Her only company is her computer and an old grenade that has followed her since World War II. Herra Björnsson is an eighty-year-old woman living alone in a garage in rural Reykjavík. “But just bear in mind that the madhouse is in a lot of places.” The story has been made into a movie which received many awards and many of the sentences in the book live with Icelanders in everyday life. It has sometimes been described as the Icelandic version of “ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ”. It is a compelling novel, especially as the main character is built from Einar’s own brother. He is placed in the mental hospital, Kleppur, where he meets the most colorful of persons who bring a lot of the humor found in the book. The main character is extremely intelligent and often light in mood but has experiences with paranoia, depression and hallucinations and experiments with drugs which does not help. This story will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, with a lot of darkness but not without humor or wit. It is a story of a man’s descent into madness and the emotions and conflicts that it brings. Angels of the Universe is a book every high schooler in Iceland is made to read and for a good reason.
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