part continues in the same narrated style. It begins in June 1944 with Leo (but not Jósef's mother who has stayed in her hometown) on a boat from Germany to refuge in Iceland. The application of gold is still required to bring Jósef, still a small mud figure, to full life as a child, but two Icelandic brothers on the boat swindle Leo out of his gold. That they had made a voluntary trip to early 1940s Germany gives a rather strong indication as to their political sympathies.
The novel then moves to 1962 as aided by two colourful characters - an African-American pro-wrestler from a religious fundamentalist family background and an eccentric Soviet spy - Leo attempts to recover his stolen gold, and solve a murder mystery, involving the black-market in postage stamp collection and werewolfs, into the bargain.
This part finishes on 27 August 1962 - formal birthdate of both Jósef and the author ó.
The third part has a rather different tone.
Nationalism - of both the Nazis but also nationalistic views in Iceland - forms another backdrop to all of the novel, and the author has pointed to the Balkan Wars as one inspiration for the book. But at the times many commentators wrote those off as a previously suppressed legacy of World War 2 rather than a re-emergence of the phenomenon. That the third part was published in the year of Trump and Brexit, and with toxic nationalism becoming a major political force once again, makes the CoDex 1962 project all the more prescient.
The trilogy itself takes its title from a fictional biopharmaceutical company but one clearly inspired by the real-life , whose project to attempt to collect the DNA of all Icelanders, on the grounds that the purity of the gene pool made them uniquely valuable to study, caused significant controversy.
In the novel, the CoDex project is attempting to analyse the DNA of all 4,711 Icelanders born, like the author and main character, in 1962, which in the novel is a birth year particularly prone to genetic mutation, a phenomenon attributed to the fact that nuclear testing by the US and Russia reached its peak in the period when these children would have been conceived and developing in the womb. And an Appendix to the novel details how the project led on to an attempt to build a super-computer to communicate with animal species, eventually leading to the extinction of mankind (but salvation of the Earth).
This speculative-fiction is in contrast to an alternative and more real-world explanation for Jósef's origins than his self-told magic-realist story.
Stylistically, there is a significant emphasis on lists - including a cumulative list, style, of the birth and death dates of those of the 1962 generation who passed away before the end of 2012, with brief descriptions of their generic causes of death. After each rendition, the cumulative dead greet their living fellows with Dear brothers and sisters, born in 1962, we await you here.. The last death recorded is that of Jósef who offers the alternative: Dear Sjon, I await you here.
This third part also contains several extended riffs - style (or if I am being cheeky) - for example, a 2 page sentence on the different places the children of 1962 were conceived, a comment in a conversation “you promised you’d spare me the sort of banal childhood incidents that are so common everyone has poignant memories of them� followed by a half page sentence with examples of such incidents, and 2 pages of the various world events in 1962, which points out that the most significant are the nuclear tests and the birth of author and character.
Storytelling is another key theme in the third part with the quote that opens my review one of several similar examples. And the author ó himself appears in the novel, briefly meeting Jósef. Knowing ó has a reputation as a surrealist poet, when asked who he is, Jósef replies:
I’m a Ferris wheel. I’m a conch. I’m a sleeping door.
a line ó later sub-consciously plagiarises for a poem Paper, and which forms the title of this part of the novel. The significance of this rather passed me by compared to the explicitly biblical titles of parts 1 and 2, but perhaps that is the point of surrealism.
Part 3 provides a fascinating contrast to Parts 1 and 2, and wraps the trilogy / novel up on a rather different note to one might have expected from the earlier sections. Indeed given the three parts were written over more than 20 years it is fascinating to wonder whether ó originally had a different end in mind (e.g. the deCODE project to create a national genetics database didn't exist when the first novel was written).
Overall - a highly enjoyable novel. Something of a pastiche of much other great writing, but as the opening quote suggests part of the novel's purpose is to argue that storytelling is cumulative. One I expect to see feature in the Man Booker International running. 4 stars (and nearer 5 than 3).
This is novel that has inspired many great reviews, which often touch on areas completely unexplored in mine. A (not comprehensive) selection for further reading:
Jeremy on ŷ:
/review/show...
A comprehensive four-part review:
The wonderful This is Splice website:
From the late, great, Eileen Battersby:
A less impressed review from the LA Review of Books:
The Full Stop website:
CoDex 1962, translated by Victoria Cribb from ó's original, comprises three parts, the first two of which were published in the Icelandic separately. written over a span of more than 20 years.
Augu þín sáu mig (1994): tr:Thine Eyes Did See my Substance - a Love Story
Með titrandi tár - glæpasaga (2001): tr:Iceland's Thousand Years - a Crime Story
(see below for a comment on the translation of the title)
and the third part
Ég er sofandi hurð (2016): tr: I'm a Sleeping Door - A Sci-fi Story
which was not published separately but rather with Parts 1 and 2 as a combined novel CoDex 1962.
The novel arises from a pledge made by the author at the graveside of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi , creator of the :
In 1990, when I went to Prague after the summer of the Velvet Revolution, I was going through a certain personal problem and I went to the cemetery to visit the grave of Judah Loew ben Bezalel . And when I saw people putting prayers and wishes on the gravestone of the rabbi, I decided to make a pact with him. I asked him to solve my problem, and I said that in return I would bring the golem into Icelandic literatureThe first part of the combined novel (I will refer to them as parts rather than separate novels to avoid confusion) takes its title from Psalm 139:15-16:
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect;
The Hebrew word translated as 'my unperfect substance' is גלמי from which we take the term golem.
The book has an acknowledged influence from three books given to the author when he was 17 by the artist Alfreð Flóki: by Bruno Schulz, by Mikhail Bulgakov and by Gustav Meyrink, as well as Icelandic folk stories and Icelandic modernists like and .
The story is told by Jósef Loewe to an unidentified female interlocutor and set mostly in the small (fictional) German town of Kükenstadt during a war. It tells the story of Jósef's birth, or rather the story of how his father Leo, an alchemist, met his mother, while seeking refuge in a tavern (and former house of ill-repute) and how she helped him breath life in to the golem that was to become Jósef.
Hinted at in the text, but never at all explicit, is that the setting is the 1940s, the war World War II, and that the emaciated Jósef is a Jewish escapee from a concentration camp.
As well as the influences acknowledged above, other clear points of comparison, stylistically and thematically, for what is a how-I-was-born-story, told in digressive and sometimes bawdy shaggy-dog style, with a strong dose of magic-realism and angelological overtones, are Sterne's , Grass's and Mulisch's .
An excerpt from the beginning gives a good feel for the style:
The 2nd part takes its title from the Icelandic national anthem, ǴڲöԲܰ, quoted in the novel (my emphasis):
Ó, guð vors lands! Ó, lands vors guð!
Vér lofum þitt heilaga, heilaga nafn!
Úr sólkerfum himnanna hnýta þér krans
þínir herskarar, tímanna safn.
Fyrir þér er einn dagur sem þúsund ár
og þúsund ár dagur, ei meir:
eitt eilífðar smáblóm með titrandi tár,
sem tilbiður guð sinn og deyr.
Íslands þúsund ár,
Íslands þúsund ár,
eitt eilífðar smáblóm með titrandi tár,
sem tilbiður guð sinn og deyr.
translated:
O God of our land, O our land's God,
We worship thy holy, holy name.
Thy crown is woven from the suns of heaven
By thy legions, the ages of time.
For thee a single day is as a thousand years,
And a thousand years a day are as but a day,
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and dies.
Iceland's thousand years, Iceland's thousand years,
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and then fades.
An everlasting flower with a quivering tear,
That prays to its God and then fades.
I am not normally a fan of changing titles in translation, but here the English translator/publisher presumably felt that 'Með titrandi tár/with a quivering tear' would be rather more evocative for an Icelandic audience, and the more explicit reference to 'Iceland's thousand years' seem better for English speakers, and the biblical link to Psalm 90:4, itself quoted in 2 Peter 3:8, is made clearer.
This second part continues in the same narrated style. It begins in June 1944 with Leo (but not Jósef's mother who has stayed in her hometown) on a boat from Germany to refuge in Iceland. The application of gold is still required to bring Jósef, still a small mud figure, to full life as a child, but two Icelandic brothers on the boat swindle Leo out of his gold. That they had made a voluntary trip to early 1940s Germany gives a rather strong indication as to their political sympathies.
The novel then moves to 1962 as aided by two colourful characters - an African-American pro-wrestler from a religious fundamentalist family background and an eccentric Soviet spy - Leo attempts to recover his stolen gold, and solve a murder mystery, involving the black-market in postage stamp collection and werewolfs, into the bargain.
This part finishes on 27 August 1962 - formal birthdate of both Jósef and the author ó.
The third part has a rather different tone.
Nationalism - of both the Nazis but also nationalistic views in Iceland - forms another backdrop to all of the novel, and the author has pointed to the Balkan Wars as one inspiration for the book. But at the times many commentators wrote those off as a previously suppressed legacy of World War 2 rather than a re-emergence of the phenomenon. That the third part was published in the year of Trump and Brexit, and with toxic nationalism becoming a major political force once again, makes the CoDex 1962 project all the more prescient.
The trilogy itself takes its title from a fictional biopharmaceutical company but one clearly inspired by the real-life , whose project to attempt to collect the DNA of all Icelanders, on the grounds that the purity of the gene pool made them uniquely valuable to study, caused significant controversy.
In the novel, the CoDex project is attempting to analyse the DNA of all 4,711 Icelanders born, like the author and main character, in 1962, which in the novel is a birth year particularly prone to genetic mutation, a phenomenon attributed to the fact that nuclear testing by the US and Russia reached its peak in the period when these children would have been conceived and developing in the womb. And an Appendix to the novel details how the project led on to an attempt to build a super-computer to communicate with animal species, eventually leading to the extinction of mankind (but salvation of the Earth).
This speculative-fiction is in contrast to an alternative and more real-world explanation for Jósef's origins than his self-told magic-realist story.
Stylistically, there is a significant emphasis on lists - including a cumulative list, style, of the birth and death dates of those of the 1962 generation who passed away before the end of 2012, with brief descriptions of their generic causes of death. After each rendition, the cumulative dead greet their living fellows with Dear brothers and sisters, born in 1962, we await you here.. The last death recorded is that of Jósef who offers the alternative: Dear Sjon, I await you here.
This third part also contains several extended riffs - style (or if I am being cheeky) - for example, a 2 page sentence on the different places the children of 1962 were conceived, a comment in a conversation “you promised you’d spare me the sort of banal childhood incidents that are so common everyone has poignant memories of them� followed by a half page sentence with examples of such incidents, and 2 pages of the various world events in 1962, which points out that the most significant are the nuclear tests and the birth of author and character.
Storytelling is another key theme in the third part with the quote that opens my review one of several similar examples. And the author ó himself appears in the novel, briefly meeting Jósef. Knowing ó has a reputation as a surrealist poet, when asked who he is, Jósef replies:
I’m a Ferris wheel. I’m a conch. I’m a sleeping door.
a line ó later sub-consciously plagiarises for a poem Paper, and which forms the title of this part of the novel. The significance of this rather passed me by compared to the explicitly biblical titles of parts 1 and 2, but perhaps that is the point of surrealism.
Part 3 provides a fascinating contrast to Parts 1 and 2, and wraps the trilogy / novel up on a rather different note to one might have expected from the earlier sections. Indeed given the three parts were written over more than 20 years it is fascinating to wonder whether ó originally had a different end in mind (e.g. the deCODE project to create a national genetics database didn't exist when the first novel was written).
Overall - a highly enjoyable novel. Something of a pastiche of much other great writing, but as the opening quote suggests part of the novel's purpose is to argue that storytelling is cumulative. One I expect to see feature in the Man Booker International running. 4 stars (and nearer 5 than 3).
This is novel that has inspired many great reviews, which often touch on areas completely unexplored in mine. A (not comprehensive) selection for further reading:
Jeremy on ŷ:
/review/show...
A comprehensive four-part review:
The wonderful This is Splice website:
From the late, great, Eileen Battersby:
A less impressed review from the LA Review of Books:
The Full Stop website:
February 10, 2021
„Jót, ó. Ebben áll a nagy titok.�
(Kazinczy Ferenc végig nem gondolt aranyköpései, XVII. kötet)
„…kedve lett volna megrázni és ráordítani, hogy maradjon a saját történeténél…�
(ó: CoDex 1962; 485. oldal)
Kétféle író van*. Az egyik számára a nyelv eszköz, amellyel a tartalom minél pontosabban kifejezendő. A másik számára a nyelv olyasvalami, amit mindig újra kell teremteni, úgy, hogy a lehető legteljesebb mértékben sajátunk legyen. Mindkettőt lehet jól csinálni, és megoszlanak a vélemények, melyik a nehezebb. ó mindenesetre (szokása szerint) a második opció mellett teszi le a voksát. Szerintem most rosszul döntött. Vagy - ez is lehet - rosszul kivitelezte.
Amúgy ez egy trilógia. Mint a trilógiák általában, három részből áll. Az első egy szerelmi történet, amelyben egy sváb kisváros fogadójának szobalánya beleszeret a lerongyolódott zsidó menekültbe, Leo Löwébe, majd extatikus románcuk csúcspontjaként gólemet építenek. A második krimi: Löwe a kontinensről Izlandra menekül a háború elől. Útközben ellopnak tőle egy aranygyűrűt, ami viszont szükséges ahhoz, hogy a gólembe életet leheljen, így hát egy különös nyomozás keretében (amit két botcsinálta szövetséges, gyilkosság és farkasember is színesít) nekiveselkedik, és visszaszerzi jogos tulajdonát. A harmadik részben aztán az életre kelt gólemfiú, Joseph találkozik a XXI. századi genetikával � ez pedig a sci-fi szál.
Szerettem ezt az ötletet. El is képzeltem � mert álmodozni jó -, hogy egyszerűen van megírva, mert a kacifántos ötletek kívánják az egyszerű megvalósítást. Hogy az első etap valóban a szerelmi zsáner toposzaiból építkezik, a második valódi krimi, a harmadik pedig igazi tudományos fantasztikum. De nem. Az egész ugyanaz a kása. Ritkán éreztem még ennyire, hogy a történet köré szőtt nyelvi hálónak az egyetlen funkciója, hogy az olvasó ne kerüljön közel magához a cselekményhez. Feltételezem, a cél a misztikus köd megteremtése volt, szerintem viszont ez nem misztikum, csak álcaháló, ami elfedni hivatott a cselekményben tátongó alapvető strukturális repedéseket. ó kábé mindent bevet: a helyenként kifejezetten modoros és okoskodó narrációt, álmitológiai, áltudományos és álteológiai szócséplést, az önmagában jól működő metaforákat elviselhetetlen ideig beszéli túl, ötleteiből pedig kifacsar minden cseppet, amíg azok szárazak nem lesznek, mint egy nyugat-szaharai bekötőút. Érdekes elgondolás például, hogy egy könyvben felsorolásra kerül minden 1962-ben született és azóta elhunyt izlandi, bizonnyal ilyen még nem fordult elő a kortárs irodalomban. Azt is érteni vélem, hogy ez az író szerint a halál gondolatával való megküzdés szimbóluma lehet. De ettől még nem látom, hogy mitől kéne működnie. Mintha ó csak a saját ötvenedik születésnapjára írt volna terápiás céllal valamit, aztán véletlenül kiadásra került.
Váratlan csalódás, el is szomorodtam tőle. Pedig ó eddigi regényeit kifejezetten szerettem, nem is értem, mi történt itt. Talán az van, hogy eddig a szerzőnek ott volt az izlandi nyelv és hagyomány mankónak. Most megkísérelte elhajítani ezt a mankót, hátha nélküle is boldogul, és egy teljesen önálló világot igyekezett konstruálni. Úgy vélte, ha már nincs mankó, akár rohanni, szaladni is lehet. És elkezdte önfeledten kergetni a saját ötleteit, anélkül, hogy megtorpant volna akár egy percre is, áttekinteni, mindez hová vezet. Mert szerintem: sehová.
* Tudom, tudom. Sokféle író van. Következésképp minden „kétféle ez meg az van" típusú kategorizálás valójában csak egy skála két szélsőértékét kísérli megragadni. De az efféle diverzifikált megközelítéssel nem lehet az olvasói figyelmet megragadni. Marketing!
(Kazinczy Ferenc végig nem gondolt aranyköpései, XVII. kötet)
„…kedve lett volna megrázni és ráordítani, hogy maradjon a saját történeténél…�
(ó: CoDex 1962; 485. oldal)
Kétféle író van*. Az egyik számára a nyelv eszköz, amellyel a tartalom minél pontosabban kifejezendő. A másik számára a nyelv olyasvalami, amit mindig újra kell teremteni, úgy, hogy a lehető legteljesebb mértékben sajátunk legyen. Mindkettőt lehet jól csinálni, és megoszlanak a vélemények, melyik a nehezebb. ó mindenesetre (szokása szerint) a második opció mellett teszi le a voksát. Szerintem most rosszul döntött. Vagy - ez is lehet - rosszul kivitelezte.
Amúgy ez egy trilógia. Mint a trilógiák általában, három részből áll. Az első egy szerelmi történet, amelyben egy sváb kisváros fogadójának szobalánya beleszeret a lerongyolódott zsidó menekültbe, Leo Löwébe, majd extatikus románcuk csúcspontjaként gólemet építenek. A második krimi: Löwe a kontinensről Izlandra menekül a háború elől. Útközben ellopnak tőle egy aranygyűrűt, ami viszont szükséges ahhoz, hogy a gólembe életet leheljen, így hát egy különös nyomozás keretében (amit két botcsinálta szövetséges, gyilkosság és farkasember is színesít) nekiveselkedik, és visszaszerzi jogos tulajdonát. A harmadik részben aztán az életre kelt gólemfiú, Joseph találkozik a XXI. századi genetikával � ez pedig a sci-fi szál.
Szerettem ezt az ötletet. El is képzeltem � mert álmodozni jó -, hogy egyszerűen van megírva, mert a kacifántos ötletek kívánják az egyszerű megvalósítást. Hogy az első etap valóban a szerelmi zsáner toposzaiból építkezik, a második valódi krimi, a harmadik pedig igazi tudományos fantasztikum. De nem. Az egész ugyanaz a kása. Ritkán éreztem még ennyire, hogy a történet köré szőtt nyelvi hálónak az egyetlen funkciója, hogy az olvasó ne kerüljön közel magához a cselekményhez. Feltételezem, a cél a misztikus köd megteremtése volt, szerintem viszont ez nem misztikum, csak álcaháló, ami elfedni hivatott a cselekményben tátongó alapvető strukturális repedéseket. ó kábé mindent bevet: a helyenként kifejezetten modoros és okoskodó narrációt, álmitológiai, áltudományos és álteológiai szócséplést, az önmagában jól működő metaforákat elviselhetetlen ideig beszéli túl, ötleteiből pedig kifacsar minden cseppet, amíg azok szárazak nem lesznek, mint egy nyugat-szaharai bekötőút. Érdekes elgondolás például, hogy egy könyvben felsorolásra kerül minden 1962-ben született és azóta elhunyt izlandi, bizonnyal ilyen még nem fordult elő a kortárs irodalomban. Azt is érteni vélem, hogy ez az író szerint a halál gondolatával való megküzdés szimbóluma lehet. De ettől még nem látom, hogy mitől kéne működnie. Mintha ó csak a saját ötvenedik születésnapjára írt volna terápiás céllal valamit, aztán véletlenül kiadásra került.
Váratlan csalódás, el is szomorodtam tőle. Pedig ó eddigi regényeit kifejezetten szerettem, nem is értem, mi történt itt. Talán az van, hogy eddig a szerzőnek ott volt az izlandi nyelv és hagyomány mankónak. Most megkísérelte elhajítani ezt a mankót, hátha nélküle is boldogul, és egy teljesen önálló világot igyekezett konstruálni. Úgy vélte, ha már nincs mankó, akár rohanni, szaladni is lehet. És elkezdte önfeledten kergetni a saját ötleteit, anélkül, hogy megtorpant volna akár egy percre is, áttekinteni, mindez hová vezet. Mert szerintem: sehová.
* Tudom, tudom. Sokféle író van. Következésképp minden „kétféle ez meg az van" típusú kategorizálás valójában csak egy skála két szélsőértékét kísérli megragadni. De az efféle diverzifikált megközelítéssel nem lehet az olvasói figyelmet megragadni. Marketing!
July 13, 2019
Took me a while! RTC
July 29, 2018
authors are as much in thrall as readers to these natural attributes of stories and books. little do they suspect that most of what they consider new and innovative in their works is actually so old that millennia have passed since the idea first took shape in the mind of a female storyteller, who passed it on by word of mouth until it was recorded on a clay tablet, papyrus, parchment or paper, wound up in a scroll or bound in a book, finally ending up as a literary innovation. all stories have their origins long before humans discovered a means of storing them somewhere other than in their memories, and so it doesn’t matter if books are worn out by reading, if the print-run is lost at sea, if they’re pulped so other books can be printed, or burned down to the last copy. the vitality contained in their loose ends and red herrings (yes, these are as fundamental to great works of literature as they are to thrillers) is so potent that if it escapes into the head of a single reader it will be activated, like a curse or a blessing that can follow the same family for generations. and with every retelling and garbling, misunderstanding and conflation, mankind’s world of songs and stories expands.an epic, sweeping masterpiece, sjón’s codex 1962 (augu þín sáu mig, með titrandi tár, and ég er sofandi hurð) is an unforgettable trilogy (bound together in a single volume for its english release). published over 22 years in three separate installments in his native iceland (1994, 2001, 2016), sjón’s codex 1962 effortlessly blends together the many (seemingly) disparate elements that have made each of his previous four books in translation so remarkable to behold. combining several genres (part 1: thine eyes did see my substance ~ a love story, part 2: iceland’s thousand years ~ a crime story, and part 3: i’m a sleeping door ~ a sci-fi story), codex 1962 also incorporates (as most of sjón’s fiction seems to do) icelandic mythology and folklore, creation stories, historical accounts, autobiographical elements, and the like.
a person is a composite of the times they live through � a combination of the events they have witnessed or taken part in, whether willingly or not; a collection of dreams and thoughts, whether their own or strangers'; a concoction of deeds done by themselves and others, whether friends or enemies; a compilation of stories remembered or forgotten, from distant parts or the next room � and every time an event or idea touches them, affects their existence, rocks their little world and the wider one too, a stone is added to the structure that they are destined to become. whether this is to be a town square or a path beside a pond, a bridge or a beer factory, a portakabin or a watchtower, a palace or a university, a prison camp or an airport, not until after they are dead and buried will their true dimensions � their role in society � be revealed; they will only be complete when there is nothing left of them but ruins; a fading gleam in people's memories; the occasional photograph in the albums of family or friends; the odd tangible creation; belongings now dispersed; everyday clothes and one smarter outfit; name and social security number scattered through the public records; death notice and obituary yellowing in a newspaper, none of which can ever be reconstructed...flirting with the peripheries of magical realism, codex 1962 is set across continents and the better part of a century. while the book does indeed have a captivating, compelling plot, it's sjón magnificent storytelling dexterity that keeps the pages turning ever so easily. between his rich atmospherics, uncanny ability to lure the reader into his tale, and his melodic, expressive prose, it doesn't so much matter what narrative sjón is offering, as his writing is wholly engaging. codex 1962's surreality and fluid borders inflate the novel(s) with a grandiosity of imagination. like a single grain of sand inadvertently (and however indispensably) woven into an otherwise enormous tapestry, the minor diversions and meandering asides are instrumental to sjón's tale and its encompassing milieu.
to be something, to have a status in society, to be born at the centre of things, to live through momentous times, to be part of the world's anthology of stories � if only in the gap between the lines, between the worlds, between the letters, or even in the minute blank space inside the lower-case "e", just once in that dauntingly long book; could there be any more human desire than that? don't we all long to be something, to feel that we exist, that others notice our existence, for the brief space of time that we are here? and if you're unlucky enough to be born on the northern periphery of war, whether war conducted on the battlefield of ideas or war that is fought with weapons in the skies, on land and sea, what choice do you have but to employ every trick in the book to write yourself into the history of ideas, to engineer a place for yourself in the great scheme of things, to think your way into human history, to weave yourself into the tapestry of all that exists?co-mingling the past and the present (while presaging the future), the sacred and the profane, the concrete and the abstract, codex 1962 is as ambitious as it is enveloping. sjón's prodigious imagination and narrative inventiveness are endlessly delighting. truly, however, it's the ease with which a reader can enshroud one's self within sjón's writing that is so breathtaking. sjón, beloved in his native iceland, hasn't yet enjoyed similar stateside adulation, but, with his masterwork now expertly translated, codex 1962 may well be the book that brings him a devoted (and much-deserved) english following. codex 1962 is a remarkable work of fiction and sjón is unquestionably a major figure of the international literary scene.
dear brothers and sisters, born in 1962, we await you here.
*translated from the icelandic by victoria cribb (all four of sjón's previous english renderings: , , , and )
August 16, 2020
I'll admit that I wouldn't have been able to read this without the English translation open to the same page. I'm going to have to study the Icelandic language much more in depth before I'll be able to read a novel without considerable help.
For other comments on this fascinating trilogy, see my rating of the English translation.
For other comments on this fascinating trilogy, see my rating of the English translation.
March 9, 2019
[3.5] That’s how Icelanders generally evaded all topics of conversation, using instead a philosophical mode of discourse. They were incapable of discussing things directly. If they contributed anything at all to the conversation it was in the form of a short anecdote or examples from natural history.
While reading ó’s mammoth novel � for a mammoth it is compared to his earlier work–I remarked at the passing of each hundred pages: I still don’t understand a thing, but oh well, let’s read on.
ó’s work has always been surrealist so I wasn’t expecting a simple story at all. But three novels in one (as the first two parts of CoDex 1962 were published separately in 1994 and 2001) is surely a lot to take. Maybe a little too much. In a not completely positive way the novel made me think of Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, i.e. older established authors getting away with extra long works, cramming in an exhausting amount of material.
That said, there’s a lot to admire in ó’s writing, even if I’m slightly disappointed in the whole of CoDex 1962. His ceaseless imagination and inventive take on storytelling are all visible here. Themes such as nationalism and genetics emerge slowly and are well built into the three-part structure. It’s a rather difficult novel that I’m hundred percent certain I would enjoy even more on a second round, but I don’t see myself returning to it any time soon because it was indeed a bit arduous journey!
It might be a cliché to say that a lot has been packed into a novel but it is surely true here. It is also a cliché of me to direct you to read other reviews which explicate some of the content, but so it is. I’ll only add this: if you ever feel lost while reading this novel, let me recommend pages 423�424 in the hardback edition for a clarification of the plot up to that point.
While reading ó’s mammoth novel � for a mammoth it is compared to his earlier work–I remarked at the passing of each hundred pages: I still don’t understand a thing, but oh well, let’s read on.
ó’s work has always been surrealist so I wasn’t expecting a simple story at all. But three novels in one (as the first two parts of CoDex 1962 were published separately in 1994 and 2001) is surely a lot to take. Maybe a little too much. In a not completely positive way the novel made me think of Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, i.e. older established authors getting away with extra long works, cramming in an exhausting amount of material.
That said, there’s a lot to admire in ó’s writing, even if I’m slightly disappointed in the whole of CoDex 1962. His ceaseless imagination and inventive take on storytelling are all visible here. Themes such as nationalism and genetics emerge slowly and are well built into the three-part structure. It’s a rather difficult novel that I’m hundred percent certain I would enjoy even more on a second round, but I don’t see myself returning to it any time soon because it was indeed a bit arduous journey!
It might be a cliché to say that a lot has been packed into a novel but it is surely true here. It is also a cliché of me to direct you to read other reviews which explicate some of the content, but so it is. I’ll only add this: if you ever feel lost while reading this novel, let me recommend pages 423�424 in the hardback edition for a clarification of the plot up to that point.
August 14, 2020
This is an astonishing trilogy, not least because it was 22 years between the publication of parts one and three. I understand that part three was not published separately and is only available in the trilogy. CoDex 1962 is epic in proportion, spanning much of the 20th century to the present. ó labels part one, Thine Eyes Did See My Substance, "a love story" (first published in 1994); part two, Iceland's Thousand Years, "a crime story" (first published in 2001); and part three, I'm a Sleeping Door, "a science-fiction story" (first published in 2016) and the tale moves effortlessly between the real and the surreal.
The trilogy is very much in the tradition of the 1000-year-old Icelandic story-telling tradition. At the centre of the saga is Jósef Loewe, who begins by telling the story of his father, Leo Loewe, a Jewish fugitive who escapes World War II Germany and settles in Iceland. It addresses the subjects of social inequality and Icelandic independence from Denmark and is a fascinating story.
The trilogy is very much in the tradition of the 1000-year-old Icelandic story-telling tradition. At the centre of the saga is Jósef Loewe, who begins by telling the story of his father, Leo Loewe, a Jewish fugitive who escapes World War II Germany and settles in Iceland. It addresses the subjects of social inequality and Icelandic independence from Denmark and is a fascinating story.
September 29, 2018
It's admittedly strange to see ó operating in a maximalist mode after his run of success with short, magically realist novels. But unsurprisingly, it works: he's putting it all out there, taking a shot at including everything he's interested in -- and so the story swings from romance to speculative to adventure to crime to non-fiction (or hypothetically non-fiction) to even a bit of memoir (both personal and fictional). And sometimes, it feels a bit too much! But that's okay! Even when I felt overwhelmed by how much was happening or I got bored of yet another digression, ó kept me in it with his prose (and the lovely, light translation) and his narrative drive. Plus, there are payoffs, I promise you.
This might not be the book to make you a ó fan -- I'd recommend starting with THE BLUE FOX -- but it will reward the faithful for sure.
This might not be the book to make you a ó fan -- I'd recommend starting with THE BLUE FOX -- but it will reward the faithful for sure.
August 12, 2020
There are two ways to make a monument (let's take a not so random example, the 1st world war): either very carefully take a piece of marble and put all your skills and whatever they taught you in art school and make a symbolic structure that all will admire, or you can visit the battlegrounds and arrange thousand of tombstones and let them tell the story.
And that’s kind of the same method Sjon is using to talk about the things he want, life and death, identity and memory, and of course storytelling. He’s taking all this and inflating it, maximalism galore. So does his hero, Josef Lowe, this is the same style he uses to tell his story - the fourth wall is shattered early on when we realize we are only standing there listening to a story being told, from one person to another, maybe we’re not even supposed to, but we’ll understand at the third book who is the story teller and why he narrates the way he does.
Are our memories to be trusted? Is our identity permanent or a floating brain play that depends on circumstances?
‘I thought for a minute that you were going to say my whole story was a figment of my imagination, that I don’t even exist myself, that I’m nothing more than a twinkle in God’s eye, as the little children say.�
He smiles weakly, swallowing the lump in his throat.
‘Yes, or your own imagination.�
Aleta lays a hand on the stone man’s pale misshapen arm.
‘Then we’d be figments of each other’s imagination.�
How is life experienced, is our experience of it a solidity? Or the only solid thing in the end is death?
You promised me you wouldn’t get sentimental, you promised you’d spare me the kind of banal childhood incidents that are so common that everyone has poignant memories of them, regardless of whether they happened to them or not-[...] while over all these reminiscences hangs a shared miasma that none of you noticed at the time: the powerful reck of boys� sweat overlaid with the scent of cheap perfume and lip gloss from the girls.
You story’s on a fast track into the black hole of nostalgia.
There are wonderful reviews here in ŷ and I’ll urge to read them, if you want more details. I won’t do that here. I’ll honestly say that the book tired me at some points but I’m not sure, if it wasn’t my fault, as I was tired myself and only read 2-3 pages per day. For the same reason, I felt the 2nd book was fractured. And I’ll also honestly say that the third book broke me into pieces. It had me sobbing.
It takes the young people a moment to realise that is no ordinary dance floor. Here they dance to the silence that ensues whenever someone departs this earthly life. Each of them sways to the absence of sound that attends their footsteps and hand claps, to the absence of their voices and intestinal noises, to the absence of all the rustling, splashing, banging and creaking that resulted in their living bodies made contact with the external world, to the absence of their breathing, the absence of their heartbeat.
The “Dance� interludes of the third book which consisted of long lists of births and deaths and a everchanging dancehall that followed each decade’s music and style (yes it did), the interludes, I was saying, at first seemed like a good way to easily fast read pages and move forward. Only as they unfolded and expanded and secured their meaning, did they made sense to me as a brilliant construction. Only then, did they stop being a gimmick and acquired substance.And made the simple turning of pages a painful thing to do. And that’s pretty much true of the whole book. Only in the end everything is tied together and you are rewarded for following along the broken path. And judging from the Epilogue, the author acknowledges it was intended and that’s smart and brave of him. There is also a paragraph where the author summarizes the whole three books in simple sentences, outlining the absurdity of his own story but also leading you to understand that the storytelling is what matters.
Some would argue that the author is a megalomaniac, narcissistic overachiever and I wouldn’t necessarily argue with them. Is that a bad thing? Do I not appreciate classic works of literature, universally acknowledged and proven in time? Using "classic" methods to tell a story, safe and expected? Of course I do. But do I need to read stories from people that are not afraid to blow into the balloon of storytelling without hesitation and without fear of the boom it might make? Fuck yes, I do.
And that’s kind of the same method Sjon is using to talk about the things he want, life and death, identity and memory, and of course storytelling. He’s taking all this and inflating it, maximalism galore. So does his hero, Josef Lowe, this is the same style he uses to tell his story - the fourth wall is shattered early on when we realize we are only standing there listening to a story being told, from one person to another, maybe we’re not even supposed to, but we’ll understand at the third book who is the story teller and why he narrates the way he does.
Are our memories to be trusted? Is our identity permanent or a floating brain play that depends on circumstances?
‘I thought for a minute that you were going to say my whole story was a figment of my imagination, that I don’t even exist myself, that I’m nothing more than a twinkle in God’s eye, as the little children say.�
He smiles weakly, swallowing the lump in his throat.
‘Yes, or your own imagination.�
Aleta lays a hand on the stone man’s pale misshapen arm.
‘Then we’d be figments of each other’s imagination.�
How is life experienced, is our experience of it a solidity? Or the only solid thing in the end is death?
You promised me you wouldn’t get sentimental, you promised you’d spare me the kind of banal childhood incidents that are so common that everyone has poignant memories of them, regardless of whether they happened to them or not-[...] while over all these reminiscences hangs a shared miasma that none of you noticed at the time: the powerful reck of boys� sweat overlaid with the scent of cheap perfume and lip gloss from the girls.
You story’s on a fast track into the black hole of nostalgia.
There are wonderful reviews here in ŷ and I’ll urge to read them, if you want more details. I won’t do that here. I’ll honestly say that the book tired me at some points but I’m not sure, if it wasn’t my fault, as I was tired myself and only read 2-3 pages per day. For the same reason, I felt the 2nd book was fractured. And I’ll also honestly say that the third book broke me into pieces. It had me sobbing.
It takes the young people a moment to realise that is no ordinary dance floor. Here they dance to the silence that ensues whenever someone departs this earthly life. Each of them sways to the absence of sound that attends their footsteps and hand claps, to the absence of their voices and intestinal noises, to the absence of all the rustling, splashing, banging and creaking that resulted in their living bodies made contact with the external world, to the absence of their breathing, the absence of their heartbeat.
The “Dance� interludes of the third book which consisted of long lists of births and deaths and a everchanging dancehall that followed each decade’s music and style (yes it did), the interludes, I was saying, at first seemed like a good way to easily fast read pages and move forward. Only as they unfolded and expanded and secured their meaning, did they made sense to me as a brilliant construction. Only then, did they stop being a gimmick and acquired substance.
Some would argue that the author is a megalomaniac, narcissistic overachiever and I wouldn’t necessarily argue with them. Is that a bad thing? Do I not appreciate classic works of literature, universally acknowledged and proven in time? Using "classic" methods to tell a story, safe and expected? Of course I do. But do I need to read stories from people that are not afraid to blow into the balloon of storytelling without hesitation and without fear of the boom it might make? Fuck yes, I do.
October 17, 2018
This complex fabulist tapestry sometimes feels like the whole history of storytelling compressed into one volume, jumping from genre deconstruction and mythic visions to earthy humor and grounded human emotion with astounding grace: Icelandic literary magic in the tradition of Calvino's Invisible Cities, Bulgakov's Master And Margarita, Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.
July 11, 2018
I almost put this book down after the first chapter because the characterisation was unconvincing, I couldn't grasp who was saying what and I didn't like the stories-within-stories structure or the casual language used. However. I soon realised that the book is a display of storytelling. When the narrator points out that Icelanders don't discuss things, that they tell anecdotes to illustrate a point, I understood that this is exactly what Sjon is doing. It was interesting to work out how the anecdotes connected to the main thread of the story (or not). Instead of getting to know characters well, we get a broad view of a range of people and their activities (including angels). It wasn't one of my favourite books, but it was clever and mischievous.
June 30, 2019
My GR friend Paul has written a detailed and comprehensive review of this book here:
Paul’s review
and, to make it even more comprehensive, Paul’s review, in turn, links to several other excellent reviews of the book.
It is fitting that I should direct you to Paul’s review of this book as it is Paul’s copy that I read after he kindly handed it over to me at the start of a meal in a London restaurant a few months ago where a few of us gathered to talk about books (not this one).
I can’t really add anything to Paul’s review other than to make some comments about my personal experience of reading the book.
This is one weird book! At one point, a character says ”Because reading books is a kind of dream sleep, you see.�, and this seems to sum up the atmosphere of the book. At several points, I was put in mind of the film “Le Chien Andalou� made by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel in 1929 for which the script evolved as Dali and Bunuel told one another about their dreams and constructed a film that intentionally set out to be “mysterious and illogical� and to shock its viewers (it contains the very famous “sliced eyeball� scene).
I guess it is fitting to be reminded of Dali whilst reading Sjon as both are surrealists. And this book is definitely surreal. Part 1 tells us about the “creation� of Josef Loewe during what gradually becomes apparent is the time of World War II. I say “creation� because Josef is not actually “born� (and then that’s the wrong word) until the end of Part 2 by which time it is 1962. Part 1 also includes a lot of stuff about angels which is very confusing but partly explained by a mysterious statement in Part 2 which I will not quote for fear of spoiling. Part 2 contains a stamp-collecting werewolf. Part 3 is rather different to the first two parts and introduces us to CoDex, a biopharmaceutical company that is trying to analyse the DNA of all Icelanders born in 1962 (this includes the author and the main protagonist of this book and is a year notable, in this book, for genetic mutations in the Icelandic population).
By now, you are probably getting the idea of some of the weirdness involved here. But I haven’t mentioned most of the really strange stuff. If it all sounds a bit much, I can advise you to turn to page 423-424 in the hardback edition where a neat 1-page summary is given of the main plot so far. It is one of the weirdest paragraphs I have ever read (and believe me, I have read a few!). I read this out loud to my wife and she said “That sounds completely ridiculous�. I suppose she is right. But then, Le Chien Andalou is also “completely ridiculous� on the face of it - that’s sort of how surrealism works.
I don’t know enough about Iceland to be able to work out whether some or all of this is allegory. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it is just a surreal adventure. Either way, I think the only real option is to plunge in and allow yourself be taken along for the ride. I really have no idea what just happened, but I think I enjoyed it.
3.5 stars rounded up for now because of the number of times I was completely take by surprise. The whole thing reads as though Sjon is making it up as he goes along and deliberately looking for ways to knock his readers off balance. He succeeds remarkably well.
Paul’s review
and, to make it even more comprehensive, Paul’s review, in turn, links to several other excellent reviews of the book.
It is fitting that I should direct you to Paul’s review of this book as it is Paul’s copy that I read after he kindly handed it over to me at the start of a meal in a London restaurant a few months ago where a few of us gathered to talk about books (not this one).
I can’t really add anything to Paul’s review other than to make some comments about my personal experience of reading the book.
This is one weird book! At one point, a character says ”Because reading books is a kind of dream sleep, you see.�, and this seems to sum up the atmosphere of the book. At several points, I was put in mind of the film “Le Chien Andalou� made by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel in 1929 for which the script evolved as Dali and Bunuel told one another about their dreams and constructed a film that intentionally set out to be “mysterious and illogical� and to shock its viewers (it contains the very famous “sliced eyeball� scene).
I guess it is fitting to be reminded of Dali whilst reading Sjon as both are surrealists. And this book is definitely surreal. Part 1 tells us about the “creation� of Josef Loewe during what gradually becomes apparent is the time of World War II. I say “creation� because Josef is not actually “born� (and then that’s the wrong word) until the end of Part 2 by which time it is 1962. Part 1 also includes a lot of stuff about angels which is very confusing but partly explained by a mysterious statement in Part 2 which I will not quote for fear of spoiling. Part 2 contains a stamp-collecting werewolf. Part 3 is rather different to the first two parts and introduces us to CoDex, a biopharmaceutical company that is trying to analyse the DNA of all Icelanders born in 1962 (this includes the author and the main protagonist of this book and is a year notable, in this book, for genetic mutations in the Icelandic population).
By now, you are probably getting the idea of some of the weirdness involved here. But I haven’t mentioned most of the really strange stuff. If it all sounds a bit much, I can advise you to turn to page 423-424 in the hardback edition where a neat 1-page summary is given of the main plot so far. It is one of the weirdest paragraphs I have ever read (and believe me, I have read a few!). I read this out loud to my wife and she said “That sounds completely ridiculous�. I suppose she is right. But then, Le Chien Andalou is also “completely ridiculous� on the face of it - that’s sort of how surrealism works.
I don’t know enough about Iceland to be able to work out whether some or all of this is allegory. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it is just a surreal adventure. Either way, I think the only real option is to plunge in and allow yourself be taken along for the ride. I really have no idea what just happened, but I think I enjoyed it.
3.5 stars rounded up for now because of the number of times I was completely take by surprise. The whole thing reads as though Sjon is making it up as he goes along and deliberately looking for ways to knock his readers off balance. He succeeds remarkably well.
October 25, 2018
A masterpiece of storytelling, Codex 1962 takes a long time to get used to. The stories are outlandish, disjointed, and interrupted. They come in a wide variety of genres, and some threads are never picked up again. Nevertheless, when each novel finally comes together, it is beautiful. While the lives of characters and communities are revealed, CoDex 1962 is really about storytelling itself.
March 5, 2022
Es beginnt in Niedersachsen am Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs mit einer von Rabbi Löw und seinem Golem inspirierten Geschichte und führt über zahlreiche Verwicklungen, vermeintliche Kriminalfälle, Abschweifungen und Vexierspiele bis zur Codifizierung des isländischen Humangenoms. Wir begegnen dem Erzengel Gabriel, dem sowjetischen Spion Puschkin, einem afroamerikanischen Ringer und Theologen mit dem denkwürdigen Namen Anthony Theophrastus Athanasius Brown und erfahren ganz nebenbei eine Menge über isländische Eigen- und Unarten.
Ich liess mir beim Lesen extra Zeit, um diesen Hochgenuss möglichst lange auskosten zu können. Der Isländer Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson oder auch ó, Autor, Lyriker und Hauspoet der Popikone ö hat ein phantasiegeladenes, wahnwitziges und verwirrendes Meisterstück geschaffen, einen Leckerbissen für alle Freundinnen und Freunde ausladender Fabulierkunst!
Ich liess mir beim Lesen extra Zeit, um diesen Hochgenuss möglichst lange auskosten zu können. Der Isländer Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson oder auch ó, Autor, Lyriker und Hauspoet der Popikone ö hat ein phantasiegeladenes, wahnwitziges und verwirrendes Meisterstück geschaffen, einen Leckerbissen für alle Freundinnen und Freunde ausladender Fabulierkunst!
November 3, 2019
Perhaps the most poetic & magnificent novel I’ve ever read.
October 22, 2021
Skruvad bok. Mycket rolig att ha läst, inte lika rolig att läsa.
October 3, 2018
Kaleidoscopic fabulist maximalist historical fantasy of the highest order.
October 10, 2018
This book has EVERYTHING. And somehow it all holds together. Funny and weird and so much more. I really liked it and would’ve happily kept reading if I hadn’t gotten to the end. Recommended.
April 15, 2019
Codex 1962: A Trilogy (2018) is a farcical, funny, and over the top parable in three parts. The author, ó, is a songwriter, poet, fabulist, and the most renowned Icelandic writer we've never heard of. Codex is a compilation of three novellas published between 1994 and 2016. The book is a mélange of good old story-telling, of sometimes obscure myths, and of existential angst. it's no mistake that 1962 is the year of ó's birth, or that there is an emphasis in Part 3 on the deaths of those Icelanders born in that year, or that in the epilogue we finally get the Apocalypse].
Codex is chock full of interesting mind-bending tales but hangs together only after great effort. For those who like a destination in their reading material, this is probably not to your taste; there is a destination but it's obscure. But those who like rollercoaster reading, with lots of dips, surges and thrills but no clear destination, will find it right up their alley. ó—the pen name for Sigurjón Birgir Sigurrðssen� is taking us on a long journey into the obscure histories of myths: creation myths, religious myths, and national myths. What are the stories that define us, what are they saying, and why do they matter?
Early on we meet the Archangel Gabriel, who has been commanded by God to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse; apparently God has finally judged the human experiment a failure. But as Gabriel brings the horn to his lips he is overcome by a new sense—carnal lust. The moment passes and the horn remains silent. Cheated of his great chance, Gabriel destroys his horn. Now there can be no apocalypse! Gabriel has been tricked by Satan's plan to forestall the end of Mankind by enticing him with lust and distracting him from blowing his horn: it's nothing personal, just business—at the Apocalypse Satan will run out of a steady supply of souls to torment, and we know that slack business is the fear of every businessman; Satan wants to keep his shop open.
We also encounter a young virgin [aren't they all young?] surrounded with animals, including a unicorn she has tamed. This is a reference to the medieval legend of the "Lady, the Lion and the Unicorn" in which a wild unicorn is tamed by a young virgin and amity reigns between humans and animals. This legend is famously represented in six medieval tapestries considered to be the finest examples of the genre: five of the tapestries each display one of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, tough and taste); the sixth, titled  Mon Seul Désir, shows a lady being watched by animals as she picks up a beautiful necklace. This one is thought to represent a sixth sense that people don't share with animals—the human pleasure in material things.
In addition to Gabriel, Satan, The Lady and the Lion, we have the Jewish myth of the golem: a living human formed from inert material like clay; dollops of Norse myth about the creation of the universe (particularly of Iceland's capital, Reyjavík), and a stamp-collecting werewolf too!
In other words, Codex 1962 is a complex mix of stories and symbols, each interesting in itself and woven together to say something. But what? The book will stick to you like peanut butter to bread as you try to answer that question. The closest answer comes in the epilogue, where Gabriel gets his horn back.
The Sixth Tapestry: Â Mon Seul Désir
So! Off we go!!
Part 1—Thine Eyes Did See My Substance: a love story
The bulk of this review will deal with Part 1. This gives a flavor of the ride you are in for if you start Codex: 1962.
The protagonist in Part 1 is a girl named Marie-Sophie. Marie, one suspects, stands for Mary, the mother of Jesus and the first (perhaps last) virgin to give birth; Sophie is Sophia, the Gnostic Goddess of Wisdom, who, according to gnostic doctrine, is the creator of the material world and Jesus’s sister. Marie-Sophie is the blending of those two competing Christian creation myths.
The book's narrator is Jósef Loewe, Marie-Sophie’s child-to-be with a Jewish concentration camp escapee. Jósef is a Golem given form by the virginal Marie-Sophie and the fugitive Leo Loewe in 1941, but not brought to life until the book's title year, 1962. ó embeds this creation story into the setting of Nazi Germany’s despicable brutality. Quite a trick, I’d say!
We begin our journey by flying at night over the town square of Kükenstadt , a German town in Lower Saxony. The square is adorned by a statue of a gilded chick running in mid-stride; the statue honors a chick that once saved the town from a "berserker." This myth of a town's creation will be explained later in the book.
Our glide path approaches an inn that was once was a brothel. The house is slowly disassembled before our eyes to reveal its rooms. We see Room 23, riddled with peepholes in the walls so that guests could see the lascivious behavior of the room's occupants. Just off of Room 23 is a small and very secret room, called “the priest’s hole," reached by secret within-wall passageways running throughout the house.
We arrive at a bedroom where the servant girl Marie-Sophie is sleeping; she is deep in a dream. We enter the dream and find her in conversation with the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is in a rare good mood: he has finally received God's permission to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse. But wait! Gabriel is suddenly distracted by a voice, the voice of a young woman.
We learn that the inn’s owner has agreed to shelter a Jewish man who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. The man, Leo Loewe, has a broken leg and is very ill. His only possession is a hatbox with very significant contents. Marie-Sophie is assigned as Leo's 24/7 caregiver and we listen as the talkative Marie-Sophie carries on one-sided conversations with the young man, whom she thinks is in a coma but who is actually listening. These “conversations� include fairy tales complete with unicorns and a golden vixen. We realize that Marie-Sophie is falling under the fugitive’s spell even though he rarely speaks.
Suddenly we jump to the outside world where, during a brief time off from duty in the priest’s hole, Marie-Sophie goes to meet her lover, Karl Maus. While visiting him Marie-Sophie discovers that Karl has a dual personality—as Karl Maus he is a decent young man in love with Marie-Sophie, but as Herr Maus he is a lustful satyr bent only on ravishing her. On this visit Herr Maus appears, having stowed Karl Maus away in a closet, and he savagely rapes Marie-Sophie. [Note: in Hitler’s Germany “mouse�maus was a common epithet for a Jew. This was the basis of Art Spiegelman’s 1980’s-era graphic novel "Maus".]
Marie-Sophie rushes back to the priest’s hole to talk with (or at) Leo about the rape, but before she can speak he opens his hatbox and shows her its contents—an unshaped lump of clay. In a state of erotic mind-melding Leo and Marie-Sophie fashion the clay into a life-like male infant that they name Jósef. Jósef is not yet alive—a final step is required and he must remain in the hatbox until then.
Suddenly, we're back with Gabriel being distracted by a dreaming woman: who is she? No, it's not (as we thought) Marie-Sophie. It's Lilith, Satan's female assistant, who arrives with other fiends from Hell to tell Gabriel that his horn-blowing had been stopped by the trickery of none other than Satan: the Devil doesn't want Mankind to disappear—what would Satan do without new souls to torment? Gabriel is so angry at this hoax that he loses his interest in horn-blowing and throws his horn into the sun, where it melts. With that, the gates of both Heaven and Hell slam shut—the souls of all future dead must wander in purgatory until the gates are reopened. Take That! Satan.
Soon after Marie-Sophie's rape Leo's cover is blown and two Gestapo agents arrive at the inn to escort Leo and his hatbox to headquarters. But just as they are stepping over the threshold to leave the inn a remarkable thing happens—Time stops, leaving them—and the universe—poised at mid-step.
Take a breather. You are one-third of the way through Codex: 1962. (Puff! Puff!) It's been a remarkable journey, but those little gray cells are flagging. So while Time has stopped, put the book on "Pause" and get a snack from the kitchen.
Ok! Let's Go! Push "Play."
Part 2—Iceland's Thousand Years: a crime story
Three years have passed and it's 1944. Suddenly Time restarts and Leo, guided by the Gestapo agents, steps through the door of the inn and into a waiting hearse. As they pass a harbor he escapes and finds his way to a boat headed for Iceland. His trip is larded with interludes of story-telling; for example, Leo's tells his ship-mates how the Nazis turn their concentration camp prisoners from men into zebras at the concentration camps.
When Leo arrives in Iceland he works as a ceramicist, creating household items from clay. During all of that time his hatbox still contains the inert clay form; the only step remaining to bring Jósef to life is to expose the clay figure to gold. While Leo has accumulated some gold, he needs a bit more.
Finally, in 1958 after fourteen years in Iceland, Leo applies for citizenship. The application requires a lengthy interview by a bureaucrat, then each application must be individually approved by Parliament in public session; the Parliament will also approve an Icelandic name for the successful applicant. The interview and the public session are uproariously funny satires of bureaucracy. Parliament, after much debate, approves Leo's citizenship but it rejects the name on Leo's application—Skallagrímir Kveldúlfsson—because that is an Icelandic hero and one never messes with Iceland's creation myths. Leo is told that he is now an Icelandic citizen named Jón Jónsson.
Leo's search for enough gold to bring Josef to life comes to fruition in 1962, eighteen years after his arrival in Iceland. He learns that a stamp dealer named Hafryn W. has a gold wisdom tooth. To get that tooth and its gold he enlists the help of two acquaintances: Mikhail Pushkin and Anthony Theophrastus Athanias Brown. Pushkin is a spy attached to the Russian Embassy in Reykavik; Brown is a black American theologian and wrestler whom he met on the boat to Iceland. The three kidnap Hrafn W., who turns into a werewolf. They extract the gold tooth, remove the gold, melt it with the other gold collected over time, and fashion a signet ring.
When the signet is impressed on the belly of Josef's clay body our narrator comes to life. It is August 27, 1962; the exact day of ó's birth. The year 1962 is a momentous year in Iceland: there were 4,711 Icelandic births and over 225 atmospheric nuclear tests around the world; Iceland was enveloped in a radioactive cloud that created a spike in mutations. The first child born in Iceland in 1962 is the daughter of Mrs. Thorsteinson of Reyjavik, whose inattentive husband and biological clock caused her to engage in four copulations with complete strangers in just one night to get the job started. The child was born with the impression of a pagan symbol on her forehead and the genes of five people; she would become an economist!
Part 3: I'm A Sleeping Door: A science fiction story
This section is devoted to Jósef's life story as well as to frequent sections called "The Dance," in which children born in 1962 who have died for any reason gather together and perform an eerily silent dance of death, ending with the phrase, spoken in unison
The scene then shifts back to the mid-16th century when an aristocratic lady named Claude Le Viste visits a weaving shop in Flanders. Her visit is prompted by the completion of a set of six tapestries she has commissioned that tell the allegory of The Lady and the Unicorn. The completed tapestries are to be inspected by royal agents to ensure that the tapestries meet king's exacting standards. To the great relief of the master weaver, a woman known as "Blue Thread" because of the thread-like blue tattoos on her arm, the tapestries pass muster. [there are repeated references throughout the book to the color blue. Go figure!]
In the final Dance, we end with the usual chorus, followed by Jósef Loewe's lone voice:
Epilogue
Here the strings are tied together and the book makes some sense.
Codex is chock full of interesting mind-bending tales but hangs together only after great effort. For those who like a destination in their reading material, this is probably not to your taste; there is a destination but it's obscure. But those who like rollercoaster reading, with lots of dips, surges and thrills but no clear destination, will find it right up their alley. ó—the pen name for Sigurjón Birgir Sigurrðssen� is taking us on a long journey into the obscure histories of myths: creation myths, religious myths, and national myths. What are the stories that define us, what are they saying, and why do they matter?
Early on we meet the Archangel Gabriel, who has been commanded by God to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse; apparently God has finally judged the human experiment a failure. But as Gabriel brings the horn to his lips he is overcome by a new sense—carnal lust. The moment passes and the horn remains silent. Cheated of his great chance, Gabriel destroys his horn. Now there can be no apocalypse! Gabriel has been tricked by Satan's plan to forestall the end of Mankind by enticing him with lust and distracting him from blowing his horn: it's nothing personal, just business—at the Apocalypse Satan will run out of a steady supply of souls to torment, and we know that slack business is the fear of every businessman; Satan wants to keep his shop open.
We also encounter a young virgin [aren't they all young?] surrounded with animals, including a unicorn she has tamed. This is a reference to the medieval legend of the "Lady, the Lion and the Unicorn" in which a wild unicorn is tamed by a young virgin and amity reigns between humans and animals. This legend is famously represented in six medieval tapestries considered to be the finest examples of the genre: five of the tapestries each display one of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, tough and taste); the sixth, titled  Mon Seul Désir, shows a lady being watched by animals as she picks up a beautiful necklace. This one is thought to represent a sixth sense that people don't share with animals—the human pleasure in material things.
In addition to Gabriel, Satan, The Lady and the Lion, we have the Jewish myth of the golem: a living human formed from inert material like clay; dollops of Norse myth about the creation of the universe (particularly of Iceland's capital, Reyjavík), and a stamp-collecting werewolf too!
In other words, Codex 1962 is a complex mix of stories and symbols, each interesting in itself and woven together to say something. But what? The book will stick to you like peanut butter to bread as you try to answer that question. The closest answer comes in the epilogue, where Gabriel gets his horn back.
The Sixth Tapestry: Â Mon Seul Désir
So! Off we go!!
Part 1—Thine Eyes Did See My Substance: a love story
The bulk of this review will deal with Part 1. This gives a flavor of the ride you are in for if you start Codex: 1962.
The protagonist in Part 1 is a girl named Marie-Sophie. Marie, one suspects, stands for Mary, the mother of Jesus and the first (perhaps last) virgin to give birth; Sophie is Sophia, the Gnostic Goddess of Wisdom, who, according to gnostic doctrine, is the creator of the material world and Jesus’s sister. Marie-Sophie is the blending of those two competing Christian creation myths.
The book's narrator is Jósef Loewe, Marie-Sophie’s child-to-be with a Jewish concentration camp escapee. Jósef is a Golem given form by the virginal Marie-Sophie and the fugitive Leo Loewe in 1941, but not brought to life until the book's title year, 1962. ó embeds this creation story into the setting of Nazi Germany’s despicable brutality. Quite a trick, I’d say!
We begin our journey by flying at night over the town square of Kükenstadt , a German town in Lower Saxony. The square is adorned by a statue of a gilded chick running in mid-stride; the statue honors a chick that once saved the town from a "berserker." This myth of a town's creation will be explained later in the book.
Our glide path approaches an inn that was once was a brothel. The house is slowly disassembled before our eyes to reveal its rooms. We see Room 23, riddled with peepholes in the walls so that guests could see the lascivious behavior of the room's occupants. Just off of Room 23 is a small and very secret room, called “the priest’s hole," reached by secret within-wall passageways running throughout the house.
We arrive at a bedroom where the servant girl Marie-Sophie is sleeping; she is deep in a dream. We enter the dream and find her in conversation with the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is in a rare good mood: he has finally received God's permission to blow his horn and bring on the Apocalypse. But wait! Gabriel is suddenly distracted by a voice, the voice of a young woman.
We learn that the inn’s owner has agreed to shelter a Jewish man who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. The man, Leo Loewe, has a broken leg and is very ill. His only possession is a hatbox with very significant contents. Marie-Sophie is assigned as Leo's 24/7 caregiver and we listen as the talkative Marie-Sophie carries on one-sided conversations with the young man, whom she thinks is in a coma but who is actually listening. These “conversations� include fairy tales complete with unicorns and a golden vixen. We realize that Marie-Sophie is falling under the fugitive’s spell even though he rarely speaks.
Suddenly we jump to the outside world where, during a brief time off from duty in the priest’s hole, Marie-Sophie goes to meet her lover, Karl Maus. While visiting him Marie-Sophie discovers that Karl has a dual personality—as Karl Maus he is a decent young man in love with Marie-Sophie, but as Herr Maus he is a lustful satyr bent only on ravishing her. On this visit Herr Maus appears, having stowed Karl Maus away in a closet, and he savagely rapes Marie-Sophie. [Note: in Hitler’s Germany “mouse�maus was a common epithet for a Jew. This was the basis of Art Spiegelman’s 1980’s-era graphic novel "Maus".]
Marie-Sophie rushes back to the priest’s hole to talk with (or at) Leo about the rape, but before she can speak he opens his hatbox and shows her its contents—an unshaped lump of clay. In a state of erotic mind-melding Leo and Marie-Sophie fashion the clay into a life-like male infant that they name Jósef. Jósef is not yet alive—a final step is required and he must remain in the hatbox until then.
Suddenly, we're back with Gabriel being distracted by a dreaming woman: who is she? No, it's not (as we thought) Marie-Sophie. It's Lilith, Satan's female assistant, who arrives with other fiends from Hell to tell Gabriel that his horn-blowing had been stopped by the trickery of none other than Satan: the Devil doesn't want Mankind to disappear—what would Satan do without new souls to torment? Gabriel is so angry at this hoax that he loses his interest in horn-blowing and throws his horn into the sun, where it melts. With that, the gates of both Heaven and Hell slam shut—the souls of all future dead must wander in purgatory until the gates are reopened. Take That! Satan.
Soon after Marie-Sophie's rape Leo's cover is blown and two Gestapo agents arrive at the inn to escort Leo and his hatbox to headquarters. But just as they are stepping over the threshold to leave the inn a remarkable thing happens—Time stops, leaving them—and the universe—poised at mid-step.
Take a breather. You are one-third of the way through Codex: 1962. (Puff! Puff!) It's been a remarkable journey, but those little gray cells are flagging. So while Time has stopped, put the book on "Pause" and get a snack from the kitchen.
Ok! Let's Go! Push "Play."
Part 2—Iceland's Thousand Years: a crime story
Three years have passed and it's 1944. Suddenly Time restarts and Leo, guided by the Gestapo agents, steps through the door of the inn and into a waiting hearse. As they pass a harbor he escapes and finds his way to a boat headed for Iceland. His trip is larded with interludes of story-telling; for example, Leo's tells his ship-mates how the Nazis turn their concentration camp prisoners from men into zebras at the concentration camps.
When Leo arrives in Iceland he works as a ceramicist, creating household items from clay. During all of that time his hatbox still contains the inert clay form; the only step remaining to bring Jósef to life is to expose the clay figure to gold. While Leo has accumulated some gold, he needs a bit more.
Finally, in 1958 after fourteen years in Iceland, Leo applies for citizenship. The application requires a lengthy interview by a bureaucrat, then each application must be individually approved by Parliament in public session; the Parliament will also approve an Icelandic name for the successful applicant. The interview and the public session are uproariously funny satires of bureaucracy. Parliament, after much debate, approves Leo's citizenship but it rejects the name on Leo's application—Skallagrímir Kveldúlfsson—because that is an Icelandic hero and one never messes with Iceland's creation myths. Leo is told that he is now an Icelandic citizen named Jón Jónsson.
Leo's search for enough gold to bring Josef to life comes to fruition in 1962, eighteen years after his arrival in Iceland. He learns that a stamp dealer named Hafryn W. has a gold wisdom tooth. To get that tooth and its gold he enlists the help of two acquaintances: Mikhail Pushkin and Anthony Theophrastus Athanias Brown. Pushkin is a spy attached to the Russian Embassy in Reykavik; Brown is a black American theologian and wrestler whom he met on the boat to Iceland. The three kidnap Hrafn W., who turns into a werewolf. They extract the gold tooth, remove the gold, melt it with the other gold collected over time, and fashion a signet ring.
When the signet is impressed on the belly of Josef's clay body our narrator comes to life. It is August 27, 1962; the exact day of ó's birth. The year 1962 is a momentous year in Iceland: there were 4,711 Icelandic births and over 225 atmospheric nuclear tests around the world; Iceland was enveloped in a radioactive cloud that created a spike in mutations. The first child born in Iceland in 1962 is the daughter of Mrs. Thorsteinson of Reyjavik, whose inattentive husband and biological clock caused her to engage in four copulations with complete strangers in just one night to get the job started. The child was born with the impression of a pagan symbol on her forehead and the genes of five people; she would become an economist!
Part 3: I'm A Sleeping Door: A science fiction story
This section is devoted to Jósef's life story as well as to frequent sections called "The Dance," in which children born in 1962 who have died for any reason gather together and perform an eerily silent dance of death, ending with the phrase, spoken in unison
Dear Brothers and Sisters Born in 1962, we await you here.The second protagonist of Part 3 is Dr. Hrólfur Zópohanías Magnússon, a geneticist born in 1962 who is now founder and chairman of a corporation called CoDex; his sixth wife is an economics professor and Mrs. Thorsteinson's only child. It is 2009 and CoDex is in the middle of decoding the Icelandic genome. The research involves interviewing all living adults born in 1962 (including, presumably, ó) and linking their stories with their DNA to discover how they have mutated. The interviews are conducted and taped by a Codex employee named Aleta Szelinska. Among those interviewed are Dr. Magnússon and Jósef Loewe. The bulk of Part 3 is Jósef's story as told on his interview tapes.
The scene then shifts back to the mid-16th century when an aristocratic lady named Claude Le Viste visits a weaving shop in Flanders. Her visit is prompted by the completion of a set of six tapestries she has commissioned that tell the allegory of The Lady and the Unicorn. The completed tapestries are to be inspected by royal agents to ensure that the tapestries meet king's exacting standards. To the great relief of the master weaver, a woman known as "Blue Thread" because of the thread-like blue tattoos on her arm, the tapestries pass muster. [there are repeated references throughout the book to the color blue. Go figure!]
In the final Dance, we end with the usual chorus, followed by Jósef Loewe's lone voice:
Dear ó, I await you here.
Epilogue
Here the strings are tied together and the book makes some sense.
September 27, 2018
WOW WHAT?! ó has that certain kind of Lynchian narrative audacity, where his sheer commitment to a story can make you believe anything. I mean, this thing's got angels, werewolves, unicorns, kids made out of clay, Soviet spies with tails, black theologian wrestlers, etc--not to mention a completely bonkers storytelling frame, involving a transwoman and a genetics company, that spans over three novels: a love story, a crime story, and a science fiction story, taking place from WWII to the future. Just get a damn copy.
September 9, 2018
ó describes this as a trilogy. I tend to read upwards of two novels a week. I've been busy with this for three weeks! Dense, complex and enigmatic, it's somehow about the Icelandic genome project, thalidomide and the Holocaust, all woven together with Judeo-Christian mythology and salted fish. I think I liked it, but I feel too pummeled by it to give it five stars.
September 29, 2018
I could throw around many adjectives to describe this book. But I won’t. Instead I’ll stick to one word only: Masterpiece.
I know, I know, what a daring thing to say. But I truly believe that ó’s CoDex 1962 has earned it. It is one of those rare books where I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out how everything worked out while at the same time I didn’t want it to end because I enjoyed reading it so much.
ó played with style and form, he interspersed the narrative with myths, fairy tales, songs, poems and even lists. This way even though the book is quite long I never got bored while reading it. The many side stories and tangents that often unexpectedly interject the main story put it in a greater context and gave it a sense of importance, and I loved finding out in what ways they were related to the main narrative.
Because of the many stories that are told there are also quite a lot of characters and I honestly wasn’t always able to immediately connect names that popped up to what I had previously read about them. However, that wasn’t a big problem, as there were usually enough clues to make me remember the character. The connections that came to light in this way often surprised me but never felt forced.
But the stories are not only connected to each other but also to real events. The Second World War, the foundation of The Republic of Iceland, the Thalidomide scandal and the Icelandic genome project are just a few of them.
CoDex 1962 is a beautiful piece of storytelling; drawing on real events, giving life to them and commenting on them, all the while never seeming to do so.
After finishing the book I was left with a feeling similar to the one I had after watching Cloud Atlas. The story had come full circle and ended with a powerful conclusion. All the threads woven together formed an intricate picture of humanity, our history and our possible future. A picture that I will from now on carry with me and that I will probably come back to time and time again.
I know, I know, what a daring thing to say. But I truly believe that ó’s CoDex 1962 has earned it. It is one of those rare books where I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out how everything worked out while at the same time I didn’t want it to end because I enjoyed reading it so much.
ó played with style and form, he interspersed the narrative with myths, fairy tales, songs, poems and even lists. This way even though the book is quite long I never got bored while reading it. The many side stories and tangents that often unexpectedly interject the main story put it in a greater context and gave it a sense of importance, and I loved finding out in what ways they were related to the main narrative.
Because of the many stories that are told there are also quite a lot of characters and I honestly wasn’t always able to immediately connect names that popped up to what I had previously read about them. However, that wasn’t a big problem, as there were usually enough clues to make me remember the character. The connections that came to light in this way often surprised me but never felt forced.
But the stories are not only connected to each other but also to real events. The Second World War, the foundation of The Republic of Iceland, the Thalidomide scandal and the Icelandic genome project are just a few of them.
CoDex 1962 is a beautiful piece of storytelling; drawing on real events, giving life to them and commenting on them, all the while never seeming to do so.
After finishing the book I was left with a feeling similar to the one I had after watching Cloud Atlas. The story had come full circle and ended with a powerful conclusion. All the threads woven together formed an intricate picture of humanity, our history and our possible future. A picture that I will from now on carry with me and that I will probably come back to time and time again.
May 13, 2020
“All stories have their origins long before humans discovered a means of storing them somewhere other than in their memories, and so it doesn’t matter if books are worn out by reading, if the print-run is lost at sea, if they’re pulped so other books can be printed, or burned down to the last copy. The vitality contained in their loose ends and red herrings (�) is so potent that if it escapes into the head of a single reader it will be activated, like a curse or a blessing that can follow the same family for generations. And with every retelling and garbling, misunderstanding and conflation, mankind’s world of songs and stories expands.�
Read
November 4, 2023must read again before reviewing - but ant book by Sjon is worth reading
August 29, 2021
De IJslandse schrijver ó (pseudoniem van Birgir Sigurðsson, geboren 27 August 1962) is in zijn eigen land nogal een fenomeen: door zijn samenwerking met de beroemde artieste ö, door zijn optreden in een popband, en door meerdere uiterst fantasievolle en verrassende romans waarin hij met alle conventies breekt. Zelf was ik helemaal flabbergasted van het ongelofelijk spectaculaire en veelvormige "Uit de bek van de walvis", en ik amuseerde mij prima met het surrealistische "De jongen die nooit heeft bestaan". Dus ik was wel benieuwd naar zijn trilogie "Codex 1962", die gek genoeg nog niet in het Nederlands is vertaald. De drie delen werden gepubliceerd in 1994, 2001 en 2016: tussen de delen door had ó allerlei andere projecten, vandaar die lange pauzes. De drie delen samen leveren nogal een dikke en heterogene pil op, terwijl ó normaal gesproken vrij dunne boeken schrijft. Maar de totaal onconventionele wildheid van zijn dunnere romans viert ook in deze trilogie weer hoogtij. En dat beviel mij heel goed, ook raakte ik bij sommige van ós virtuoze capriolen en acrobatische zijsprongen wel eens de aandacht kwijt.
De drie delen van de trilogie worden aangeduid als respectievelijk "love story", "crime story" en "science fiction story". Per deel is er dus sprake van een ander literair genre. Bovendien wordt in elk deel ook nog eens met tientallen verschillende genres gespeeld: de "love story" zit bijvoorbeeld vol met eigenzinnige hergebruikte Bijbelse motieven, met folkloristische magie, met surrealistische droomachtigheid die mij sterk deed denken aan Bruno Schulz, met een Fritz Lang- pastiche vol omineuze schaduwen en irrationele angst uitvergrotende beelden, en nog veel meer. Er is in al die delen een soort alwetende ik- verteller, die tegelijk een personage is in het verhaal: een van de hoofdpersonen zelfs, namelijk Josef Loewe, die ons op heel fragmentarische en associatieve wijze meer vertelt over hoe hij geboren werd als golem, dus als een uit magische klei gekneed levend wezen die tevens een soort verlosser moet zijn van de door oorlog geteisterde mensheid. Maar die ik- verteller is, apart genoeg, geregeld in dialoog met "iemand anders" - een soort personificatie van de lezer, of van een getuige, of mogelijk ook een ander personage- over aard en vorm van zijn verhaal. Wat trouwens mooie reflecties oplevert op aard en waarde van literatuur en verbeeldingskracht.
Dus we hebben te maken met een ik- verteller die voortdurend associatieve zijpaden kiest, zijn verhaallijnen op de gekste momenten afbreekt en met andere afwisselt die hij dan ook weer afbreekt, daarbij steeds van stijl en vorm en genre verandert, en die over dat alles - en over de wijze waarop hij dat alles vertelt- ook nog eens in dialoog gaat met "iemand". Dat is allemaal wel heel apart en origineel, en het zorgt voor veel verrassingen. Te meer omdat er in deel 3 van het boek ineens een andere verteller het verhaal overneemt, die ons in overweging geeft dat alle verhalen van Josef misschien wel verzonnen zijn, en dat hij zichzelf alleen maar als Golem ziet omdat hij anders niet weet om te gaan met de zinloosheid van zijn pijnlijke leven en lot. Door die wending raak je als lezer nog benieuwder naar de afloop: hoe gaat ó al die heterogene en afgebroken verhaaldraden bij elkaar knopen, hoe eindigt het raadselachtige verhaal over Josef Loewes leven, en gaat hij zich manifesteren als magische Golem die de mensen verlost of toch niet? Waarop de trilogie nog weer een wending beleeft, en nog een, en nog een: het verhaal over Loewe lijkt ineens door een andere verhaallijn overgenomen te worden. Maar ook die wordt weer afgebroken. Door alle zijpaden en door de veelheid van stijlen motieven rees al de vraag waar het verhaal precies over ging. Maar doordat het verhaal over Loewe ineens opgevolgd en zelfs overgenomen wordt door een ander, al even kernloos verhaal, met nog weer een andere verteller, rijst zelfs de vraag wat het verhaal nou eigenlijk precies IS. Of op zijn minst welk verhaal nou het hoofdverhaal is in deze trilogie. Of hoe de titel samenhangt met de verschillende verhaallijnen en de zijpaden binnen die verhaallijnen. En door dat alles blijft de lezer, zodra hij het boek dichtslaat, vol vragen en open eindes achter. Wat volgens mijn precies ós bedoeling is: hij wil geen afgerond verhaal vertellen met een heldere conclusie, maar hij wil een pluriforme en oneindige verhaalwereld scheppen die juist door zijn ongrijpbaarheid nog lang blijft nazingen in ons hoofd....
Bij mij is hem dat heel aardig gelukt: ik moest wel wennen aan die gefragmenteerde en heen- en- weer springende vorm, en aan de steeds maar uitblijvende antwoorden en conclusies en ontknopingen, maar ik vond al die stijlwisselingen en open eindes ook wel weer heel prikkelend en opvrolijkend. Bovendien, de zijpaden staan vol fraaie passages, waarin verbeeldingskracht hoogtij viert. Bijvoorbeeld over Marie- Sophie en Leo Loewe, die samen hun golem - dus: Josef Loewe- kneden: "Yes, Marie- Sophie and Loewe met in each other's eyes, they crossed over into the dim antechamber of the soul where lovers dwell when they close their eyes together, where thought flutters on rose- pink curtains and we look in even as we look out". Nee, geen fysiek geconsumeerde liefde en een via de normale seksuele wegen verwekt vleselijk kind, maar een ontmoeting in de diepere kamers van de ziel die samen gaat met alchemistische en magische creatie van nieuw leven. Dat is wel heel andere koek dan de liefde die u en ik menen te kennen en ervaren, of de liefdes uit meer conventionele liefdesverhalen, en precies dat vind ik stimulerend. Het dwingt mij immers om mijn voorstellingsvermogen wat op te rekken, en daar houd ik wel van.
Nog stimulerender vind ik misschien de volgende passage, uit een zijpadverhaal dat zomaar ineens gaat over de onvoorstelbare God op het onvoorstelbare moment zelf van de schepping: "The instant the word sprang to his lips, God acquired sight. He saw that He was omnipresent. He saw Himself from every angle, from above and below, from all sides at once. And as God had no awareness of up and down, here or there - everything was simultaneously the beginning and the end- His consciousness was whole and undivided, while being present in every nook and cranny of the world that was coming into being [...]. He was both one and many. His mouths opened. 10_47 seconds later the light had begun to flow it reached God's eyes wherever He was present. The glare was so dazzling that He instinctively raised a hand to shield them [...]. Bus just as an infinite number of hands were passing an infinite number of mouths on their way to shield the countless eyes, the light fell on the back of God's hand, and to His astonished delight it passed right through, streaming red from His palm". Fraai proza, vind ik, omdat het zoveel kleur toevoegt aan de Bijbelverhalen die we al kennen, en omdat daardoor het raadselachtige van de schepping - het zo verbazende en onverklaarbare ontstaan van onze wereld en ons leven- zo mooi ALS raadsel wordt beschreven. Wat ook gebeurt in een passage iets verderop: "Out in the black void, the light projected images made of the incomprehensible substance from which the Creator had created Himself. And God is still holding His mighty hand before His mouth". Ook de geboorte en creatie van Josef Loewe onderlijnt trouwens dat raadsel: hij ontstaat immers langs onbekende alchemistische wegen, via wonderbaarlijke magie. Althans, dat is MISSCHIEN het geval, want dit is een versie van zijn levensverhaal die later wordt betwijfeld. Maar precies dat "misschien" vergroot ook weer het raadsel. Net als het feit dat dit verhaal - en andere versies van het verhaal over Josefs geboorte en leven- voortdurend met andere verhalen wordt afgebroken, en in verschillende open eindes uitmondt. Zodat het aan ons als lezers is om te dromen over hoe al deze raadsels vorm zouden kunnen krijgen in nog weer heel nieuwe verrassende verhalen....... Door die open eindes blijven de raadsels dus leven, ook nadat het boek uit is.
Ik had moeite om bij al die zijsprongen mijn aandacht vast te houden, en de vele open eindes vond ik soms vermoeiend. Zo meesterlijk als "Uit de bek van de walvis" vond ik "Codex 1962" dus zeker niet. Misschien is het bovendien gewoon te lang en te veel, misschien is ó - wiens andere romans veel dunner zijn- wel op zijn sterkst als hij kort en bondig blijft. Maar ik was niettemin wel gecharmeerd door de veelvormigheid en originaliteit van "Codex 1962", door de vele thema's en stijlen en genres waar ó mee speelt, en door ós uitbundige en ongeremde fantasie. Dus ik ben heel tevreden, en ik vind het prettig om te weten dat ik nog meer van ó in mijn ereader heb .
De drie delen van de trilogie worden aangeduid als respectievelijk "love story", "crime story" en "science fiction story". Per deel is er dus sprake van een ander literair genre. Bovendien wordt in elk deel ook nog eens met tientallen verschillende genres gespeeld: de "love story" zit bijvoorbeeld vol met eigenzinnige hergebruikte Bijbelse motieven, met folkloristische magie, met surrealistische droomachtigheid die mij sterk deed denken aan Bruno Schulz, met een Fritz Lang- pastiche vol omineuze schaduwen en irrationele angst uitvergrotende beelden, en nog veel meer. Er is in al die delen een soort alwetende ik- verteller, die tegelijk een personage is in het verhaal: een van de hoofdpersonen zelfs, namelijk Josef Loewe, die ons op heel fragmentarische en associatieve wijze meer vertelt over hoe hij geboren werd als golem, dus als een uit magische klei gekneed levend wezen die tevens een soort verlosser moet zijn van de door oorlog geteisterde mensheid. Maar die ik- verteller is, apart genoeg, geregeld in dialoog met "iemand anders" - een soort personificatie van de lezer, of van een getuige, of mogelijk ook een ander personage- over aard en vorm van zijn verhaal. Wat trouwens mooie reflecties oplevert op aard en waarde van literatuur en verbeeldingskracht.
Dus we hebben te maken met een ik- verteller die voortdurend associatieve zijpaden kiest, zijn verhaallijnen op de gekste momenten afbreekt en met andere afwisselt die hij dan ook weer afbreekt, daarbij steeds van stijl en vorm en genre verandert, en die over dat alles - en over de wijze waarop hij dat alles vertelt- ook nog eens in dialoog gaat met "iemand". Dat is allemaal wel heel apart en origineel, en het zorgt voor veel verrassingen. Te meer omdat er in deel 3 van het boek ineens een andere verteller het verhaal overneemt, die ons in overweging geeft dat alle verhalen van Josef misschien wel verzonnen zijn, en dat hij zichzelf alleen maar als Golem ziet omdat hij anders niet weet om te gaan met de zinloosheid van zijn pijnlijke leven en lot. Door die wending raak je als lezer nog benieuwder naar de afloop: hoe gaat ó al die heterogene en afgebroken verhaaldraden bij elkaar knopen, hoe eindigt het raadselachtige verhaal over Josef Loewes leven, en gaat hij zich manifesteren als magische Golem die de mensen verlost of toch niet? Waarop de trilogie nog weer een wending beleeft, en nog een, en nog een: het verhaal over Loewe lijkt ineens door een andere verhaallijn overgenomen te worden. Maar ook die wordt weer afgebroken. Door alle zijpaden en door de veelheid van stijlen motieven rees al de vraag waar het verhaal precies over ging. Maar doordat het verhaal over Loewe ineens opgevolgd en zelfs overgenomen wordt door een ander, al even kernloos verhaal, met nog weer een andere verteller, rijst zelfs de vraag wat het verhaal nou eigenlijk precies IS. Of op zijn minst welk verhaal nou het hoofdverhaal is in deze trilogie. Of hoe de titel samenhangt met de verschillende verhaallijnen en de zijpaden binnen die verhaallijnen. En door dat alles blijft de lezer, zodra hij het boek dichtslaat, vol vragen en open eindes achter. Wat volgens mijn precies ós bedoeling is: hij wil geen afgerond verhaal vertellen met een heldere conclusie, maar hij wil een pluriforme en oneindige verhaalwereld scheppen die juist door zijn ongrijpbaarheid nog lang blijft nazingen in ons hoofd....
Bij mij is hem dat heel aardig gelukt: ik moest wel wennen aan die gefragmenteerde en heen- en- weer springende vorm, en aan de steeds maar uitblijvende antwoorden en conclusies en ontknopingen, maar ik vond al die stijlwisselingen en open eindes ook wel weer heel prikkelend en opvrolijkend. Bovendien, de zijpaden staan vol fraaie passages, waarin verbeeldingskracht hoogtij viert. Bijvoorbeeld over Marie- Sophie en Leo Loewe, die samen hun golem - dus: Josef Loewe- kneden: "Yes, Marie- Sophie and Loewe met in each other's eyes, they crossed over into the dim antechamber of the soul where lovers dwell when they close their eyes together, where thought flutters on rose- pink curtains and we look in even as we look out". Nee, geen fysiek geconsumeerde liefde en een via de normale seksuele wegen verwekt vleselijk kind, maar een ontmoeting in de diepere kamers van de ziel die samen gaat met alchemistische en magische creatie van nieuw leven. Dat is wel heel andere koek dan de liefde die u en ik menen te kennen en ervaren, of de liefdes uit meer conventionele liefdesverhalen, en precies dat vind ik stimulerend. Het dwingt mij immers om mijn voorstellingsvermogen wat op te rekken, en daar houd ik wel van.
Nog stimulerender vind ik misschien de volgende passage, uit een zijpadverhaal dat zomaar ineens gaat over de onvoorstelbare God op het onvoorstelbare moment zelf van de schepping: "The instant the word sprang to his lips, God acquired sight. He saw that He was omnipresent. He saw Himself from every angle, from above and below, from all sides at once. And as God had no awareness of up and down, here or there - everything was simultaneously the beginning and the end- His consciousness was whole and undivided, while being present in every nook and cranny of the world that was coming into being [...]. He was both one and many. His mouths opened. 10_47 seconds later the light had begun to flow it reached God's eyes wherever He was present. The glare was so dazzling that He instinctively raised a hand to shield them [...]. Bus just as an infinite number of hands were passing an infinite number of mouths on their way to shield the countless eyes, the light fell on the back of God's hand, and to His astonished delight it passed right through, streaming red from His palm". Fraai proza, vind ik, omdat het zoveel kleur toevoegt aan de Bijbelverhalen die we al kennen, en omdat daardoor het raadselachtige van de schepping - het zo verbazende en onverklaarbare ontstaan van onze wereld en ons leven- zo mooi ALS raadsel wordt beschreven. Wat ook gebeurt in een passage iets verderop: "Out in the black void, the light projected images made of the incomprehensible substance from which the Creator had created Himself. And God is still holding His mighty hand before His mouth". Ook de geboorte en creatie van Josef Loewe onderlijnt trouwens dat raadsel: hij ontstaat immers langs onbekende alchemistische wegen, via wonderbaarlijke magie. Althans, dat is MISSCHIEN het geval, want dit is een versie van zijn levensverhaal die later wordt betwijfeld. Maar precies dat "misschien" vergroot ook weer het raadsel. Net als het feit dat dit verhaal - en andere versies van het verhaal over Josefs geboorte en leven- voortdurend met andere verhalen wordt afgebroken, en in verschillende open eindes uitmondt. Zodat het aan ons als lezers is om te dromen over hoe al deze raadsels vorm zouden kunnen krijgen in nog weer heel nieuwe verrassende verhalen....... Door die open eindes blijven de raadsels dus leven, ook nadat het boek uit is.
Ik had moeite om bij al die zijsprongen mijn aandacht vast te houden, en de vele open eindes vond ik soms vermoeiend. Zo meesterlijk als "Uit de bek van de walvis" vond ik "Codex 1962" dus zeker niet. Misschien is het bovendien gewoon te lang en te veel, misschien is ó - wiens andere romans veel dunner zijn- wel op zijn sterkst als hij kort en bondig blijft. Maar ik was niettemin wel gecharmeerd door de veelvormigheid en originaliteit van "Codex 1962", door de vele thema's en stijlen en genres waar ó mee speelt, en door ós uitbundige en ongeremde fantasie. Dus ik ben heel tevreden, en ik vind het prettig om te weten dat ik nog meer van ó in mijn ereader heb .
September 25, 2020
OK, it is not going to take me long to write this review because I failed to make sense of this book.
CoDex 1962 is actually a trilogy, which says consists of
Thine Eyes Did See My Substance(A Love Story),
Iceland’s Thousand Years(A Crime Story), and
I’m a Sleeping Door (A Science Fiction Story).
Wikipedia also says
ŷ provided the blurb:
But I am here to tell you that I found its blend of genres chaotic and I did not understand what the book was on about. The first book, about the Jewish refugee holed up in a guesthouse, was ok. I didn't like the flippant tone of the interlocutor who interrogates the narrator, but I understood what was going on. Except that I didn't understand the point of having a clay baby instead of one conceived in the ordinary way.
The second book was about the pursuit of the thief who had stolen the gold that was crucial to the clay baby receiving the spark of life. Maybe I didn't understand it because I am (happily) unfamiliar with the tropes of crime fiction.
I did not understand the third book at all. It obviously has to do with a future in which Iceland trades in the DNA of its citizens and things have gone horribly wrong. But that's as far as I got.
If you are still with me after this wholly inadequate review, I suggest you read the review
#Muttering There are times when I feel I should abandon my policy of reviewing everything I read...
CoDex 1962 is actually a trilogy, which says consists of
Thine Eyes Did See My Substance(A Love Story),
Iceland’s Thousand Years(A Crime Story), and
I’m a Sleeping Door (A Science Fiction Story).
Wikipedia also says
The book's narration mimics the oral traditionof various folktales and religious texts, taking influence fromIcelandic folkloreandThe Bible, with the narrator often expanding upon the plot by referencing these stories. CoDex 1962explores themes of nationalism, social injustice, and theJewish resettlement in Icelandduring World War II.
ŷ provided the blurb:
Jósef Loewe can recall the moment of his birth in August, 1962 and everything that has happened since - or so he claims to the woman listening to the tale of his life...
A love story
He begins with his father, Leo, a starving Jewish fugitive in World War II Germany. In a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the maid who nurses him back to health; together they shape a piece of clay into a baby.
A crime story
Leo escapes to Iceland with the clay boy inside a hatbox, only to become embroiled in a murder mystery. It is not until 1962 that his son Jósef can be born.
A science-fiction story
In modern-day Reykjavík, a middle-aged Jósef attracts the interest of a rapacious geneticist. Now, what lies behind Jósef's tale emerges. And as the story of genesis comes full circle, we glimpse the dangerous path ahead for humankind.
In this epic novel, ó has woven ancient and modern material into a singular masterpiece - encompassing genre fiction, history, theology, folklore, expressionist film, poetry, comic strips, myth, drama and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.
But I am here to tell you that I found its blend of genres chaotic and I did not understand what the book was on about. The first book, about the Jewish refugee holed up in a guesthouse, was ok. I didn't like the flippant tone of the interlocutor who interrogates the narrator, but I understood what was going on. Except that I didn't understand the point of having a clay baby instead of one conceived in the ordinary way.
The second book was about the pursuit of the thief who had stolen the gold that was crucial to the clay baby receiving the spark of life. Maybe I didn't understand it because I am (happily) unfamiliar with the tropes of crime fiction.
I did not understand the third book at all. It obviously has to do with a future in which Iceland trades in the DNA of its citizens and things have gone horribly wrong. But that's as far as I got.
If you are still with me after this wholly inadequate review, I suggest you read the review
#Muttering There are times when I feel I should abandon my policy of reviewing everything I read...
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