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Book Review
Jun. 12th, 2012 10:07 pmThe Hurricane Party
by Klas Ostergren
I picked up this novel because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay wrote such an interesting review of it last year. Her write-up is much better than mine is about to be, but here it goes, anyway.
This novel was a fascinating combination of a gritty dystopian tale and a modern retelling of the Lokasenna. Ostergren sets his book in a future Stockholm scarred by environmental and economic collapse, a bleak city where literacy has become rare, citizens are entertained by a strange reality show and an enigmatic decades-long organ concert, and moribund religious cults exist at the physical and psychological margins of society. This place is more or less run by a mysterious extended family known as the Clan. The story follows Hanck Orn, a repairer of typewriters and other antique mechanical devices, whose son Toby dies mysteriously while working as a chef for a Clan party at an island resort. Hanck does not believe the comfortable, official lies he is told about Toby's death, so he embarks on a search for the truth of what happened. Except that the Clan is in actuality the Norse gods, so Toby's death and its aftermath are part of a much larger and more complicated story than a case of murder.
Ostergren's future is pretty reminiscent of the one Philip K. Dick envisioned, with its grittiness, startling lack of the kind of sleek and awe-inspiring advanced technology usually associated with sci-fi, flattened emotional palette, and nebulous past collapse. Hanck Orn is has some of the characteristics of a Dick protagonist, too - ordinary in many ways, struggling along, mildly baffled by women.
My only complaint about The Hurricane Party is that the retelling of the Lokasenna is told to Hanck by a supporting character, rather than unfolding directly in the narrative. It thus seemed a little more like an insertion rather than an organic part of the story. Otherwise, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Placing Norse myth in the context of a dystopian crime story gives a new perspective on the Norse gods and the stories about them. Hanck is also an engaging character whom I liked reading about, and Ostergren's dystopian vision is quite interesting - he leaves just enough out to fire up the imagination.
by Klas Ostergren
I picked up this novel because
sovay wrote such an interesting review of it last year. Her write-up is much better than mine is about to be, but here it goes, anyway.This novel was a fascinating combination of a gritty dystopian tale and a modern retelling of the Lokasenna. Ostergren sets his book in a future Stockholm scarred by environmental and economic collapse, a bleak city where literacy has become rare, citizens are entertained by a strange reality show and an enigmatic decades-long organ concert, and moribund religious cults exist at the physical and psychological margins of society. This place is more or less run by a mysterious extended family known as the Clan. The story follows Hanck Orn, a repairer of typewriters and other antique mechanical devices, whose son Toby dies mysteriously while working as a chef for a Clan party at an island resort. Hanck does not believe the comfortable, official lies he is told about Toby's death, so he embarks on a search for the truth of what happened. Except that the Clan is in actuality the Norse gods, so Toby's death and its aftermath are part of a much larger and more complicated story than a case of murder.
Ostergren's future is pretty reminiscent of the one Philip K. Dick envisioned, with its grittiness, startling lack of the kind of sleek and awe-inspiring advanced technology usually associated with sci-fi, flattened emotional palette, and nebulous past collapse. Hanck Orn is has some of the characteristics of a Dick protagonist, too - ordinary in many ways, struggling along, mildly baffled by women.
My only complaint about The Hurricane Party is that the retelling of the Lokasenna is told to Hanck by a supporting character, rather than unfolding directly in the narrative. It thus seemed a little more like an insertion rather than an organic part of the story. Otherwise, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Placing Norse myth in the context of a dystopian crime story gives a new perspective on the Norse gods and the stories about them. Hanck is also an engaging character whom I liked reading about, and Ostergren's dystopian vision is quite interesting - he leaves just enough out to fire up the imagination.
