The Believer
By the end of the novel Emil seems as creepy as Havard, who at least is willing to display his flaws. That said, when the “smelly lump” flops on the bed, naked, bearing his weight down on the coils, we feel for Emil, who has positioned himself into a very cramped existence. Unwilling to speak, he listens as a new connection is forged on the mattress above. Thus concludes Ólafsson’s artful mystery about dead animals, mundane objects, and disobedient people. All of these, alas, are pets too hard to keep.
(Lara Tupper: The Believer)
Vestige.org
The Pets is goddamn brilliant.
The Pets is alternately funny, creepy, and wonderfully strange. It never stops moving. Janice Balfour’s translation is crisp and energetic; there’s a wonderful sense of alien-ness, of a different culture, without the prose suffering from any awkwardness or “translationese”. It feels almost like Ólafsson could have written the book in English himself, and I love that about it.
What else? The ending is phenomenal. It was dramatic, and frustrating, and a little bit shocking and awful, and the only possible way the book could have ended without being completely unsatisfying. Goddamn brilliant, I swear. I want to say more, but The Pets was surprising at every turn, and I think a lot of what works about the novel depends on not knowing what’s going to happen next.
(August C. Bourré: Vestige.org)
L.A. Times
So what we have is 157 dark, scary and unbelievably funny pages, much of which is narrated by a man hiding under his own bed. ….
…
So how long do we have to wait for English versions of his other books? Open Letter, get Janice Balfour on the phone. Takk!
(Michael Schaub: L.A. Times)
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
“Die eigentliche Leistung dieses Romans liegt im Raffinement, mit der Ólafsson es fertigbringt, die Merkwürdigkeiten seiner Story als das Normalste der Welt verkaufen. (…) Wie selbstbestimmt leben wir ?, fragt der Roman, aber auch: Wie fremdbestimmt ? (…) Bragi Ólafsson betrachtet Emils Tragödie mit komödiantischem Blick, witzig, pointiert und mehr als ein bisschen grotesk. Ein kleines Meisterwerk.”
– Marion Löhndorf, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Orlando Sentinel
Everyone has suffered through a house guest from hell — the guy who insinuates himself into the very fabric of your furniture and just won’t leave. Few of us, however, have been tracked down in another country by such a tormentor only to be occupied once again. This is the hilarious predicament of Emil Halldorsson, the finicky, misanthropic narrator of Bragi Ólafsson’s American debut. ….
By altering point of view, and tuning in to the river of talk which comes out of Havard, Ólafsson cleverly makes us doubt our narrator. Maybe he is the problem? Maybe he really should give Havard the benefit of the doubt? It’s a fascinating reversal, and a brilliant recreation of the mental flip-flop which allows house guests from hell to turn their hosts into pliable pets, and to stay on and on and on.
(John Freeman: Orlando Sentinel)
Barnes & Noble
The Pets by Bragi Ólafsson; translated by Janice Balfour The best short novel I’ve read this year must be Bragi Ólafsson’s The Pets, which makes more room for strangeness in its 157 pages than most novels can find in two or three times that length. Room is of the essence here: The Pets tells the story of a certain Emil S. Haldorsson, a young Icelander who’s just come back from a shopping trip to London. No sooner does Emil get home than he receives an unwelcome visit from his old friend Havard Knutsson, an alcoholic Swede who has spent the last few years in an institute for the criminally insane. To avoid Havard, Emil hides under his own bed, and there he stays for most of the novel, as Havard breaks in, makes himself comfortable, and invites over a cast of characters that includes a pedantic philologist, a beautiful young woman named Greta, several of Emil’s friends and some of Havard’s, too. Ólafsson, who used to play bass in Björk’s band The Sugarcubes, handles the absurdity of the situation with a droll matter-of-factness that’s reminiscent of Murakami, but as the story goes on the drollery gives way to a subtle menace. A catastrophe is about to happen, and the question is, will Emil be able to prevent it, or will he be trapped by his own cowardice? Small, dark, and hard to put down, The Pets may be a classic in the literature of small enclosed spaces-a distinguished genre, which includes “The Metamorphosis,” No Exit, and a fair amount of Beckett.
Paul La Farge: BARNES & NOBLE REVIEW (best fiction of 2008):
The L Magazine
Delightfully funny and unexpectedly complex, The Pets introduces American readers to a fresh voice and perspective, and provides ample incentive for us to crawl out from under the bed.
(Larissa Kyzer, The L Magazine)