Hotel Silence
『Ör』は英題『Hotel Silence』として知られるアイスランドの小説。離婚し、娘との関係にも揺らいだ中年男性ヨーナスが、死を考えて戦争の傷跡が残る国へ旅立つが、荒れたホテルや町の人々を修理するうちに、自分の傷も別の光の中で見始める。
作品情報
壊れたホテルを直す手が、やがて自分自身の生をつなぎ直していく。
アウズル・アヴァ・オラフソドッティルによる北欧理事会文学賞受賞作。ヨーナスは工具箱だけを携えて見知らぬ国へ向かい、ホテル・サイレンスに滞在する。内戦後の町で彼は、壊れた設備を直し、住民の求めに応じるうちに、死の計画から少しずつ離れていく。軽やかな皮肉と深い哀しみが共存する再生の物語。
レビュー要約
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静かなユーモアと暗い現実を併せ持つ語りが評価されている。主人公の受動的な旅が、他者の傷と出会うことで少しずつ生の方向へ変わっていく点に余韻がある。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Grove Press, Black Cat
- 発売日
- 2018-02-13
- ページ数
- 288ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 13.34 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780802127501
- ISBN-10
- 0802127509
- 価格
- 3363 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, Hotel Silence is a delightful and heartwarming new novel from Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, a writer who “upends expectations” ( New York Times ). Told with grace, insight, and humor, this is the story of one man’s surprising mid-life adventure of self-discovery that leads him to find a new reason for being. Jónas Ebeneser is a handy DIY kind of man with a compulsion to fix things, but he can’t seem to fix his own life. On the cusp of turning fifty, divorced, adrift, he’s recently discovered he is not the biological father of his daughter, Gudrun Waterlily, and he has sunk into an existential crisis, losing all will to live. As he visits his senile mother in a nursing home, he secretly muses on how, when, and where to put himself out of his misery. To prevent his only daughter from discovering his body, Jónas decides it’s best to die abroad. Armed with little more than his toolbox and a change of clothes, he flies to an unnamed country where the fumes of war still hover in the air. He books a room at the sparsely occupied Hotel Silence, in a small town riddled with landmines and the aftershocks of violence, and there he comes to understand the depths of other people’s scars while beginning to see his wounds in a new light. A celebration of life’s infinite possibilities, of transformations and second chances, Hotel Silence is a rousing story of a man, a community, and a path toward regeneration from the depths of despair.
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1958, studied art history in Paris and has lectured in the history of art. She has published a poetry collection and several novels, including Butterflies in November , which was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and The Greenhouse , which was translated into twenty-two languages, won the DV Culture Award for Literature, and was a finalist for the Nordic Council Literature Award. She currently lives and works in Reykjavik as the director of the University of Iceland’s Art Museum.
レビュー
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Gem of a book
A wonderful book about the redemptive possibilities of connection. The writing is sparse, but in one sentence Olafsdottir can convey a character’s entire lifetime. It is not a “lighthearted” book as some reviews have described it, but it is a beautiful portrayal of how all of us struggle to survive.
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A quiet, powerful story - Loved it!
A man believes his life no longer has any meaning. He sells his business and takes a flight to an unknown destination where he intends to end his life. He arrives at Hotel Silence, a formerly beautiful hotel in a village devastated by regional war. The people he meets are survivors, quietly determined to keep on living despite the destruction surrounding them. His abilities as a handyman are in dire need and he is drawn to help them rebuild their lives and their village and in so doing, he begins to question the reason that brought him here. The heartbreaking realities of the aftermath of a terrible war no one wants to remember or talk about are treated with a gentle but sure hand, and food for thought. I read the book in 3 evenings – I did not want the story to end and I will read the book again in a few months.
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If you are looking for a different book
Book club Enjoyed
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Non in italiano
Solo in inglese (non precisato)
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Four Stars
Touching story with likeable main character and interesting locale. Tinged with humor as well as poignancy.
関連する文学賞
- 北欧評議会文学賞 第58回（2018年） ・Winner