Reviews for Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland

The average rating for Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-10-02 00:00:00 Eve Collins To start off, a life hack: when you get to the parts Holm writes about American consumerism, just skip over them. The rest of the book is worth it. Bill Holm is a Minnesotan of Icelandic descent who bought a modest house in rural Iceland to spend summers in, and occasionally other seasons. He describes a lot about the history of Iceland and the emigration to the United States of his ancestors. As a poet, he really has a knack for describing scenery and emotion. I don't disagree with his distaste of American consumerism, but he really overdoes it. One paragraph in, I was all, okay, I get it. After that, I would just skip over those paragraphs until he got back to Iceland, and I don't think I missed anything necessary from the story. I did want to read more about Icelandic history after reading this book, and I think it's a good quality for a book to inspire further reading.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-02 00:00:00 Ryan Carey I'd been planning to read Holm's book of essays, Windows of Brimnes for quite some time. Not because I'm familiar with his poetry, but because it's a book (travel narrative/memoir) about Iceland. But reading these essays spread over about a month in the best of circumstances--on trains, before bed, with my morning coffee--I found myself constantly going back and forth on how I felt about the collection--and Holm--over all. On one hand, Holm is observant and anecdotal and rather funny, in a crotchety sort of way. He is nostalgic and sentimental and writes about nature and small communities and memory with an eye for detail and a distinctly romantic lyricism. On the other, he can be really a pretty irksome narrator, chastising the reader for his/her dependence on cell phones and television, for not being able to play the piano, for not having read Spinoza. (I don't have cable, I read every day--I still can't play Hayden myself and don't feel the worse for it...) Windows of Brimnes is a distinctly, explicitly post-9/11 meditation, but even when you agree with Holm, it's hard not to be aggravated by his often self-righteous kvetching. It becomes a case of Old Man Yelling a little too often. But all the same, there are several really wonderful essays in this collection, so even when I was irritated, I found myself returning to the book. I'd even consider reading another one of Holm's essay collections, provided that I had something else to turn to when I'd had enough of his tsk-tsking.