“Kalmann: A Humanist Fable Set in the Magical and Frightening Landscapes of Iceland”

Kalman is only a black novel in appearance. It’s a humanist fable that takes the excuse of a violent death to tell us about a country, a magical and fantastic place, and characters as eccentric as they are human. A beautiful moment, suspended in the middle of the snowy void.

This novel is above all the story of Kalmann! Yes, the title does not lie. There is indeed a detective story, which serves as a common thread, but the one that unites the novel is Kalmann Óðinsson, the sheriff of Raufarhöfn, a small, very small, port located in the north of Iceland. , several hundred kilometers from Reykjavík, not so far from the Arctic Circle…

Oh, are there sheriffs in Iceland? Or is he some kind of local vigilante, organized crime boss? No, none of that. Kalmann is given this nickname only because he wears all the sheriff’s paraphernalia he inherited from his father: a hat and a star and also a pistol (a Mauser, which is however not a pistol of American sheriff). And we let him do it, with benevolence, because Kalmann has fish soup in his head! He’s a bit simple, the village idiot, what…

And it is he who discovers one day that he has gone hunting for an arctic fox, a huge bloodstain. Macabre discovery, made a few days after the disappearance of Róbert McKenzie, who is the real boss of the village, the richest man in the area, the one who owns the hotel and the last fishing quota of Raufarhöfn… Is this the blood of Robert? Yes, DNA analysis confirms it! Is he dead ? Likely: Hard to stay alive after losing so much blood. But it is impossible to confirm it. We can’t find the body. Help, who arrived with journalists from elsewhere, are looking. Nothing helps, no Róbert McKenzie. The investigation is carried out. A second death occurs, which makes things even more complicated. We can’t find Robert. And during this time we follow Kalmann, his troubles with the police, with his mother, with the sharks he catches, with Schwartzköpf, the arctic fox (yes, Kalmann gave a shampoo name to a fox), with Bagoft, Róbert’s daughter whom Kalmann loves very much and with Nadja (whom Kalmann also loves very much)… and we still can’t find Róbert.

Joachim B. Schmidt makes us live a few hours, a few days with the sheriff of Raufarhöfn, but also with the other inhabitants of the village. We walk around, we go on the sea to shark fishing, we learn a secret recipe for fermenting shark flesh. We feel in the pen of this Swiss author a real love of Iceland, of its sublime and frightening landscapes at the same time, of this nature so unwelcoming for human beings, but to which men have nevertheless tried to (and managed to) get used to. We really imagine ourselves at the end of the end of Iceland, looking at the sea, the gray expanse that goes to the polar circle; you can feel the wind, the bite of the cold and the excitement of being in the middle of nowhere. Joachim B. Schmidt succeeds perfectly in transporting us to this place which, according to the photos that the internet offers us, definitely looks fantastic. Joachim B. Schmidt also succeeds in making us love his characters, for whom he has a real affection. Yes, of course, there are two deaths, one of which is a violent death – after all, it’s a thriller! But not so dark, actually. Kalmann is full of the light and warmth of the feelings that connect these beings who live in such difficult conditions. We almost want to go and eat fermented shark under the snow, by -40 degrees of temperature!

Alain Marciano

Kalmann
Roman de Joachim B. Schmidt
Translated from German (Swiss) by Barbara Fontaine
Publisher: Gallimard
368 p., 22 €
Publication: April 6, 2023