This book is somewhere between a stream-of-consciousness narrative and essays on nature. The translation was smooth, and some of the explanations in the beginning added an extra nuance to the narrative.
The Netherlands has a midwife system as well. Unless medically required, a gynaecologist has nothing to do with one's pregnancy. The midwife takes the reins and guides one through it all. I recently had a wonderful experience with the system as a whole, and it was immediately post-delivery that I ended up reading this book (completely unplanned - if one can believe it!), and this added an extra layer to my own reading experience that might have pushed the rating up a star.
Dómhildur is a midwife who does not have much of a life outside of her profession. It is not something that bothers her too much. She lives in an apartment her aunt left her. The aunt had been a midwife as well; her mother took a different route and had more to do with funerals than births. This juxtaposition sets the tone for the narrative.
The aunt spent a lot of time trying to identify patterns in nature and regularly sent essays to magazines. As we see the content of those letters, it makes sense for those thoughts to have come to the lady despite them being ahead of the times.
The musings range over various parts of life and death in general, with the country and its inhabitants making significant appearances throughout in the form of a storm around Christmas day being an almost certain thing.
It was a satisfying read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who finds the blurb (or this review) even mildly intriguing.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Animal Life was a fantastic read that struck very close to home for me personally. It´s slow-paced and dream-like in places, and it´s also in some ways incredibly relaxing and reflective - to think of the animals that the main character´s aunt writes about, and our position in the animal kingdom as humans etc. Lots of super interesting topics to explore here and I really enjoyed the slow methodical nature with which our central character just went through the manuscript - page by page almost - meanwhile storms raged outside and time seemed to lose all meaning. My favourite book by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir that I have read so far! Look forward to reading more from her.

In the days leading up to Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her 1,922nd baby. Beginnings and endings are her family trade; she comes from a long line of midwives on her mother's side and a long line of undertakers on her father's. She even lives in the apartment that she inherited from her grandaunt, a midwife with a unique reputation for her unconventional methods.

As a terrible storm races towards Reykjavik, Dómhildur discovers decades worth of letters and manuscripts hidden amongst her grandaunt's clutter. Fielding calls from her anxious meteorologist sister and visits from her curious new neighbour, Dómhildur escapes into her grandaunt's archive and discovers strange and beautiful reflections on birth, death and human nature.

For even in the depths of an Icelandic winter, new life will find a way.

Animal Life, by Auour Ava olafsdottir, is an enthralling and moving exploration of life and death through the lens of midwifery.

Domhildur is a fascinating protagonist; a young midwife descended from generations of midwives and undertakers. Through Domhildur’s story we are taken on an evocative journey that shines a light on her complex relationships and ancestry.

The story builds towards an extraordinary crescendo, with the impending storm serving as a poignant backdrop to Domhildur’s discovery of her grandaunt’s hidden archives. This discovery of centuries worth of manuscripts illuminates deep truths about the interplay between birth, death and human nature.

At its core, Animal Life is a love letter to life and the resilience of nature; its author’s simple but effective writing style beautifully encapsulates the overwhelming yet silent force of life that pulses beneath the surface of our lives. It’s a captivating tale that should not be missed.

This quiet little nordic novel was the perfect read to usher in the new year, with its wintery setting and philosophical musings on life and death, light and dark.

Dómhildur is a midwife, descending from a long line of midwives on her mother's side and from undertakers on her father's, so life and death are her daily bread. As a terrible storm approaches Reykjavik in the days leading up to Christmas, Dómhildur comes across an old box of letters and manuscripts in the flat she inherited from her grandaunt, who was also a midwife known for her unconventional methods. With Dómhildur, we slowly uncover her grandaunt's collection of reflections on all stages of human life and nature and meet some of the people around her, each with their fears, quirks, and hopes.

The writing is gorgeous and lyrical but never heavy, even despite the sometimes peculiar sentence structure. This is a credit to both the author and the translator, as it couldn't have been easy to translate this book! I really enjoyed getting lost in Dómhildur's and her grandaunt's musings. There are a lot of themes at play here, from the most obvious ones to subtler ones to ones that most likely would only emerge on a re-read. Life, death, light, dark, parenthood (but especially motherhood), what it means to be human and our relationship with nature all feature prominently. Still, there are many more besides and the more I think about it, the more I find.

What I struggled a bit with, especially at the beginning is the structure of this book. There isn't a plot as such: it's more a collection of events, like vignettes, that prompt further reflections or arise as memories from something Dómhildur's grandaunt wrote. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but several times it felt disjointed and more than a bit chaotic. I'm not a huge fan of stream of consciousness and similar narrative modes so I had a hard time with this aspect, but if it doesn't bother you then you might enjoy this even more than I did!

Despite that, I enjoyed the slower, more reflective pace that had been missing from some of my previous reads. I liked the writing and the characters and really appreciated how some of the heavier reflections were balanced with lighter moments brought about by some of the side characters; simple, ordinary exchanges that could easily be overlooked but immediately brought up a smile. It's a short book, but it's not a quick book: Animal Life asks, and deserves, that the reader takes their time with it, stopping to marvel at the miracle of life in all its forms. Definitely recommended to anyone looking for a thoughtful, meaningful read. I'll be looking forward to checking out some of the author's other works!

Animal Life by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Translated by Brian Fitzgibbon
~~~~~
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Pushkin Press for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
~~~~~
In the days leading up to Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her 1,922nd baby. She comes from a long line of midwives and lives in the apartment that she inherited from her grandaunt, a midwife with a unique reputation for her unconventional methods.
As a terrible storm races towards Reykjavik, Dómhildur discovers decades worth of letters and manuscripts hidden amongst her grandaunt's clutter, strange and beautiful reflections on birth, death and human nature.
~~~~~
This is a very difficult book to review and recommend because nothing happens, and yet I enjoyed it very much.
First of all, I loved the writing; it was beautiful and lyrical which transported me despite the lack of any plot.

Four years after her great aunt's death, Dómhildur finally starts going through her paperwork and find three manuscripts, some letters and transcripts of interviews in which her great aunt reflects on light and darkness, life and death, the strength and weakness of humankind. There are also a lot of thoughts on the environment and man's impact on it.
Her great aunt's writing and musings weave through Dómhildur's life at a time when, little by little, she starts making changes to her life. There is a feeling that Dómhildur hit pause on everything in her life after her great aunt's death, with the exception of her job as a midwife, and that she starts evolving again as she starts sorting out through all the paperwork that was left to her.

It was a strange and compelling little book and I liked it very much.
~~~~~

As far as plot goes, a woman gets fixated with the pseudo-science in some randomly composed witterings her great-aunt didn't manage to get published, which seems to be designed to prove how readable, by contrast, her own work as a midwife is. I should have had the conviction to abort this, for it really wasn't my kind of thing. One and a half stars.

This book was a delight to read. Not something I would normally pick up, but I was intrigued by the title and the cover, and then the premise. It reads very much like a memoir, weaving in different aspects of the narrators life as well as those of her immediate family, friends and colleagues. There's a calmness to the prose that I found very comforting and, while I'll admit it took me a good quarter of the book to really get into it, I found it completely charming. I loved the format, the voice and the tale, all leading up to a huge storm that inevitably brought change to the narrators life. There's so much to love about this, but at the end I was drawn to what hadn't been said - the hints of changes yet to come that wouldn't be described on the page. Strongly recommended for those who tend not to read women's fiction (although, to me, this leans heavily towards literary fiction).

Thank you NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the gifted copy of ‘Animal Life’. This book came out on December 6, 2022.

This tale was very moving, and I loved reading through Dómhildur’s reflections pertaining to life and death. Her family is involved in both sides of life’s cycle (her mom’s side specializes in midwifery, while her dad’s side work in the funeral profession).

Animal Life takes us through Dómhildur thoughts and actions as she dives into her great-aunt’s long lost writings. ‘Animal Life’ is not heavy on drama, but more of a reflection on life and death in relation to the path Dómhildur (and her great-aunt) chose to persue.

If you love fiction that reflects on the life experience, ‘Animal Life’ is for you!

A perfectly reflective novel for this time of year. From an award winning author – prepare to be moved into a reflective state with this one. The story follows Dómhildur who is a mid-wife from a long line of mid-wives in her family. She was extremely close to her grand aunt, who was also a mid-wife, and still lives her home after she passed away. Nothing in the house has really been changed in decades and Dómhildur reflects on all the things inside that belonged to her Aunt. Including a desk filled with articles her Aunt wrote about animal preservation, letters from a dear friend and fellow mid-wife.

“‘Unlike mankind, Dyja dear,’ said my grandaunt, ‘plants turn towards the light.’ That was one field of comparison, man and plants, the other field was man and animals.”

ANIMAL LIFE
Advertisements

REPORT THIS AD

What I loved so much about this book was how every little interaction and memory that Dómhildur shares with us, the reader, carries her forward on her own path of understand and ultimately ties into the main themes of this book which are life and death. These themes are represented in a multitude of ways including the complimentary family trades of bringing babies into the world and the other part of the family that runs a mortuary. We also see these themes represnted in the Aunt’s articles about animal lives and deaths being brought on by humans and again we see this theme in the memories of Dómhildur’s Aunt and her religious ferocity about the lightness and darkness of the world.

“Some people bring light with them, Dyja dear. Others try to drag you into their darkness. They’re not necessarily able to control it.”

ANIMAL LIFE
Deeply reflective, moving and thought-provoking as we enter the final days of the Christmas season leading up to the remembrance of Christ’s birth and ultimate death that is represented in the themes on every page of this novel.

I liked the distinctive narrative style of this book, it seemed to suit the weather and the surroundings as a distinctive Icelandic voice. While there isn’t a lot of plot to this one, it was nevertheless a detailed exploration of a life and how to honour that life. I found it interesting read.

Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir prefaces her novel with a note explaining her choice of midwife as main character. It’s both surprising and beautiful, I would even say illuminating. And it sets the tone for a book, which is all of those things, too.

When she finds grandaunt Fifa’s papers and decides to sort through them, what Dýja hopes will prove a distraction while waiting out the storm instead provides us with the opportunity for a remarkable retrospective. Fifa’s writing not only leads us to a greater understanding and appreciation of the woman herself, as well as her so-called idiosyncrasies, but it also sheds light on the subjects she explored, which are surprising in their scope and content.

As Dýja pieces together her grandaunt Fifa’s life from their shared family background to memories of her singular relative, while revisiting her unique history of Icelandic midwifery with excursions into life’s big questions in her writing, this book manages to be both expansive and intimate, disarming and engaging, and look at the big issues it covers with playfulness and candour. Dýja’s seemingly thankless task just might have come along when she most needed it and, together with nudges from other equally unexpected sources, it provides her with that much-needed glimmer of hope we all need to help us navigate our lows.

Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir effectively takes us on an epic yet strangely comforting journey through the human condition. I especially love how she plays with the concepts of darkness and light throughout. Animal Life is that rare gem of a book which contains some of life’s darker moments but also captures some of its rare beauty and light to reflect back to us. Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir has written a brilliantly quirky and quietly life-affirming read. I have to read more of her books.

This book wasn’t quite what I expected it to be, but it was beautifully written and often thought-provoking.

Synopsis:
Dómhildur is a midwife, following in the footsteps of previous generations of women in her family, including her late grandaunt whose Reykjavik apartment she now lives in. As Christmas approaches, Dómhildur sorts through the archive of papers left to her by her grandaunt, uncovering her thoughts on a wide range of topics. Meanwhile, her meteorologist sister warns of a catastrophic storm that is set to hit, and she is visited by an interesting new neighbour from the other side of the world.

Review:
I loved the descriptions of nature and place in this novel; I felt as if I was in the depths of an Icelandic winter alongside Dómhildur and her grandaunt, experiencing the wildness of the landscape around them. It definitely made me want to book another trip to this beautiful country!
However, I found the plot and character development to be quite thin. Instead, this book is more of an exploration of a variety of themes via the grandaunt’s writing. The properties of light and darkness, nature and climate, and life and death are all examined and reflected upon, alongside many other topics. I did appreciate these examinations of often timely and important subject matter in the text, but I would also have liked to see more of Dómhildur’s character, particularly her career as a midwife and her relationships with the rest of her family. We do learn some of her backstory, but she exists mainly as a mouthpiece for her grandaunt’s thoughts for most of the novel.

Overall, this was a 3-star read for me, with moments of depth and beauty, but I wish that the story itself had been more developed alongside the tangential and fragmentary passages that make up the majority of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir was familiar to me from Butterflies in November (2013), a whimsical, feminist road trip novel I reviewed for For Books’ Sake. Dómhildur or “Dýja” is, like her grandaunt before her, a midwife – a word that was once voted Iceland’s most beautiful: ljósmóðir combines the words for light and mother, so it connotes “mother of light.” On the other side of the family, Dýja’s relatives are undertakers, a neat setup that sees her clan “handling people at their points of entry and exit.”

Along with her profession, Dýja inherited her great-aunt’s apartment, nine bottles of sherry, pen pal letters to a Welsh midwife and a box containing several discursive manuscripts of philosophical musings, one of them entitled Animal Life. In fragments from this book within the book, we see how her grandaunt recorded philosophical musings about coincidences and humanity in relation to other species, vacillating between the poetic and the scientific.

As Christmas – and an unprecedented storm prophesied by her meteorologist sister – approaches, Dýja starts to make the apartment less of a mausoleum and more her own home, trading lots of the fusty furniture for a colleague’s help with painting and decorating, and flirting with an Australian tourist who’s staying in the apartment upstairs. Outside of work she has never had much of a personal life, so she’s finally finding a better balance.

I really warmed to the grandaunt character and enjoyed the peppering of her aphorisms. As in novels like The Birth House and A Ghost in the Throat, it feels like this is a female wisdom, somewhat forbidden and witchy. The idea of it being passed down through the generations is appealing. We get less of a sense of Dýja overall, only late on finding that she has her own traumatic backstory. For a first-person narrator, she’s lacking the expected interiority. Mostly, we see her interactions with a random selection of minor characters such as an electrician whose wife is experiencing postpartum depression.

I felt there were a few too many disparate elements here, not all joined but just left on the page as a quirky smorgasbord. Still, it’s fun to try fiction in translation sometimes, especially when it’s of novella length. This also reminded me a bit of Weather and Brood.

“In the days leading up to Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her 1,922nd baby. Beginnings and endings are her family trade; she comes from a long line of midwives on her mother’s side and a long line of undertakers on her father’s. She even lives in the apartment that she inherited from her grandaunt, a midwife with a unique reputation for her unconventional methods.”

If you’re looking for a face-paced, edge-of-your-seat story with larger than life characters and a stunning climax…this book is not for you.

If you’re able to enjoy a quiet story, served largely via the disjointed manuscripts of a departed midwife, where nothing much happens, where plot is mere hinted, and the past is doled out Nicky-Nicky-Nine-Doors style, then climb aboard.

I know that probably sounds like I didn’t like this book, but, weirdly, that’s untrue. While I was disappointed there weren’t more accounts of midwifery (I would have bet – and lost – money that the climax would involve a birth during the storm) I found comfort in the lyrical way this story progressed.

It was very nearly poetic – not surprising, since the Great Aunt was such a fan of verse.

I enjoyed seeing the main character’s growth in the form of making her home her own, and I enjoyed the spare details that told you just enough about a character, without drowning you in minutia.

I loved the setting, similar to my own Norther Canada, but different enough to be interesting.

I’m not sure how many of the author’s works have been translated into English, but I’d definitely be interested in reading more.

7/10

Thanks to NetGalley, Pushkin Press, and Dreamscape Media for this weighted blanket of an ARC.

Having never read this author before, I had no preconceived notions as to what I was about to read. What I discovered was a quirky, thoughtful little book rife with an almost poetic feel and imagery.

The protagonist, Dómhildur, has parents who are in the funeral business. So it would seem that her family welcome people to the world, and also, they usher them out of it.

Dómhildur is very close in age to her sister, and they are so similar in physical appearance that they are often mistaken for each other. Her sister, a meteorologist, warns her that a storm is imminent over Christmas. Dómhildur, who has no children or family of her own, always elects to work over Christmas – because babies are born no matter the season.

Dómhildur, is a midwife or ljósmóðir (mother of light). She comes from a long family history of midwifery, the most recent being her grandaunt, with whom she shares a name. Now, Dómhildur is living in her late grandaunt’s apartment amongst all of her aunt’s possessions. Though it has been 4 years since her grandaunt passed away, she has done nothing to erase her presence. Her clothes share space in the closet with her great aunt’s clothes. The outdated wallpapers and furnishings are just as they were when the elder Dómhildur lived there. Most importantly though, are the unpublished manuscripts written by her grandaunt. Meandering, disjointed chapters that reflect on how everything in life is connected. How humans fit into the animal world and their relationship with animals. How man is fragile, yet he is destroying the planet.

The importance of light and darkness is a running theme throughout the story. Light being a scarce commodity in Iceland in winter. During the month of December Iceland gets only about three hours of daylight per day.

I feel I must warn potential readers that this storyline is not a linear one. The narrative goes off in tangents much as Dómhildur‘s grandaunt’s stories would digress. Overall, an odd, though thought-provoking short novel with a strong environmental message.

Dómhildur proudly follows a long tradition of midwives in her mother's family, and in the days running up to Christmas delivers her 1,922nd baby. Named for her formidable midwife grandaunt, she even lives in the apartment she inherited from her, but has been unable to bring herself to sort through all the possessions she left behind following her death year ago.

As a massive storm approaches Reykjavik, Dómhildur battles through the ice and snow to work through the night delivering babies and helping parents through times of joy and heartache, while trying to come to terms with where life has also brought her. Between the times she is immersed in her vocation, dealing with calls from her anxious meteorologist sister, and a embarking on a developing friendship with a tourist who has moved in upstairs, Dómhildur realises she has fallen between the cracks: the moment has come for her to tackle the things left behind by her grandaunt - and she discovers something unexpected.

Tucked away in a box in the wardrobe, her grandaunt has left behind a treasure trove of papers and manuscripts that show there was a lot more to her than her considerable midwifery wisdom. As she delves into the thoughts her namesake committed to paper, Dómhildur comes to understand so much more about, birth, life, and death; and how light can return, even in the darkest times - and she finds a way to move forward herself.

What a truly beautiful little book. I began to read this expecting a family tale about Icelandic midwives and their history, and although this is indeed what I have found, there is so much more!

The format of the book is somewhat unconventional, broken up between moments from Dómhildur's calling as a midwife, the time she spends in her apartment, snippets of wisdom from her grandaunt, conversations with her apprehensive sister, and the visitor upstairs - and, as the tale develops, the literary reflections taken from her grandaunt's writings. It does take a little while to get your head around the rhythm of the story, but you soon become lost in the way the scattered pieces come together.

"Everything connects..."

There is so much here about love, loss, fragility, and the philosophical questions that we ask ourselves as we navigate the triumphs and tragedies of life, and Ólafsdóttir does a magnificent job of weaving these themes throughout the very intimate moments she describes as well as the more abstract passages. My absolute favourite thing about this book is the way Ólafsdóttir uses light, in its many forms to express the idea of hope in despair, which fits deliciously with the long days of Icelandic darkness that are once again brought alive by the return of the sun. However, she also expands the scope of this piece to bring in a myriad of meditations on connection, nature, and the environment too, which explore humanity, and climate change in the most thought provoking of ways.

This book completely worked its way under my skin in a way I did not foresee. It is tender, impassioned, and deeply moving, while also being esoteric, uplifting, and inspirational. It is a stirring combination, and I take my hat off to the translator Brian Fitzgibbon for deftly preserving the subtlety of the concepts explored in Olafsdottir spellbinding story. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Animal Life is probably not a book for those who like a conventional plot-driven narrative. Much like the letters and manuscripts that Dómhildur inherits from her great aunt (referred to as her grandaunt) the book is a kind of literary scrapbook made up of random thoughts on a vast variety of subjects. It becomes clear that Dómhildur’s great aunt had an interest – some might consider to the point of obsessional – in many different subjects and in gathering information about topics ranging from the lifespan of an oak tree to the nature of black holes. In letters exchanged with a pen pal over the course of forty years she also speculated on the fragility of human life and the nature of conicidence, including the coincidences necessary to bring about the birth of any child.

Amongst the many, many themes explored in the book is inheritance. Not only has Dómhildur followed in the footsteps of her great aunt and other members of her family in becoming a midwife but she has also inherited her great aunt’s apartment complete with an array of mismatched and rather outdated furniture which, for a long time, she feels disinclined to change.

Another theme the book explores is light and darkness – in both an actual and metaphorical sense. For instance, the book is set during the darkest part of the year when in Iceland there are only a few hours of daylight. ‘I wake up on the shortest day of the year into the longest night of time. It will be a long time before the light dissolves the night and the world takes on a form.’ We also discover that darkness is something Dómhildur knows all about both in her personal and in her professional life. On the other hand, the Icelandic word for midwife is ljósmóðir which literally translates as ‘mother of light’.

There’s also a strong theme of environmentalism running through the book. In this respect, Dómhildur’s great aunt was something of a pioneer writing of the deleterious impact of humans – ‘the most dangerous animal of them all’ – on the planet.

If this all sounds a little serious, there are moments of humour too. For example, the calls Dómhildur receives from her sister which invariably open with the questions ‘where are you and what are you doing’ and are always followed by a close interrogation of her answers. Light relief (see what I did there?) is also provided by the tourist who takes up temporary residence on the top floor of Dómhildur’s apartment building and has chosen a particularly inappropriate time to go sightseeing in Iceland, by the electrician who is afraid of the dark, and by Dómhildur’s unsuccessful stint as a tour guide.

At one point Dómhildur muses, ‘The more I try to piece the jigsaw of my grandaunt’s life together the more questions it raises’. The fluid, fragmentary structure of Animal Life means it won’t appeal to everyone but those who are attracted by a book which explores a range of topics will, I think, find it a thought-provoking read.

I was initially drawn to this book for both the setting of Iceland and the fact that it was about a family with three generations of midwives. The themes of birth, death and nature also captured my interest.
I found it a fairly quick easy book to read and the writing was quite lyrical at times. The grand aunt sounded like she would have been a wonderful character to have known in life and her wisdom and foresight was way ahead of her time. Her pondering questions on life were quite interesting. At times I felt like Domhildur and her sister, and wanted to know more about the midwifery, both historical and present day. However, it is beautifully written and gave me a brief moment in the deep Icelandic midwinter which I did enjoy.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Pushkin Press for this e-arc in exchange for a review.