Narrator by Bragi Ólafsson

I'd usually include a funny quote
here, but I can't remember any.
In fact I can't even find my copy,
so maybe I dreamed reading this?

OMFG, it’s been like totally nearly three GD’d years since I started reading this book. As a consequence, I cannot say authoritatively, at least from my own recall and without recourse to a convenient plot recap (and analysis) provided by a writer and literary critic, Tom LeClair, in the rather excellent on-line literary magazine Full Stop, what the effing heck it’s all about. Tom, to his credit and by proxy my validation, makes reference to one of my literary heroes, John Barth, in his review and so I must immediately defer to his objectively better judgement when it comes to assigning value to this slim novella.

From his good-to-great article, I deduce that the story follows a man of dubious character but significant leisure, as he in turn follows an exotic half-Brazilian man of similar, if not greater, leisure, around an Icelandic city over the course of a working day (or a not-working day, as neither seem to have any serious business to which to attend). Here, Tom makes reference to several stalker-y literary efforts by well-respected authors such as E. A. Poe and Nabakov, and Olafsson perhaps comes off second-best. I am certain I don’t ever remember reading Pale Fire or The Man of the Crowd so I can’t hold him to account on that issue. However, my memory is also called into question by this very review so who can you trust, really?

He also points out lots of self-referential stuff – manna! - including that G – the Kafka-esquely initialised but otherwise unnamed titular narrator – was about to post his 151-page manuscript (symbolic or coincidental? 151 the page length of this novella) when he sees Aron Cesar and decides, partly due to a grudge held over a failed sexual conquest of which Aron is likely unaware, that Cesar is up to no good, and that the authorial voice switches from first to third person, perhaps inserting Olafsson himself into the mix.

Of all of this, I have no memory whatsoever.

That’s not strictly true. I do recall the mixed heritage of the pursued man for some reason, and something about the cinema – the story begins I’m told, in the auditorium of a cinema showing a French farse and from which Cesar leaves early, prompting G to follow reluctantly and muse that Cesar’s moral peccadillos are suspect.

Harumph.

So what, in all that is holy, can on read into this? Well, if I’m referring to this review, maybe it’s that you should read Tom Le Clair’s review instead. If I’m referring to the book, then perhaps that it’s eminently forgettable and inconsequential. Both things might be true, but I would suggest the former over the latter. 

It’s been a long three years after all.

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