Iceland Epilogue 1

In preparation for my recent visit to Reykjavik, I read "Jar City" by Arnaldur Indridason, the first of a series of Reykjavik Murder Mysteries, and which is set in the city in October. There are now 6 books in the series, which feature an Icelandic detective. The book is a bit grisly and dark...
Jar City cover
Consider this review of the film based on the book:

"The picture of Iceland that emerges in Baltasar Kormákur’s “Jar City” is vivid and powerful but not something the country’s tourist board would be likely to endorse. The landscape has its austere poetry to be sure — mountains framing the apartment blocks of Reykjavik, spits of volcanic rock jutting into a churning sea — but a fog of damp unhappiness seems to pervade every face and conversation. And yet by the end of this film, based on a popular mystery novel by Arnaldur Indridason, it is hard not to feel a certain affection for the place."

Research the other titles in the series by the same author.
Look at the titles, they mostly provide the same 'chilly' Scandinavian theme - can you come up with a few other possible titles for future books in the series that are on the same sort of theme, and perhaps bring in the idea of crime.
Could also take some extracts from one of the books and ask the students to create a map / picture of what they are reading.

Think about other authors who are synonymous with a particular city - perhaps crime authors like Colin Dexter's 'Inspector Morse'.
Thankfully, the heavy rain which cloaks the city in the book was absent on our trip, apart from on the final morning, when we got a sample of it.

Students could perhaps be asked to write an introductory page for a crime novel, which establishes a location and weather conditions in which a discovery is made, or an event occurs which might set the scene for the novel.

You might be able to use an image searching website such as COMPFIGHT, FLICKR, PANORAMIO etc. to identify an appropriate image and use Flickr Toys to create a FILM POSTER for a film based on a book, with one of the titles that you chose earlier.

One additional plus point for me was the map in the front of the book which identified locations where the action took place.
Jar City Map
While on the visit to Iceland, it was interesting that we passed the prison featured in the book, the only one in the country.

Comments