My expectations were set a bit too high after Jón Kalman Stefánssons Heaven and hell, the first book about The Boy. That was such a marvel of literary triumph that I simply lack words. The Sorrow of Angels (my translation), the second volume, is a bit longer, it lacks the precise touch of part one and fails to hold me as firmly. It is, still, a very good book, where we follow The Boy and the Mail-man Jens on their dangerous journey across the Icelandic highlands, through an endless, and probably very symbolic, snow-storm. That is all. But Stefánssons magic relationship with words and his fearless confrontations with the greatest of philosophical questions, lifts the relatively thin story to unexpected heights. I started on part three at once.