Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (3.5 stars)

This feels like the True History of the Kelly Gang for Iceland. It is historical fiction based on the fate of Agnes Magnúsdóttir who was charged with murder and was the last person to be executed in Iceland in 1829. As a debut it is very impressive. The writing is outstanding, at times lyrical, and it provides a powerful portrait of the hardship of rural Iceland. Agnes grabs your attention from the very first sentence, this is the opening:

They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a gray wreath of smoke.

The research undertaken by Kent for the novel must have been enormous: not only into the details of the murder case, trial, and execution, but also covering the lifestyle of rural Iceland in the 19th century. I enjoyed reading interesting and detailed accounts of wheat harvesting, sheep butchering, sausage making, etc. It was made abundantly clear that life was hard for pretty much everyone, and female servants not only worked hard in terrible conditions, but were the subject of much abuse with very little prospect for improvement. Winter was a physical and mental prison for many months of the year.

Despite all that praise I didn't find myself particularly invested in this novel. As best I can tell, this comes down to the character development because the writing was great, the setting was interesting, and the plot moved along nicely. Agnes-the-character wasn't nearly as interesting as Agnes-the-story, which was largely portrayed as a wrong-place wrong-time kind of affair. Natan seemed interesting as a character - conflicted, manipulative, and intelligent, but he is barely present in the story, just flitting in and out of Agnes' POV. I liked this quote:

Natan did not believe in sin. He said that it is the flaw in the character that makes a person.

An interesting read, and well-written.

3.5 stars