49:. The protagonist of the novel is Eva, an Icelander who spent most of her formative years in California, and works as an artist. Largely estranged from her family, recently abandoned by her long-term partner Hrafn (and emotionally scarred by the cot-death some years before of her daughter by him), and implicitly without a very successful career, Eva moves from New York to Reykjavík, taking up the offer of an Icelandic banker, Emil Þorsson, to house-sit his flat, in one of the new developments on Sæbraut, opposite the sculpture
306:'eine unerbittliche Geschichte über die Ausbeutung des weiblichen Körpers durch die Gegenwartskunst und -medien, nimmt eine noch stärkere Engführung zwischen moderner Stadtarchitektur und dem Zerfall der ethischen Grundlagen der Gesellschaft vor. In diesem Text hat die zeitgenössische Architektur eine geradezu apokalyptische Dimension erreicht und repräsentiert das Böse an sich': Jürg Glauser,
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cameras and it is implied that Eva is in fact part of an art installation by a famous Serbo-Croatian artist, Joseph Novak. Eva is forced to follow instructions she receives by telephone to put her face into a face-shaped impression in the bedroom wall; while wearing this 'mask' she loses consciousness and generally finds herself unable to remember what happens to her.
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imprisonment and her efforts to understand what happens to her while wearing the mask. It is hinted that she is (or at least believes she is) variously sexually abused; paraded as a celebrity at parties for the elite of the banking and art worlds; reunited with Hrafn; and eventually celebrated herself as a successful artist.
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is 'one of the books most obviously pessimistic about culture that have appeared in iceland in recent years'. He finds that the novel, 'a relentless story of the exploitation of the female body by contemporary art and media, draws an even deeper link between modern city architecture and the decay of
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might be construed as a crisis-novel, where the newly-built house of nouveau riche plenty, owned by a “financial viking”, turns on the inhabitant, starts torturing her before literally (and symbolically) devouring her. It is in all ways a novel written about the times pre-crisis and it successfully
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After a series of somewhat strange encounters with neighbours which serve as opportunities to develop Eva's character and back-story, and to build narrative tension, Eva finds herself locked into the flat, a situation that persists for most of the novel. It emerges that the flat is full of hidden
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The third-person narrative is recounted largely from the point of view of Eva while not wearing the mask, during which time she often drinks heavily or takes sedatives. Eva makes attempts to escape, but is unsuccessful. The narrative focuses on the psychological torment inflicted on Eva by her
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the ethical foundations of society. In this text, contemporary architecture has reached an almost apocalyptic dimension and represents evil in itself'. Other commentary too has focused on the novel's explorations of warped domestic spaces and the status of women.
349:Örn Orri Ólafsson, 'Karlmaður Viktoríutímabilsins snýr aftur: Krufning hryllingsins í Konum eftir Steinar Braga' (unpublished BA dissertation, University of Iceland, 2013),
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The novel has also been analysed by Örn Orri Ólafsson in relation to horror fiction and
Victorian Gothicism, and by Viðar Þorsteinsson as an exploration of life under
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demonstrates the seeds of the city’s, and the country’s, self-destruction, through a kind of symbolic pre-cognition.
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Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, 'Literature in the Land of the
Inherently Cute: The Search for Literary Crisis', in
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http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/Literature-In-The-Land-Of-The-Inherently-Cute
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Diachronic
Binding: The Novel Form and the Gendered Temporalities of Debt and Credit
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29:. It enjoyed considerable critical and commercial success, was nominated for the
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Aspects of the story are continued in
Steinar Bragi's 2009
366:' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University, 2016).
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Viðar Þorsteinsson, ‘Fjármálavæðing og mótun tímans í
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Bibliographic details of the original and translations
336:Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, „Listin að pína konur“,
141:, 2nd edn (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 2009),
134:; 9789979989615 (ib.); 9979657375; 9979989610
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243:"Bókmenntir.is - Himinninn yfir Þingvöllum"
156:by Steinar Bragi', trans. by Alda Kravec,
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167:, trans. by Inge Knutsson (Stockholm:
81:has read the novel in relation to the
67:Himinninn yfir Þingvöllum: Þrjár sögur
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310:(Stuttgart: Metzler, 2011), p. 153.
297:(Stuttgart: Metzler, 2011), p. 153.
113:during the Icelandic banking boom.
101:In the assessment of Jürg Glauser,
397:Icelandic Literature Center review
276:(Krytyka Polityczna, 2010) and in
83:2008–11 Icelandic financial crisis
47:2008–11 Icelandic financial crisis
45:during the boom that preceded the
33:, and has been widely translated.
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31:Nordic Council's Literature Prize
351:http://hdl.handle.net/1946/15041
308:Island: Eine Literaturgeschichte
295:Island: Eine Literaturgeschichte
245:. bokmenntir.is. Archived from
152:'Love and Art: An Excerpt From
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274:Kulturalne oblicza Islandii
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126:(Reykjavík: Nýhil, 2008),
427:Icelandic-language novels
338:Tímarit Máls og menningar
340:, 70.4 (2009), 109-113.
321:Steinar Bragi | Kvinnor
379:eftir Steinar Braga’,
362:Vidar Thorsteinsson, '
278:The Reykjavḱ Grapevine
179:; 9127121968 (Swedish)
422:Novels set in Iceland
280:(2011/4), 12--13, 24
209:; 8361006990 (Polish)
194:; 2864247364 (French)
383:, 15.3 (2015), 9–33.
327:(24 September 2010).
79:Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
41:The novel is set in
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319:Karin Widegård, „
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412:2009 novels
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229:References
21:is a 2008
171:, 2010),
43:Reykjavík
25:novel by
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74:Analyses
37:Synopsis
391:Sources
199:Kobiety
165:Kvinnor
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51:Sólfar
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218:ISBN
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