From the Mouth of the Whale
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Men of science marvel over a unicorn’s horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret and both books and men are burnt.
Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen foul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Jonas recalls his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children. From the Mouth of the Whale is a magical evocation of an enlightened mind and a vanished age.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
From the Mouth of the Whale is a powerful and poignant artistic idiom of Iceland. It masterly evokes the very fabric of narration; its combination of subtle poetic vision and grotesque naturalistic metaphor in presenting the basic unity of time, space, nature and human existence.
The book is a beautifully structured historical novel, exploring the idea space of the pre-enlightenment renaissance with thoughtful voracity and a rational appreciation for the fantastic.