{"id":301166,"date":"2015-04-23T17:59:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T17:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2015\/04\/23\/latest-review-the-indian-by-jon-gnarr\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:09:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:09:35","slug":"latest-review-the-indian-by-jon-gnarr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2015\/04\/23\/latest-review-the-indian-by-jon-gnarr\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Review: "The Indian" by J\u00f3n Gnarr"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest addition<\/a> to our Reviews<\/a> section is a piece by P. T. Smith on J\u00f3n Gnarr’s The Indian<\/em>, translated by Lytton Smith and out this month from Deep Vellum.<\/p>\n

J\u00f3n Gnarr is an actor, punk rocker, comedian, and author who created the satirical \u201cBest Party\u201d in Iceland and, against all odds, rose to become major of Reykjav\u00edk. He is one of the world\u2019s most colorful politicians, and this is your chance to meet the man who has both enthralled and often flummoxed the media with his achievements and outlandish attitude. This new book explores the obstacles J\u00f3n overcame during a time in his life when he was originally diagnosed with \u201cmental retardation\u201d due to dyslexia, learning difficulties, and ADHD<\/span>.<\/p>\n

We have the pleasure of hosting a Reading the World Conversation Series<\/a> event with J\u00f3n and Lytton at 6 p.m. tonight, at the College Town Barnes & Noble. The event is free and open to the public, and is going to be AMAZING<\/span>! <\/p>\n

Here’s the beginning of Patrick’s review:<\/p>\n

\n

The opening of J\u00f3n Gnarr\u2019s novel\/memoir The Indian<\/em> is a playful bit of extravagant ego, telling the traditional story of creation, where the \u201cLet there be light!\u201d moment is also the moment of his birth on January 2nd, 1967. Then comes sly awareness of the flow from preconsciousness to consciousness, \u201cMurmuring becomes speech and words. Everything gradually clarifies, taking on a fantastic light. You get on intimate terms with your existence.\u201d It is his life story, so why not make God\u2019s creation of the universe culminate with him? This stylistic turn is Gnarr\u2019s immediate signal to reiterate his author\u2019s note: this is both a memoir and a novel. It will tell a truthful story of his life, but the only way to do that, with faulty memories, with absence of memories, is through literature. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

As readers, we should interpret it as we do fiction: creatively, poetically, without leaving behind the emotions and the struggles, even the lessons learned, that biography offers. The Indian has everything that people want from mainstream literature: emotions, plot, likeable characters, lessons learned, personal growth, yet it is so much better\u2014the emotions and characters more complex, the writing skillful. This is the type of book that readers deserve, both those who read widely and those who read four or five \u201cpopular\u201d books a year.
\nAfter the opening, Gnarr leaves that ego aside for a couple chapters to tell us about his family, his parents, his significantly older siblings, his grandparents. He summarizes their lives, tells how they came to live in a suburb of Reykjav\u00edk. The Indian<\/em> will be his life, his story, and he lives it in a private, isolated world, but Gnarr cares for the lives around him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For the rest of the review, go here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest addition to our Reviews section is a piece by P. T. Smith on J\u00f3n Gnarr’s The Indian, translated by Lytton Smith and out this month from Deep Vellum. J\u00f3n Gnarr is an actor, punk rocker, comedian, and author who created the satirical \u201cBest Party\u201d in Iceland and, against all odds, rose to become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67456],"tags":[56186,6046,60596,18236,52096,1646,60606],"class_list":["post-301166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-deep-vellum","tag-icelandic-literature","tag-jon-gnarr","tag-lytton-smith","tag-p-t-smith","tag-review","tag-the-indian"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309426,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301166\/revisions\/309426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}