I’m about a third of the way through, and at this point I’m pretty sure that 101 Reykjavik is going to quench my recently developed desire to find the Catcher in the Rye for mid-thirties urban slacker bachelors. Not that it’s destined to be a classic novel taught in schools and suchlike. It is not. But the narrator’s hypercritical take on the people and situations in his life and the tangential threads of thought coloring all experiences resonates with me, despite my life having few of the downsides of his. Just like with Salinger’s novel back in high school, I both identify with the narrator and feel relieved that he’s so much worse off. I’m also amazed that a book so dependent on wordplay can work this well in translation. Brian Fitzgibbons, you are my current favorite translator, and I raise a glass to you tonight from 206 Seattle.