Hallgrimur Helgason (1) (1959–)
Author of The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning
For other authors named Hallgrimur Helgason, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Image credit: Photographer: Ari Magg, www.norden.org
Works by Hallgrimur Helgason
Koma jól? 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1959-02-18
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Art Academy of Iceland
Academy of Fine Arts in Munich - Occupations
- columnist
painter
novelist
translator - Awards and honors
- Icelandic Literary Prize in 2001
- Short biography
- Hallgrímur Helgason was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1959. He started out as an artist and debuted as a novelist in 1990, gaining international attention with his third novel, 101 Reykjavík, which was translated into fourteen languages and made into a film. He has thrice been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, including for his novel Woman at 1,000 Degrees. Also a columnist and a father of three, he now divides his time between Reykjavík and Hrísey Island. His website is HallgrimurHelgason.com.
- Nationality
- Iceland
- Birthplace
- Reykjavík, Iceland
- Places of residence
- Reykjavík, Iceland
München, Germany - Map Location
- Iceland
- Disambiguation notice
- VIAF:59223703
Members
Reviews
A few years ago I read the experimental sixties novel Tómas Jónsson: Bestseller, and assumed that the smelly, old, antisocial, self-proclaimed rapist and serial-killer Tómas must be as unpleasant as an Icelandic anti-hero could get. Well, that was before I met Hallgrímur's protagonist Hlynur Björn. He's thirty-three years old, still living with his mother, and has never done a day's work in his life. He gets up around four in the afternoon, and spends his time watching porn, hanging show more around in bars, lusting after women he hasn't slept with yet, and running away from those who have been weak and foolish enough to have had sex with him in the past. When drunk or on drugs he's liable to indulge in unplanned bad behaviour that make the sheet-burning, sexual assault and vomiting of the classic antiheroes of sixties Angry Young Men novels look like mere boorishness.
The only reason anyone would want to spend 350 pages in the company of this walking disaster area (and it's only the slimmest of reasons: this is a book you might well decide to toss aside when you reach page two and Hlynur is already masturbating all over it) is Hlynur's hilariously frank and funny narrative voice, which makes you keep reading, despite your common sense telling you this is only going to get worse, because he makes you want to find out how Hlynur gets out of this particular mess. Brian FitzGibbon has clearly done an amazing job translating Hallgrímur's complicated puns, code-switching, pop-culture references and mockery of Icelandic culture.
There is a plot of sorts, with nods to Hamlet, Gazon maudit and Independent people (amongst other things), and Hlynur is exposed to a whole string of powerful life-changing events, all of which miraculously fail to change his life in any obvious way. Indeed, as in Tómas Jónsson, we're never completely sure how much Hlynur has really experienced and how much has been a drug-induced hallucination.
A book in the worst possible taste, and not something I would ever have picked up if I'd known more about it, but still very funny and oddly compelling. show less
The only reason anyone would want to spend 350 pages in the company of this walking disaster area (and it's only the slimmest of reasons: this is a book you might well decide to toss aside when you reach page two and Hlynur is already masturbating all over it) is Hlynur's hilariously frank and funny narrative voice, which makes you keep reading, despite your common sense telling you this is only going to get worse, because he makes you want to find out how Hlynur gets out of this particular mess. Brian FitzGibbon has clearly done an amazing job translating Hallgrímur's complicated puns, code-switching, pop-culture references and mockery of Icelandic culture.
There is a plot of sorts, with nods to Hamlet, Gazon maudit and Independent people (amongst other things), and Hlynur is exposed to a whole string of powerful life-changing events, all of which miraculously fail to change his life in any obvious way. Indeed, as in Tómas Jónsson, we're never completely sure how much Hlynur has really experienced and how much has been a drug-induced hallucination.
A book in the worst possible taste, and not something I would ever have picked up if I'd known more about it, but still very funny and oddly compelling. show less
This is a variant of a classic formula very popular in Hollywood: the bad guy on the run arrives in a small, peaceful community, and, supported by the Love of a Good Woman and the good advice of wise Father and Mother figures, builds a new life for himself as an honest citizen. But he still has one last, decisive confrontation with the ghosts of his past to deal with before the film ends.
Hallgrímur is clearly interested in this idea mainly by the scope it gives him for looking at Iceland show more through the eyes of someone as incongruous as possible to Icelandic society, the New York-based Croatian Mafia hitman Tomislav Boksic, alias Toxic, formed by the unspeakable atrocities he took part in as a youngster during the Balkan wars and proud of his professional, detached and efficient approach to murder. He's on the run from the Feds after his 67th hit went wrong, and has somehow ended up in Reykjavik assuming the identity of a televangelist from Virginia.
Needless to say, Hallgrímur — who wrote the book in English first, then translated it into Icelandic — has endless fun letting Tomislav narrate in exaggerated, pastiche Raymond Chandler noir language, in the most impeccably bad taste. In the audiobook, the corny cod-Balkan accent Luke Daniels uses for Tomislav feels exactly right, and enhances the effect. Inevitably, Tomislav also has his own Balkan slant on Hlynur Björn's most tasteless running joke (cf. [101 Reykjavik]) — he gives every woman he sees a score based on the number of nights it would take before he started dreaming about her, if he were stuck in an army camp where she was the only woman.
Tomislav seems so extremely divorced from any kind of moral universe we could identify with that at first it's like looking at Iceland through the eyes of a Martian, but of course Hallgrímur gradually humanises him as we go on through the story, trying to get us to the point where we start asking ourselves whether we would have turned out any differently from him if we'd been plunged into the middle of a civil war in our teens. Perhaps fortunately, he doesn't quite take us along with him that far, but Tomislav does turn out to be a long way from being the cardboard cutout he seems in the opening pages of the book. The other characters also quietly subvert the stereotypes the plot seems to be asking for: Tomislav's ice-princess/anima, Gunnhildur, has all sorts of important character flaws, including the inability to keep her apartment tidy that gives Hallgrímur the hook for his title; the older generation of Icelandic Evangelicals who offer Tomislav salvation all turn out to be very damaged people themselves, but not necessarily the worse for that.
And, what's more, the book contains at least two important life-lessons for anyone intending to visit Iceland: (i) don't even think of keeping your shoes on indoors, unless they cost more than 200 dollars; and (ii) if the doorbell rings during Eurovision you probably shouldn't answer it. show less
Hallgrímur is clearly interested in this idea mainly by the scope it gives him for looking at Iceland show more through the eyes of someone as incongruous as possible to Icelandic society, the New York-based Croatian Mafia hitman Tomislav Boksic, alias Toxic, formed by the unspeakable atrocities he took part in as a youngster during the Balkan wars and proud of his professional, detached and efficient approach to murder. He's on the run from the Feds after his 67th hit went wrong, and has somehow ended up in Reykjavik assuming the identity of a televangelist from Virginia.
Needless to say, Hallgrímur — who wrote the book in English first, then translated it into Icelandic — has endless fun letting Tomislav narrate in exaggerated, pastiche Raymond Chandler noir language, in the most impeccably bad taste. In the audiobook, the corny cod-Balkan accent Luke Daniels uses for Tomislav feels exactly right, and enhances the effect. Inevitably, Tomislav also has his own Balkan slant on Hlynur Björn's most tasteless running joke (cf. [101 Reykjavik]) — he gives every woman he sees a score based on the number of nights it would take before he started dreaming about her, if he were stuck in an army camp where she was the only woman.
Tomislav seems so extremely divorced from any kind of moral universe we could identify with that at first it's like looking at Iceland through the eyes of a Martian, but of course Hallgrímur gradually humanises him as we go on through the story, trying to get us to the point where we start asking ourselves whether we would have turned out any differently from him if we'd been plunged into the middle of a civil war in our teens. Perhaps fortunately, he doesn't quite take us along with him that far, but Tomislav does turn out to be a long way from being the cardboard cutout he seems in the opening pages of the book. The other characters also quietly subvert the stereotypes the plot seems to be asking for: Tomislav's ice-princess/anima, Gunnhildur, has all sorts of important character flaws, including the inability to keep her apartment tidy that gives Hallgrímur the hook for his title; the older generation of Icelandic Evangelicals who offer Tomislav salvation all turn out to be very damaged people themselves, but not necessarily the worse for that.
And, what's more, the book contains at least two important life-lessons for anyone intending to visit Iceland: (i) don't even think of keeping your shoes on indoors, unless they cost more than 200 dollars; and (ii) if the doorbell rings during Eurovision you probably shouldn't answer it. show less
The acknowledgements credit inspiration to a woman the author spoke to when campaigning for his then partner. It manages to bring in everything from the Icelandic crash to Nazi fellow travellers, in one increasingly incredible fictional autobiography, narrated by an elderly cyber criminal whose nicotine filled lungs are giving up on her.
"After spending half my life abroad, I yearned for my country in all its crassness. All its women’s-club coffee, cake mania, cola binges and cold sauce show more orgies. All its wind and rain and bitter, grumpy men. All its myopic culture and Worst German architecture with its endless parking fields and petrol temples. It was actually so strange that in the beauty of Paris, which never meets you without her makeup, it was the rudeness of Reykjavík I missed the most, the ugliness and its rough weather. I couldn’t stand all those flowery balconies anymore, baroque palaces and quaint, arty squares, not to mention the frigging fountains. This lava longing must have had something to do with the ugliness of our land, because Iceland obviously isn’t all beautiful. Many parts of the highlands and around Snæfellsjökull are very ugly, for example, not to mention the Reykjanes Peninsula and Mount Hellisheidi, that uncooked gruel of gales and lava.
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"After spending half my life abroad, I yearned for my country in all its crassness. All its women’s-club coffee, cake mania, cola binges and cold sauce show more orgies. All its wind and rain and bitter, grumpy men. All its myopic culture and Worst German architecture with its endless parking fields and petrol temples. It was actually so strange that in the beauty of Paris, which never meets you without her makeup, it was the rudeness of Reykjavík I missed the most, the ugliness and its rough weather. I couldn’t stand all those flowery balconies anymore, baroque palaces and quaint, arty squares, not to mention the frigging fountains. This lava longing must have had something to do with the ugliness of our land, because Iceland obviously isn’t all beautiful. Many parts of the highlands and around Snæfellsjökull are very ugly, for example, not to mention the Reykjanes Peninsula and Mount Hellisheidi, that uncooked gruel of gales and lava.
Edit | More show less
Toxic, bisher erfolgreicher kroatischer Auftragskiller aus New York, erwischt bei seinem letzten Job einen FBI-Agenten. Da nun der Teufel los ist, flieht er auf dem schnellsten Weg und landet als amerikanischer Fernsehprediger in Island. Ehe er es sich versieht, steckt er mittendrin in seiner Rolle als Geistlicher und becirct nicht nur isländische Gläubige…
Schräg, schräger, am schrägsten ;-). Dass bei einem solchen Titel einen kein ‚normaler‘ Krimi erwartet, leuchtet ein. Aber es show more ist auch kein Unnormaler sondern gar keiner, vielmehr eher die Beschreibung einer Läuterung eines immens großen Sünders. Was sich nun vielleicht fade und öde anhören mag, wird jedoch bei einem Autor wie Helgason zu einem skurrilen wie auch witzigen Leseerlebnis.
Toxic, der vor seiner Laufbahn als Killer Soldat in Kroatien war, ist der Icherzähler mit einem äußerst lockeren wie auch vulgären Tonfall. Er beschreibt Island, das ihm zuvor völlig unbekannt war, aus der Sicht eines Kämpfers (‚Was ist mit diesen Isländern los? Keine Armee. Keine Pistolen. Kein Nix.‘) wie auch eines Großstadtmenschen (‚Der Dom ist so groß wie eine Hundehütte Gottes.‘) und erzählt nebenbei noch aus seinen früheren Leben. Wie ihm der Eurovision Song Contest das Leben rettete, wie er aus Versehen seinen Vater erschoss, wie er seine Morde vorbereitete (‚‘Das Opfer ist König‘ ist mein Motto.‘), wie er den Krieg erlebte (‚In unserer Einheit haben wir fünf Leben verloren, sechs Beine, drei Arme und ein paar Finger.‘). Es sind schreckliche Dinge über die er berichtet, aber dies macht er mit einer solch scheinbaren Selbstverständlichkeit und Direktheit in einer derart ungewohnten Sprache, dass man immer wieder lachen muss.
Trotz der vielen Geschichten aus der Vergangenheit Toxics bleibt die aktuelle Story, der Aufenthalt in Island, spannend. Dazu noch eine Liebesgeschichte und ein überraschender Schluss - einfach gelungen. Die volle Punktzahl gibt es nur deshalb nicht, weil es gelegentlich doch ein bisschen sehr schräg war. show less
Schräg, schräger, am schrägsten ;-). Dass bei einem solchen Titel einen kein ‚normaler‘ Krimi erwartet, leuchtet ein. Aber es show more ist auch kein Unnormaler sondern gar keiner, vielmehr eher die Beschreibung einer Läuterung eines immens großen Sünders. Was sich nun vielleicht fade und öde anhören mag, wird jedoch bei einem Autor wie Helgason zu einem skurrilen wie auch witzigen Leseerlebnis.
Toxic, der vor seiner Laufbahn als Killer Soldat in Kroatien war, ist der Icherzähler mit einem äußerst lockeren wie auch vulgären Tonfall. Er beschreibt Island, das ihm zuvor völlig unbekannt war, aus der Sicht eines Kämpfers (‚Was ist mit diesen Isländern los? Keine Armee. Keine Pistolen. Kein Nix.‘) wie auch eines Großstadtmenschen (‚Der Dom ist so groß wie eine Hundehütte Gottes.‘) und erzählt nebenbei noch aus seinen früheren Leben. Wie ihm der Eurovision Song Contest das Leben rettete, wie er aus Versehen seinen Vater erschoss, wie er seine Morde vorbereitete (‚‘Das Opfer ist König‘ ist mein Motto.‘), wie er den Krieg erlebte (‚In unserer Einheit haben wir fünf Leben verloren, sechs Beine, drei Arme und ein paar Finger.‘). Es sind schreckliche Dinge über die er berichtet, aber dies macht er mit einer solch scheinbaren Selbstverständlichkeit und Direktheit in einer derart ungewohnten Sprache, dass man immer wieder lachen muss.
Trotz der vielen Geschichten aus der Vergangenheit Toxics bleibt die aktuelle Story, der Aufenthalt in Island, spannend. Dazu noch eine Liebesgeschichte und ein überraschender Schluss - einfach gelungen. Die volle Punktzahl gibt es nur deshalb nicht, weil es gelegentlich doch ein bisschen sehr schräg war. show less
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