After a day of being
dumped - twice - and accidentally killing a goose, the narrator begins
to dream of tropical holidays far away from the chaos of her current
life. instead, she finds her plans wrecked by her best friend's
deaf-mute son, thrust into her reluctant care. But when a shared lottery
ticket nets the two of them over 40 million kroner, she and the boy
head off on a road trip across iceland, taking in cucumber-farming
hotels, dead sheep, and any number of her exes desperate for another
chance. Blackly comic and uniquely moving, Butterflies in November is an
extraordinary, hilarious tale of motherhood, relationships and the
legacy of life's mistakes.
Comment: I've recently read this book and it was the first time I even knew the author existed, much less that this is her second book, apparently. Last time I went to the library this book was on one of the display shelves at the entrance and I like to check it for many recent acquisitions are shown there. So, I took the book because it gave me the vibe of contemporary romance by the Portuguese description but in reality it was a little more weird than what I imagined.
In this book we have the story of the narrator (whose name I don't remember - if it was even mentioned), a woman who works mostly with translation and whose family life is very messy. When the novel begins, she is dumped by her husband, who accuses her of being too distant and even reveals he will be a father soon, of another woman's baby. Then she is also dumped by her lover, who tells her she isn't there and he wants to know what they have matters to both.
To top this, she is asked by her pregnant best friend to take care of her small boy while she rests after a fall. The narrator then helps the boy, somehow they win the lottery (the boy picked the numbers) and embark on a journey through Iceland.
I believe I've summarized the premise of this book quite well, because there was always this sense of weirdness about it that I can't really explain. Perhaps it has something to do with the cultural differences. Of course this book is set on Iceland and show details of a type of culture quite different from the one I'm used to. Also, I could say the majority of foreign novels are often from other zones not Scandinavia and it's not as easy to have contact with that reality. I can imagine this being a detail that can make it difficult for readers to get used to.
The story isn't that complicated, it's basically focused on a travel trope where, as the characters move along, discover new things about themselves. This happens mostly with the narrator for the boy is quite little, but for me the issue with this was that the descriptions of the feelings were quite whimsical. Apart from the steps they took, there's this aura of something emotional but eccentric as the same time. It's difficult to simply describe it but I felt a little lost through some passages because they didn't make much sense.
Obviously this story is meant to signify all of us are in a journey and there are "clues" about what we are supposed to feel/think and how we react can be key to our progress or emotional learning. In this book there are some elements (like the conversation about dead animals, the casual reaction to situations around the narrator, the fortune teller's predictions) that can be too unconventional for this story to be fully appreciated. It seems there are some links missing, which could unite all this in a more understanding manner. Is this supposed to make the reader think? I'm sure that it is, but it's quite difficult if we can't really process what all this is supposed to mean.
When things are weird in a narrative, we can try to connect with the narrator/the main character. However, in this case, that was quite complicated because not only was it difficult to like the protagonist (some of her attitudes like having a lover, why?, weren't that understandable) but then the writing style didn't help to be closer to the story since it was a little vague and too whimsical, not really focused on mundane things but rather concepts and inferences and that made it harder to get a real idea about what was going on.
I just think that the attempt - which I assume is the reason behind this style more than Iceland's method to teach their students on how to write - to just give random notions about what is out there, what the characters see and experience isn't as artistic as we are supposed to think; I found it too weird, overall.
The title is also an interesting choice, since it needs to be adapted to other languages. I included two covers, one in english where the title mentions butterflies (it's plot related, yes) and the Portuguese one, which centers on the concept of women compared with islands.
All in all, there are enough elements to make it a curious read, it's different enough that one can see the cultural impact but is it that amazing? For me it wasn't.
Grade: 5/10
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