Narrator (2015)

On a rainy day in the middle of June, on the day England and Costa Rica meet in the World Cup, G., a thirty-five-year-old aspiring writer is waiting in line at the post office to mail off a manuscript—a story about a day in the life of a thirty-five-year-old man. That’s when he notices a man he knows. Or rather knew. Sort of knew. A man who used to go out with a girl G. loved from afar. The only girl he’s ever loved. All his hatred of this man comes rushing back—including his foolish wish that the man would die—and he takes off, following him throughout the streets of Reykjavik. This strange game of cat and mouse takes some dark turns though, evolving into a complex, introspective journey of a man struggling to complete the unfinished narrative of his own life. See interview: https://grapevine.is/icelandic-culture/literature-and-poetry/book-review/2018/07/26/the-reykjavik-writer-bragi-olafssons-narrator-published-by-open-letter-books/

The book is also a descendant of the nouveau roman, taking formal cues from and shaping its particular version of narrative play in the mold of the enigmatic novels of writers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor and Nathalie Sarraute.

… Ólafsson does manage to take the reader on a compelling journey into the tragicomic world that erupts from man’s inability to adequately process shame and the inevitable narcissism that flows from that ineptitude.

… Each and every day we are the narrators of our own stories — analyzing our actions, explaining our feelings, translating our experiences, to ourselves and to the world. With rare exception, we cast ourselves as the tragic heroes of the stories of our lives, as G. does here. Ironically, because all narrators — yes, even you, even me — are inherently unreliable, this role of tragic hero becomes more accurate than we are ever able to comprehend.