REYKJAVIK, Iceland  Life on this rugged, windswept island has always swung between famine and feast  dependent on the fish in its icy waters and the luck of its fishermen.

But little could have prepared Iceland for the reversal of fortune it has suffered in the last few months. The country’s long economic boom has ended in a painful bust, with a collapsing currency, rising inflation, double-digit interest rates and predictions of its first recession since 1992.

“As a citizen, you have to wonder what’s going to happen to this country,” said Eggert Benedikt Gudmundsson, the head of Iceland’s largest fishing company, HB Grandi. “We always tend to go to extremes,” he added, as the wind rattled the windows of his seafront office.

To many Icelanders, their country is the victim of foreign speculators, circling like sharks smelling blood. To outside investors, Iceland is the victim of its own excesses.