Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World

 Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World by Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe is the story of Laki, the massive Icelandic volcano whose 1783 eruption plunged Europe - and possibly the wider world - into the dark (and subsequently the cold). In Iceland they died of the direct of effects of a poisoned environment; in western Europe of the prolonged effects of breathing in an unrelenting poisonous fog; further afield - as far as the Nile - of the effects of climate change wrought by this massive explosion.

Using the meticulous records of one Jón Steingrímsson, Witze and Kanipe reconstruct the terrifying days following the eruption of Laki. However, Island on Fire is more than the simple retelling of what happened to Iceland in 1783. It is a treatise on volcanology, from plate tectonics and magma build-up to detailed explanations on the scale and after-effects of eruptions from Mount Vesuvius (the one that buried Pompeii) and Krakatau (the Indonesian volcano whose eruption and final collapse could be heard as far as Singapore) to Mount Pelée (the Caribbean monster who erupted with devastating force in 1902) and Mount St. Helens. Even better, Witze and Kanipe bring the study of ice cores, atmospheric conditions, magma formation, lava flows, and killer gases emitted by underwater volcanoes to a level that laypeople can easily comprehend.

That said, I felt the title of this book didn't really do it justice. I read Island on Fire for two reasons. I'm getting ready to run a program in Iceland and I'm trying to read widely of the country before this happens. I came away with relatively little knowledge about Iceland, but a tremendous amount of knowledge about volcanoes in general. I would guess that roughly 50 percent of the book deals with Iceland directly, and perhaps 70-80 percent of that is about the Laki eruption. This isn't a complaint and shouldn't be an issue for most readers (ardent researchers of Laki aside), but it is something to note.

The bottom line: calling all science geeks, and those with a healthy appetite for science reading. On the other hand, if plate tectonics bores you, it would be best to find another book.

Burial Rites

Agnes Magnúsdóttir was the last person executed by Iceland, in 1830, for a crime committed in 1828. That crime, which Agnes was accused of committing along with one other man and one other woman, was the murder of two farmers at Illugastaðir. At the time, and since, Agnes was largely regarded as the epitome of a murderess, motivated, perhaps, by a combination of greed and revenge. Some went so far as to brand her a witch. Iceland, like much of the world at that time, was a poor and often brutal place to live; the cold and darkness that reach through the pages and grab the reader only magnify this. By her own admission in the author's note, Hannah Kent has tried to create a more ambiguous portrait of Agnes. 

In this, she succeeds thoroughly. Awaiting her execution - beheading by axe - Agnes is transferred to a small, poor farm to be housed with a farm couple and their two daughters. The family has had no say in the matter and their treatment of Agnes reflects this. Slowly, though, as they come to know her, the reader understands that they also begin to question what they believed of the woman in their midst. 

The characters in Burial Rites are the novel's strength. Each is distinct and well-developed and Kent should be thanked for giving the main characters names that, if still Icelandic, are easy enough on the eyes, mind, and tongue of an English speaker. In addition to Agnes, there are daughters Steina and Lauga and their parents Jon and Margret (who seems pretty clearly to be suffering from a bad case of consumption). If the characters are the strength, the organization is the weakness. The viewpoints shift constantly, within chapters and without warning. Initially this nearly drove me to distraction; I became used to the style.

Burial Rites exudes darkness and cold, illness and sadness. Yet, it manages not to be steeped in depression, a fine line that Kent has navigated deftly. In the end it is a fine work of historical fiction with strong undercurrents of ambiguity.