Der Spiegel likens Halldór Armand’s novel to Gogol

Der Spiegel has compared Icelandic author Halldór Armand’s novel Mikilvægt rusl to the work of Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, mbl.is reports. The book has been published in German.

In Gogol’s story The Nose, a barber finds a severed nose in a sandwich. In Armand’s novel, the rubbish collector Gómur Barðdal finds a nose in a bin in the Þingholt neighborhood.

Der Spiegel reviewer Marcus Müntefering writes that Gogol held a mirror up to the Russian Empire, and that Armand does the same by showing how Iceland, a “small, eccentric and peaceful society,” is fully capable of sowing the seeds of its own destruction.

Müntefering describes the novel as a wild, hilarious journey into absurdity, full of incidents, wordplay and absurd twists. He concludes that its concise analysis of capitalism should be required reading at events such as the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, since those concerned have no time to read critiques by Jean Ziegler or Thomas Piketty.