Book Review of Hotel Silence by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Iceland | To Make Much of Time travel blog

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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(click the image above to purchase the book through Amazon)

288 pages, originally published in 2016 in Icelandic; published in 2018 in English

YOU MAY ENJOY THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE:

literary fiction * novels about trips * modern Icelandic literature

TRAVEL INSPIRATION:

Hotel Silence takes place in Iceland for the novel's beginning and ending and sandwiched in the middle it takes place in an unnamed country that is emerging from a recent war. While it isn't possible to pinpoint a country for the largest segment of the book, in some ways it can represent anywhere that finds itself seeking to recover post-conflict. A place name is meaningless in a place struggling to redefine itself. What attracted me to this and other books by Ólafsdóttir is that is she an Icelandic writer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Born and raised in Iceland, Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir currently resides in Reykjavík where she is an assistant professor of art history at the University of Iceland. She lived in Paris while obtaining her art history degree from Sorbonne. At present, Auður has written 6 novels. Hotel Silence is her fifth novel. She has received several literary awards for her novels and is also a playwright and poet.

I recently read and reviewed Ólafsdóttir’s second novel, Butterflies in November, as a way to connect with Iceland in lieu of what would have been our second road trip in the country but which we had to cancel due to COVID-19. (You can read that review here). As I write this, I am about a quarter of the way through another one of Ólafsdóttir’s (Miss Iceland) with another one (The Greenhouse) on order. It is rare for me to read so much in such short order by the same author, but there is something that appeals to me about Ólafsdóttir’s stories - her playful writing style while still tackling tough issues - and what is emerging as a consistent trend to her novels - characters at a crossroads in their lives taking a journey as part of the path forward.

Note: because the Icelandic tradition is to use patronyms instead of family names (i.e., Ólafsdóttir literally means ‘Olaf’s daughter’), it is appropriate to refer to Auður by her first name. On pronunciation: the letter ‘ð’ (capitalized Ð) is pronounced like a ‘th’ sound so her name approximates to oi-th-ur. The letter is called ‘eth’ (just like the letter b would be bee).

REVIEW OF hotel silence BY AUÐUR AVA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR

There is something reminiscent of both Albert Camus and Kate Chopin (The Awakening) in Hotel Silence. The main character, Jónas, is having something of an existential, midlife crisis whose conclusion has been determined: he will kill himself. Jónas is weighed down with a failed marriage that was long-loveless before its official demise, his elderly mother is contending with dementia, and he knows that his young adult daughter was never biologically his. It is only consideration for his daughter that sets Jónas on a path to commit the deed somewhere where there is no concern that his daughter might be the one to discover his body. Jónas is a handyman by trade and so packs minimal belongings (after all, the nearly dead want for little) and his tool box (in case he needs to rig a light fixture to hang from, for example) before absconding to the recently war-torn country.

In a country that no longer gets tourists, Jónas is immediately a cause for wonder and concern among the locals. The couple of “tourists” who have visited are there for the spoils - artifacts that can be whisked out of the country and sold for profit. Jónas stays at a hotel (called Hotel Silence) run by a brother and sister who took over the hotel’s upkeep when their relatives fled the country. The hotel is only just opening up and is in relatively good shape, all things considered, but in need of repairs and maintenance. Handyman Jónas showing up with tool box in tow is serendipity as far as the proprietors are concerned!

In no time, Jónas becomes integral to the hotel and forms relationships with the proprietors and the son of the sister. Townspeople beg him to make minor repairs. With a large percentage of the country’s men having fled or died, there are few people around qualified to do repairs, when they can even find the tools and items necessary to make them.

For a man desperately wanting a wave to sweep him out to sea, Jónas finds himself caught in the shoreline ebb and flow. With one toe in deeper waters, the other is firmly planted, held in place by the townsfolk.

Jónas’ personal, internal struggles are juxtaposed against what he thinks of as the real struggles of the community he has been ingratiated into, missing initially that all battles ultimately occur on an individual basis.

Ultimately, I felt that Hotel Silence captured a feeling so foundational to humanity: the need to be needed and find personal value in that. Jónas was no longer needed in his marriage, his mother’s life, and his (non-biological) daughter’s life but found himself desperately needed by a community in another country where they didn’t even have a shared native language to communicate. Sometimes, running away can save you.

DISCUSS hotel silence

Have you ever visited a place that is not frequented by tourists due to war or other safety concerns? Would you? And share the parts of this novel that most resonated with you.

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