Angels of the Universe

A chilling, hallucinatory account of an adolescent's descent into and partial recovery from schizophrenia, this intensely poetic novel, winner of the 1995 Nordic Council Literature Prize, challenges the psychiatric establishment's faith in drug-based therapy, portraying a grim world of paternalistic doctors and heavily prescribed drugs offering little hope of escape or cure. Paul Olafsson, the narrator, a taxi driver's son, describes his mental fragmentation and growing paranoia (apparently triggered by his violent break-up with a girlfriend who ditched him), his years in a psychiatric hospital near Reykjavik, his eventual release to a halfway house and his return home to his uncomprehending, distant parents. During his institutionalization, Paul, a painter who drops allusions to Gauguin and Van Gogh, to Hegel and Shakespeare, is so heavily medicated that at times he can only speak in monosyllables. Superbly translated, the fluent narrative probes the fine line separating those whom society deems sane from those labeled lunatic. Before he's committed, Paul meets Eyvind, a folksy cat exterminator, and Peter the hermit, a farmer who fires his rifle at a coast guard ship, believing the Russians have invaded. Such characters are different only by degrees from Paul's asylum inmates-among them Oli Beatle, who's convinced he's written the Fab Four's songs; Viktor, who thinks he's Hitler; and Paul's LSD-warped roommate. Gudmundsson steers well clear of bathos, portraying Paul's excruciating mental and spiritual anguish with broad humor and piercing insight. (Mar.)