Sisimka

I have just finished reading Sisimka by Sigrún Guðbradsdóttir. Sigrún is my cousin and dear friend, so this is inevitably a bit biased.

The book is in Danish, but since I'd like to reach both a Danish and an Icelandic audience I use English, and this novel has an international scope and I sincerely hope it will be translated into English and hopefully Icelandic as well.

Speculative fiction is the best way to classify Sisimka. There are elements of science fiction, dystopian political fable, and surreal horror. Before I briefly discuss each of these it bears mentioning that the design of the book is very nice, the cover is striking and gives of the feeling that what you have in your hand is a 50s pulp space opera or whodunnit. The language seems to me a bit formal, in places a bit of a stretch for my Danish vocabulary, I always enjoy coming across words that reflect the relation of Danish to Icelandic, for example the word 'årvågenhed' which is 'árvekni' in Icelandic...

Science fiction takes us  to space, into alternative presents, alternative histories or into the future. Sisimka takes us into the future, a creepy (not necessarily very distant) future. The screen floors and domed cities are the primary examples of new technology apparent. The effects of technology are not a primary concern of the novel, yet it does not seem to have contributed to a betterment of mankind in any way.

There are two countries in Sisimka and we do not hear about the rest of the world. My feeling is that the 'home' country, the country of A, D and the professor is Denmark, and that the ´foreign' country is in Eastern Europe. The 'home country' is definitely closer to some kind of a Western reality, where capitalism seems to have gone crazy (with the screen floors etc.) and the repressive, racist and secretive regime of the 'other' country seems to have different origins. The characters are in both places under the control of mysterious powers that they have no real way of influencing. Here it seems we have a touch of 1984, Brave New World and Snow Crash. The way the local population is isolated and interaction with foreigners tightly monitored and regulated calls to mind North-Korea ...

The monster insects and mummified children will send a chill down anyone's spine. The mysterious causes of death and vague connections with rituals are, to put it mildly, disturbing. The voyeuristic tendencies of Western art seem to be taken to task in the first part of the book. The whole idea of the excluded and downtrodden 'freckled' and the involvement of the midwives.... well....

The mysterious presence and placement of the colony and how the 'freckled' appear to the narrator in part one reminded me a bit of China Mieville's The City and the City, a novel set in a mysterious Eastern Europeanish alternative reality written like a pulp detective story. The anthropological interest of D. (in the guise of art) and 'the Foreigner' and the extensive chunks from her journal to mind Ursula le Guin and the Left hand of Darkness.... where the protagonist is confronted with ways of being that are so totally foreign that understanding comes slowly, if at all. This is particularly to do with the 'rituals' but also this very intriguing idea of children choosing their fathers.

The connections between each part and the web formed by the Professor-A-D-Sisimka-the Foreigner -and the Old one is a bit hard to fathom, and to be honest I need a bit more (a reread?) to be able to fully put the pieces together. I also think that there is material for more stories in this weird and interesting world that has been laid before us here...