“Reykjavik café” by Sólveig Jónsdóttir is one of those choral books, in which the stories intertwine with each other and revolve around a common pivot. In this case, the pivot is the café that gives the book its name.
It is a light and pleasant read, one of those comfortable books to read when you want a story of rebirth and reconstruction, which gives hope. Even though I have no literary ambitions, I found it interesting from some points of view.
Hervör is a waitress and has a complicated history with a professor who is older than her, Karen has to face a devastating loss and suffocates the pain in an unruly life that makes her suffer even more, Silja and Mía share the same fate: a love that ends because of other women. In a very cold Reykjavík, these four girls on the threshold of thirty will rebuild their lives, they will fall, they will meet, they will help each other, they will hate each other, without ever really bonding.
I don’t like collections of short stories and, despite this, I have found myself reading choral books several times, small literary mosaics where each piece is close to another, in a more or less conscious way. I didn’t like all of them, because there are often too many voices, they overlap, mix and confuse. “Reykjavík Café”, however, in its lightness, was a pleasant read. The lives of the protagonists clearly intersect and it is therefore easy to follow them along their tracks and the stories, although all united by a need for revenge, are different and multifaceted.
Jónsdóttir writes fluidly, the reading flows quickly and manages to make people appreciate a book which, although not original or very profound, is pleasant. I returned every time to open “Reykjavík Café” with the desire to peek into the lives of four friends, with that curiosity you have towards someone you stay away from for a while and for whom you are in some way responsible, as if see how he’s doing. The answer was: sometimes good, sometimes bad, like in reality.
The cross-section of Icelandic life that emerges page after page is interesting: I found it the true strength of the book, because it tells, by setting it in the stories, the daily life of those who live up there, in a place where everyone knows each other and where it is easy to meet, where going out means facing harsh temperatures and where tourists are increasingly present.
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“Reykjavík Café” by Sólveig Jónsdóttirè, Marsilio publisher.
