The Whispering Muse

The celebrated Icelandic novelist weaves together ancient myth and modern history in this lyrical, compact novel of a voyage from Denmark to the Black Sea.

The Icelandic poet, playwright and novelist Sjón has won countless international awards and earned ringing comparisons to Borges, Calvino, and Iceland’s other literary superstar, Halldór Laxness. In The Whispering Muse, he delves into the murky waters of post-WWII Europe, Nordic and Greek mythologies, and the vaunted benefits of a seafood diet.

The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an aged scholar with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has has been invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its maiden voyage to the Black Sea. Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner Caeneus entrances his fellow travelers with tales of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on its quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

What unfolds is a slender but brilliant novel that ranges deftly from the comic to the mythic as it weaves together tales of antiquity with the modern world.