A review by liisp_cvr2cvr
Storytellers by Bjørn Larssen

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 
There were so many things I liked about this book that I don’t know where to start with telling you about them. How many things did I like? Well, after consideration, I liked all the things about Storytellers. 
Read this… 

The thud of the body landing on the good chair sent the dog into hysteria. Gunnar carefully lifted one of the man’s eyelids with a blackened finger. The stranger’s wrinkled face contorted, lips opened in a soundless groan, and Gunnar let out a long breath. Alive. Good. Then he could wait. 
Storytellers 

This is the opening of the book… I immediately had so many questions. What’s the ‘not good’ chair like? Who’s the stranger? What happened to him? Did Gunnar hurt him? And the ‘he could wait’ told me straight away a piece about Gunnar’s character. 

Gunnar, the MC. He works and he drinks. He has an old house that is visited once a week by a cleaning lady. Sometimes Gunnar visits the doctor for his medicine. Note that the Prohibition law is in place. Gunnar has a horse named Karl and a dog named Ragnar. He has a forge. Every serious blacksmith has a forge they can work in. But such are things with Gunnar. A quiet, routine life. Forgotten as he is, living out of town, he has no friends to speak of, nothing else in his life… just work and booze, sorry, medicine. 

In a sense, Gunnar is the kind of man who lives life by ‘factory settings’ – I mean, he doesn’t follow the clock. He does his chores. He enjoys the bit of life he has to enjoy. But like every human, he has things on his soul that bother him and there are bouts of depression. I think this book hit me most, because as a character with his goods and flaws, he is so much like someone close to me and I kept nodding at however Gunnar was behaving, because – yes, it is him. 
For everybody else, today was the first day of spring. For the blacksmith, it was the day he was turning thirty-five. Gunnar celebrated it by locking himself at home and drinking by the fire all day, trying to silence the voice of the darkness which always accompanied him on that day. Now that he was going to stop drinking very soon, he had now idea what he would do the next time. But then, he didn’t expect to see thirty-six anyway.
Storytellers 

Anyway, a stranger comes along and he stays for a while and starts telling Gunnar a story. Honestly – the story from the past is a brilliantly written piece of mystery. I did not have a single idea how this was going to play out. I had zero theories, I couldn’t figure it out – although, in hindsight, I have 20/20 vision. Ha! The past and present are both so full of humanity and what people are capable of, that I would call Storytellers a celebration to society, warts and all. 

Everything in this book is written with great care, there are small details that make this story special… I liked the setting in 1920s Iceland with an additional story unraveling from the decade or so past. I like the mystery that was being slowly revealed, I liked the village where the events were taking place. I like the writing, I liked the dialogue, I liked the pace, I liked the conclusion, I liked the terrifying and surprising twists, and I liked the slight wit and humor that took me by surprise when I least expected it. I’m still sitting here, chuckling to myself , when I remember the bits and bobs that humorously added spice to the whole book. 

It’s a fantastic book. And Gunnar remains my favorite of the whole because he is so TRUE TO NATURE and so realistic when it comes to the alcohol abuse that I was quite shaken to see how he behaved, how his moods changed, how he found excuses… It was heartbreakingly realistic. There’s a certain misery present around Gunnar, but at the same time his character, his spirit is 100% good and naive and innocent. Gunnar is one of the most authentic characters that have ever leaped off the page for me… 
Perhaps, thought Gunnar, he could even stay around during Halldóra’s visit, seeing as he needed to practice for the Concerner… Conervative… the Women who were going to invade tomorrow.
Storytellers 

A few more things that presented the human nature down to a T, and that I very much enjoyed. Like the way, we sometimes disguise our being ever so helpful as our holiest virtue whilst underneath there is some sort of a benefit of being helpful to ourselves. I am not talking about doing good because it’s the right thing to do. I am talking about the potential material benefit we hope to receive, as well as the possibility of us looking good to everyone else – look at me, I am the greatest because I did a good thing. All the while, the do-gooder, blinded by the benefits to themselves, has not even considered to ask if help is needed, or indeed wanted. So sometimes, eagerly doing good for someone is actually in some way harming them. Storytellers had a brilliant example of this. As people, we are not all cookie cutter same. If Gunnar doesn’t want a clock, then so be it. If he doesn’t want a car, so be it. Let us now force our ways upon someone else. 

The other example of human nature was the way how we play the game ‘Telephone’ as a society at large. Something happens, and by word of mouth, this fact is turned on its head, all sorts of various conclusions drawn from it by all sorts of various people who then act based on said wishy-washy snippets, facts long forgotten. How toxic and dangerous a mass of humans can be! 
Anyway, Storytellers is great. I see myself re-reading this title in the future!