Difficult to slot this book into a category, it is a story, even a Novel, made up of fragments. Just as the main character’s personality is made up of fragments remembered from his childhood during WWII in a Germany under Allied bombing, or from his time seeking refuge in Mexico, with a mother who turns out to be an adoptive parent, or with a fragment of a memory of a time when he could speak Icelandic as a child he.
Magnus is the name of a teddy bear, which he has carried around with him since childhood, only, to in the end becoming him and to taking on his name. I did get the feeling that Sylvie Germain was a victim of what I call “how do you end a good story” syndrome. But otherwise this Novel is an easy read, if you are prepared in your mind to put all the fragments together.