"Sometimes in small places life becomes bigger", sometimes the distance from the noise of the world opens us to the call of the heart, the senses, the dreams. It is this intense feeling that erupts from the life of a village of four hundred souls in the Icelandic countryside, where the infinite light of summer makes you want to uncover the houses and the eternal night of winter ignites the magic of the stars. A microcosm that is like a magnifying glass on the eternal game between human desires and the plots of destiny, between the limits of reality and the wings of imagination. The manager of the knitwear factory who, in order to decipher the phrase of a dream, immerses himself in Latin and astronomy until he abandons everything for the secrets of the universe, the life-hungry postwoman who reads every letter and then makes public the most spicy private affairs of the villagers, the lawyer who believes that the world is based on calculation but then discovers that he cannot count the fish in the sea or his tears. Every path of the human soul seems to find space in a kaleidoscope of stories that embraces the most turbid impulses and the purest feelings, the palpitation of the only summer lived by the lambs before ending up at the slaughterhouse and the thrill of a ruin that awakens ghosts, or the need for mystery that is in man. Combining the enchantment of poetry and a relentless humor but full of tenderness for human weaknesses, Stefánsson seeks an answer to the question "Why do we live?" and pursues it by immersing us in the overflowing river of life. Each story is a world suspended between earth and sky, like a universal myth, a parable of existence, each page is a revelation that touches us deeply and amazes us, makes us laugh, cry, blush, dream.
Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night
Year
2005
Pages
272
Description
"Sometimes in small places life becomes bigger", sometimes the distance from the noise of the world opens us to the call of the heart, the senses, the dreams. It is this intense feeling that erupts from the life of a village of four hundred souls in the Icelandic countryside, where the infinite light of summer makes you want to uncover the houses and the eternal night of winter ignites the magic of the stars. A microcosm that is like a magnifying glass on the eternal game between human desires and the plots of destiny, between the limits of reality and the wings of imagination. The manager of the knitwear factory who, in order to decipher the phrase of a dream, immerses himself in Latin and astronomy until he abandons everything for the secrets of the universe, the life-hungry postwoman who reads every letter and then makes public the most spicy private affairs of the villagers, the lawyer who believes that the world is based on calculation but then discovers that he cannot count the fish in the sea or his tears. Every path of the human soul seems to find space in a kaleidoscope of stories that embraces the most turbid impulses and the purest feelings, the palpitation of the only summer lived by the lambs before ending up at the slaughterhouse and the thrill of a ruin that awakens ghosts, or the need for mystery that is in man. Combining the enchantment of poetry and a relentless humor but full of tenderness for human weaknesses, Stefánsson seeks an answer to the question "Why do we live?" and pursues it by immersing us in the overflowing river of life. Each story is a world suspended between earth and sky, like a universal myth, a parable of existence, each page is a revelation that touches us deeply and amazes us, makes us laugh, cry, blush, dream.
What to read after Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night.
Tell us what you’re craving.
