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Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4
Independent People
This magnificent novel—which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature—is at last available to contemporary American readers. Although it is set in the early twentieth century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.
Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is simply a masterpiece
Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is simply a masterpiece
482 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
About the author
Halldór Laxness
160 books690 followersBorn Halldór Guðjónsson, he adopted the surname Laxness in honour of Laxnes in Mosfellssveit where he grew up, his family having moved from Reyjavík in 1905. He published his first novel at the age of only 17, the beginning of a long literary career of more than 60 books, including novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. Confirmed a Catholic in 1923, he later moved away from religion and for a long time was sympathetic to Communist politics, which is evident in his novels World Light and Independent People. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,761 reviews
May 17, 2019
I see a number of my GR friends have read this but A BILLION MORE of them have this listed as To Read. Yes, I see why. Every single person who has read this thinks this is a masterpiece but you stroke your chin and you think do I really need a 600 page novel about Icelandic sheep farmers in my life? Even if it is a Nobel prize winning all time masterpiece?
Maybe you are like me, you live in a city and think the countryside is very pretty to visit for an afternoon, what with all the moo cows and baa lambs and horsies and piggy wiggies and goatsies and the less domesticated animals like spiny echidnas and bush babies and alpacas and okapi which I assume all live out in the country since I never see them strolling the boulevards of London or Paris or New York never mind here in Nottingham.
Well, Mr Laxness does mention several times that the countryside is very beautiful but then he strongly implies that you’re not really going to notice it if your whole body is wracked with convulsions and your left leg is turning black because of the unrelenting poverty and lack of vitamins to the point of starvation where you are now contemplating which of your 15 children should go in the cooking pot next.
The alternate title for this novel would be Stupid People. That sounds a little bit harsh, but check it out – our fiercely independent crofter Bjartur of Summerhouses owns a farm where there are rivers with jolly edible fish in them and fields with game birds in them but neither he nor his wasting away to nothing family eat any of them, not a single one. If you’re an idiot from Iceland you just don’t.
The five starry reviews of this long ass book must be written by people who love maximum wordage and minimum action. There are actual things that happen in this book but mainly they’re hurried past. E.g. one of Bjartur of Summerhouses’ children dies and he barely notices. You might think he would be pretty annoyed – one less slave to look after my sheep – but no, the kid is simply not mentioned again.
For those still unsure if you really want to make a space for the world’s grumpiest sheep farmer in your heart, here is a scientific analysis of the whole novel.
WHAT HAPPENS IN INDEPENDENT PEOPLE
Description of countryside (summer)……………………8%
Description of countryside (winter)………………………12%
Drinking coffee…………………………………..............……..9%
Talking about sheep…………………….............…………….15%
Talking about elves and ghosties………..............………8%
Talking about not joining the new co-operative…….5%
Insulting all and sundry……………………….........………..11%
People dying………………………………………...............…….4%
Tramping through snow (solo)……………….........………9%
Tramping through snow (with sheep)…………...………19%
Ninja fighting………………………………………..............……0%
Hot sex scenes……………………………………............………0%
Hot tub scenes……………………………………...........……….0%
I could see this was some kind of achievement, but on balance I think I would rather have a large dead sheep dropped on me from a second storey window than have to read anything more by Mr Laxness.
Maybe you are like me, you live in a city and think the countryside is very pretty to visit for an afternoon, what with all the moo cows and baa lambs and horsies and piggy wiggies and goatsies and the less domesticated animals like spiny echidnas and bush babies and alpacas and okapi which I assume all live out in the country since I never see them strolling the boulevards of London or Paris or New York never mind here in Nottingham.
Well, Mr Laxness does mention several times that the countryside is very beautiful but then he strongly implies that you’re not really going to notice it if your whole body is wracked with convulsions and your left leg is turning black because of the unrelenting poverty and lack of vitamins to the point of starvation where you are now contemplating which of your 15 children should go in the cooking pot next.
The alternate title for this novel would be Stupid People. That sounds a little bit harsh, but check it out – our fiercely independent crofter Bjartur of Summerhouses owns a farm where there are rivers with jolly edible fish in them and fields with game birds in them but neither he nor his wasting away to nothing family eat any of them, not a single one. If you’re an idiot from Iceland you just don’t.
The five starry reviews of this long ass book must be written by people who love maximum wordage and minimum action. There are actual things that happen in this book but mainly they’re hurried past. E.g. one of Bjartur of Summerhouses’ children dies and he barely notices. You might think he would be pretty annoyed – one less slave to look after my sheep – but no, the kid is simply not mentioned again.
For those still unsure if you really want to make a space for the world’s grumpiest sheep farmer in your heart, here is a scientific analysis of the whole novel.
WHAT HAPPENS IN INDEPENDENT PEOPLE
Description of countryside (summer)……………………8%
Description of countryside (winter)………………………12%
Drinking coffee…………………………………..............……..9%
Talking about sheep…………………….............…………….15%
Talking about elves and ghosties………..............………8%
Talking about not joining the new co-operative…….5%
Insulting all and sundry……………………….........………..11%
People dying………………………………………...............…….4%
Tramping through snow (solo)……………….........………9%
Tramping through snow (with sheep)…………...………19%
Ninja fighting………………………………………..............……0%
Hot sex scenes……………………………………............………0%
Hot tub scenes……………………………………...........……….0%
I could see this was some kind of achievement, but on balance I think I would rather have a large dead sheep dropped on me from a second storey window than have to read anything more by Mr Laxness.
January 4, 2022
[Edited 1/4/21]
I don’t usually cite book cover comments from critics in my reviews, but I’ll make an exception for this book by the 1955 Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author (1902-1998). In the introduction, Brad Leithauser, a poet, novelist and English professor called it (at the time he wrote the introduction) “my favorite book by a living novelist.” Annie Proulx said it was “one of my top ten” and Jane Smiley called it “one of the best books of the twentieth century.”
The story is about Bjartur, a hard-nosed sheep farmer in Iceland in the early 1900’s. He loves hard work, dawn to dusk. He’s a skinflint and he drives his family as hard as himself – 16 hour days in the summer. He’s obsessed with expanding his herd of sheep and doesn’t believe in debt. So the family survives on porridge and saltfish - and coffee.
They live in a cave-like croft, built partly underground, above the stench of their animals. Bjartur dreams of sheep, but his wives and children dream of food – especially of meat. (It occurs to me that dreaming of food is a stellar mark of poverty. I’m reminded of a story of a young boy who was a Portuguese American immigrant from the Azores – in Home Is an Island by Alfred Lewis - who dreams almost every night of coffee, sugar and white bread.)
Over time he contributes to the deaths of his two wives (in the introduction they are described as “tortuously unhappy”) and drives off his children when they are old enough to leave.
Perhaps Bjartur has a couple of humanistic qualities but I don’t agree with the writer of the introduction who tells us we develop a kind of grudging admiration for Bjartur’s persistence. (Like we do for the crotchety old man in A Man Called Ove.) I don’t feel that way – I see Bjartur as a thug. It’s true that while he works he recites and formulates poetry. Poetry is part of the Icelandic tradition that has led it to be considered the most literate country in the world. Iceland is where people read the most books per person and publish the most books per capita. How many countries with 350,000 people have a Nobel laureate?
If Bjartur loves anyone, it is his eldest daughter. A childhood incident destroys their mutual affection and he chases her away too. The daughter has a terribly tough life. One year, when she is 15 years old, her father goes away for months to work as a day laborer.
[image error]
They live in semi-isolation. We hear of other characters when visitors stop by or when Bjartur goes into town, a day’s journey away. We read of the bailiff’s wife, the wealthiest woman in the area who expresses her admiration for the “independent people” who commune with nature and live such simple and rewarding lives. (There are times when they starve.) We pity her as she struggles with the complexity of her wealthy existence. (‘White people’s problems’ in Iceland in the 1900s! lol) There’s a lot of political discussion between Bjartur and the men in town.
I’ll add this to my shelf of ‘environmental novels’ – those where the weather and climate (usually harsh) play such a role that it’s almost like another main character.
Independent People is an intriguing story that kept my attention all the way through. It’s a novel that very successfully inserts us into another time and place. It’s about survival in overwhelmingly harsh physical and mental conditions. Squalor with poetry, humor and irony. And yes, a classic.
To photo: a contemporary farmstead in Iceland from thetravelimages.com
Rural farmstead in Iceland around 1900 from digital.library.cornell.edu
Modern-day Reykjavik from seabourn.com
Icelandic postage stamp honoring the author from hipstamp.com
I don’t usually cite book cover comments from critics in my reviews, but I’ll make an exception for this book by the 1955 Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author (1902-1998). In the introduction, Brad Leithauser, a poet, novelist and English professor called it (at the time he wrote the introduction) “my favorite book by a living novelist.” Annie Proulx said it was “one of my top ten” and Jane Smiley called it “one of the best books of the twentieth century.”
The story is about Bjartur, a hard-nosed sheep farmer in Iceland in the early 1900’s. He loves hard work, dawn to dusk. He’s a skinflint and he drives his family as hard as himself – 16 hour days in the summer. He’s obsessed with expanding his herd of sheep and doesn’t believe in debt. So the family survives on porridge and saltfish - and coffee.
They live in a cave-like croft, built partly underground, above the stench of their animals. Bjartur dreams of sheep, but his wives and children dream of food – especially of meat. (It occurs to me that dreaming of food is a stellar mark of poverty. I’m reminded of a story of a young boy who was a Portuguese American immigrant from the Azores – in Home Is an Island by Alfred Lewis - who dreams almost every night of coffee, sugar and white bread.)
Over time he contributes to the deaths of his two wives (in the introduction they are described as “tortuously unhappy”) and drives off his children when they are old enough to leave.
Perhaps Bjartur has a couple of humanistic qualities but I don’t agree with the writer of the introduction who tells us we develop a kind of grudging admiration for Bjartur’s persistence. (Like we do for the crotchety old man in A Man Called Ove.) I don’t feel that way – I see Bjartur as a thug. It’s true that while he works he recites and formulates poetry. Poetry is part of the Icelandic tradition that has led it to be considered the most literate country in the world. Iceland is where people read the most books per person and publish the most books per capita. How many countries with 350,000 people have a Nobel laureate?
If Bjartur loves anyone, it is his eldest daughter. A childhood incident destroys their mutual affection and he chases her away too. The daughter has a terribly tough life. One year, when she is 15 years old, her father goes away for months to work as a day laborer.
[image error]
They live in semi-isolation. We hear of other characters when visitors stop by or when Bjartur goes into town, a day’s journey away. We read of the bailiff’s wife, the wealthiest woman in the area who expresses her admiration for the “independent people” who commune with nature and live such simple and rewarding lives. (There are times when they starve.) We pity her as she struggles with the complexity of her wealthy existence. (‘White people’s problems’ in Iceland in the 1900s! lol) There’s a lot of political discussion between Bjartur and the men in town.
I’ll add this to my shelf of ‘environmental novels’ – those where the weather and climate (usually harsh) play such a role that it’s almost like another main character.
Independent People is an intriguing story that kept my attention all the way through. It’s a novel that very successfully inserts us into another time and place. It’s about survival in overwhelmingly harsh physical and mental conditions. Squalor with poetry, humor and irony. And yes, a classic.
To photo: a contemporary farmstead in Iceland from thetravelimages.com
Rural farmstead in Iceland around 1900 from digital.library.cornell.edu
Modern-day Reykjavik from seabourn.com
Icelandic postage stamp honoring the author from hipstamp.com
August 19, 2020
Better Red Than Dead
Entering into Independent People with no introduction, one could be forgiven for thinking it a merely charming review of early 20th century Icelandic culture, an update of the sagas and a chronicle of the rugged life of the North. Laxness apparently promotes this in his opening paragraphs with his references to local legends of Norse colonisers, Celtic demons, and the various Icelandic myths of national origin. He describes a timeless scene, “...the centuries lie side by side in unequally overgrown paths cut by the horses of the past..."
But Laxness is not unlike the late US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, generally acknowledged as the most powerful congressman of his day. When asked by a reporter his view about a particular issue, he responded "Aw shucks, I'm just a country boy; I don't know nuthin' about politics."
Laxness uses just this tone of rural naïveté to superb dramatic effect. Independent People is an acknowledged masterpiece. It helped Laxness win the Nobel Prize. Yet it presents itself in a dead pan Thurmondesque way that offers no clue about the book's subtlety or profundity. The first hint comes when Icelandic timelessness is suggested as other than desirable. The tradition alluded to is interminable rather than merely long. “...[F]or a thousand years they have imagined that they would rise above penury..."
The title, it turns out, is of course ironic, indeed only the tip of an iceberg of irony. The independence of the people involved - sheep crofters in the 'up-country' moorlands of Iceland - is imaginary. Debt and drudgery is what they can look forward to. Add to this the irony of even poetry being used to justify virtual enslavement rather than to commemorate freedom - the male protagonist/poet himself is an ignorant bully - and what is presented is a profoundly self-deceptive culture. This is the generalizable subject of the book: the social illusions that we adopt without awareness or, consequently, recourse.
Laxness describes a destructive yet self-satisfied Icelandic culture in remarkable and absorbing detail. The life of moorland crofters is brutal, tedious and lonely, especially for the women who have fewer chances for social interaction and, of course, must tend the menfolk as well as share in their heavy labour.
These country folk survive physically, if they do, on 'refuse fish', rye biscuits, and oatmeal. For some reason sugar and coffee is in plentiful supply but neither milk nor meat, even mutton, is not to be had except on the large estates or in the cities. And, whether for religious or economic reasons, neither spirits nor beer are generally available (something particularly odd for a sea-faring nation). Coffee, consumed in obviously unhealthy quantities, is the stimulant and social lubricant of choice.
The crofters survive socially on an infrequent diet of seasonal gossip, rumour and hearsay; and follow an agricultural routine dictated by shibboleths and superstition: "This land will not betray its flocks...Where the sheep lives, there lives man.... Independence is better than meat." Conformity of opinion could hardly be greater in a totalitarian state but each perceives himself as wisely free in assimilating these treasures of conventional wisdom.
Despite the prevailing poverty, aesthetics is a central issue among the men. Poetry is an art form that requires no resources except thought, not even paper since the oral tradition is taught from birth. However, the issues are of form not content. What arrangement of metre and rhyme is best? Independence in this domain means adopting an opinion without reasons other than personal preference and proclaiming it vehemently.
Children are plentiful but die off readily for all the usual reasons of malnourishment, disease, and accident. Those who survive often leave by taking up the sea, usually never to be heard from again because living in “...a land even more remote, America, which is further than death." This is considered a normal if not inevitable state of affairs for those who are truly independent.
The social structure is curiously egalitarian; class distinctions are grounded on wealth not birth. Hereditary wealth isn't institutionalised into permanent titles of nobility. Nonetheless there is a medieval system of obligation formalised through debt-relations to the large land-owners who hold mortgages, augment cash flows in bad times, and administer the markets for sheep and fish. In theory the smallholders are able to drive their sheep over the moors for days to get a better price. But of course they ‘choose’ to deal with the local merchant at a severe discount because its more convenient.
The church is tolerated as an inevitable burden which would clearly go unsupported and unattended if not for a national mandate. Its social role is the solemnisation of life events - birth, death, marriage - but weekly gatherings are infeasible given distances and the intensity of agrarian work schedules. The connection between their ‘rates’ and the cost of the local pastor is not one they seem to make.
It is not religion, therefore, that creates social cohesion. What religious awareness there is seems a mixture of Lutheran piety, pagan habit, and residual anti-papal sentiment. Rather, the core of Icelandic identity is portrayed as centred on the idea of independence, a condition universally valued in the country and gradually revealed as an ideology. "Independence is the most important thing of all in life." the newly wed husband says to his wife with obvious irony as she commences her virtual slavery in their croft on the moors.
The ideology of independence, no matter how contradictory to experience, is shared because it meets everyone's needs. It gives the impoverished crofters some vague hope of improvement as well as an ideal for which their suffering may be justified. It gives the gentry a rationale for their success and an image to be admired and emulated by the striving crofters. It gives the city-born local lady of the manor a reason to live in the bleakness of the Icelandic outback. Mainly the ideology of independence ensures social peace while encouraging maximum productive and exploitative effort by all concerned. Independence is, therefore, a pyrrhic reward since even "Elves are much happier than men."
The continuing tales of the protagonist’s search for independence hardly lead to a surprising denouement. The ideology of independence is a chimera, a monster hybrid of myth, illusion, stubbornness, and ignorance. In the form Laxness gives it, independence is a decadent form of patriotism that consumes not just its adherents but their families and children as well.
When taken seriously, this book is not easy to take at all by those who adopt a similar idolatry of abstract formulae. Laxness was a socialist who was not only creating an artistic work, he was also justifying the emerging politics of Iceland after WW II. For this he was condemned by the FBI as a Communist agitator and, despite his Nobel award was banned from the United States. One suspects the real reason for the ban was that by portraying the Icelandic ideology of independence Laxness was just a little to accurate in describing its American variant.
Entering into Independent People with no introduction, one could be forgiven for thinking it a merely charming review of early 20th century Icelandic culture, an update of the sagas and a chronicle of the rugged life of the North. Laxness apparently promotes this in his opening paragraphs with his references to local legends of Norse colonisers, Celtic demons, and the various Icelandic myths of national origin. He describes a timeless scene, “...the centuries lie side by side in unequally overgrown paths cut by the horses of the past..."
But Laxness is not unlike the late US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, generally acknowledged as the most powerful congressman of his day. When asked by a reporter his view about a particular issue, he responded "Aw shucks, I'm just a country boy; I don't know nuthin' about politics."
Laxness uses just this tone of rural naïveté to superb dramatic effect. Independent People is an acknowledged masterpiece. It helped Laxness win the Nobel Prize. Yet it presents itself in a dead pan Thurmondesque way that offers no clue about the book's subtlety or profundity. The first hint comes when Icelandic timelessness is suggested as other than desirable. The tradition alluded to is interminable rather than merely long. “...[F]or a thousand years they have imagined that they would rise above penury..."
The title, it turns out, is of course ironic, indeed only the tip of an iceberg of irony. The independence of the people involved - sheep crofters in the 'up-country' moorlands of Iceland - is imaginary. Debt and drudgery is what they can look forward to. Add to this the irony of even poetry being used to justify virtual enslavement rather than to commemorate freedom - the male protagonist/poet himself is an ignorant bully - and what is presented is a profoundly self-deceptive culture. This is the generalizable subject of the book: the social illusions that we adopt without awareness or, consequently, recourse.
Laxness describes a destructive yet self-satisfied Icelandic culture in remarkable and absorbing detail. The life of moorland crofters is brutal, tedious and lonely, especially for the women who have fewer chances for social interaction and, of course, must tend the menfolk as well as share in their heavy labour.
These country folk survive physically, if they do, on 'refuse fish', rye biscuits, and oatmeal. For some reason sugar and coffee is in plentiful supply but neither milk nor meat, even mutton, is not to be had except on the large estates or in the cities. And, whether for religious or economic reasons, neither spirits nor beer are generally available (something particularly odd for a sea-faring nation). Coffee, consumed in obviously unhealthy quantities, is the stimulant and social lubricant of choice.
The crofters survive socially on an infrequent diet of seasonal gossip, rumour and hearsay; and follow an agricultural routine dictated by shibboleths and superstition: "This land will not betray its flocks...Where the sheep lives, there lives man.... Independence is better than meat." Conformity of opinion could hardly be greater in a totalitarian state but each perceives himself as wisely free in assimilating these treasures of conventional wisdom.
Despite the prevailing poverty, aesthetics is a central issue among the men. Poetry is an art form that requires no resources except thought, not even paper since the oral tradition is taught from birth. However, the issues are of form not content. What arrangement of metre and rhyme is best? Independence in this domain means adopting an opinion without reasons other than personal preference and proclaiming it vehemently.
Children are plentiful but die off readily for all the usual reasons of malnourishment, disease, and accident. Those who survive often leave by taking up the sea, usually never to be heard from again because living in “...a land even more remote, America, which is further than death." This is considered a normal if not inevitable state of affairs for those who are truly independent.
The social structure is curiously egalitarian; class distinctions are grounded on wealth not birth. Hereditary wealth isn't institutionalised into permanent titles of nobility. Nonetheless there is a medieval system of obligation formalised through debt-relations to the large land-owners who hold mortgages, augment cash flows in bad times, and administer the markets for sheep and fish. In theory the smallholders are able to drive their sheep over the moors for days to get a better price. But of course they ‘choose’ to deal with the local merchant at a severe discount because its more convenient.
The church is tolerated as an inevitable burden which would clearly go unsupported and unattended if not for a national mandate. Its social role is the solemnisation of life events - birth, death, marriage - but weekly gatherings are infeasible given distances and the intensity of agrarian work schedules. The connection between their ‘rates’ and the cost of the local pastor is not one they seem to make.
It is not religion, therefore, that creates social cohesion. What religious awareness there is seems a mixture of Lutheran piety, pagan habit, and residual anti-papal sentiment. Rather, the core of Icelandic identity is portrayed as centred on the idea of independence, a condition universally valued in the country and gradually revealed as an ideology. "Independence is the most important thing of all in life." the newly wed husband says to his wife with obvious irony as she commences her virtual slavery in their croft on the moors.
The ideology of independence, no matter how contradictory to experience, is shared because it meets everyone's needs. It gives the impoverished crofters some vague hope of improvement as well as an ideal for which their suffering may be justified. It gives the gentry a rationale for their success and an image to be admired and emulated by the striving crofters. It gives the city-born local lady of the manor a reason to live in the bleakness of the Icelandic outback. Mainly the ideology of independence ensures social peace while encouraging maximum productive and exploitative effort by all concerned. Independence is, therefore, a pyrrhic reward since even "Elves are much happier than men."
The continuing tales of the protagonist’s search for independence hardly lead to a surprising denouement. The ideology of independence is a chimera, a monster hybrid of myth, illusion, stubbornness, and ignorance. In the form Laxness gives it, independence is a decadent form of patriotism that consumes not just its adherents but their families and children as well.
When taken seriously, this book is not easy to take at all by those who adopt a similar idolatry of abstract formulae. Laxness was a socialist who was not only creating an artistic work, he was also justifying the emerging politics of Iceland after WW II. For this he was condemned by the FBI as a Communist agitator and, despite his Nobel award was banned from the United States. One suspects the real reason for the ban was that by portraying the Icelandic ideology of independence Laxness was just a little to accurate in describing its American variant.
June 3, 2019
Little did I foresee that I would warm up to Bjartur, the roguish farmer, the more stubborn than a mule protagonist that Laxness chooses to construct this Icelandic epic around.
Far from the national hero the title might suggest, the reader meets a curmudgeon, an ostensibly querulous peasant who is obsessed with earning his freedom at all costs. He never indulges in kindness and expects his family to break their backs to achieve his goal: owning a farmstead and a flock of sheep that are his means towards economic emancipation, towards complete independence.
Dogs and cattle, he finds more reliable than people, his own kin included.
He distrusts politics, hates the bailiff for whom he worked eighteen years before he became master of his own estate, and mocks those who put their trust in a God he is sure doesn’t exist.
Ancient myths and legends are no concerns of his, Bjartur remains skeptical about the supernatural curse that is said to haunt the moors he intends to cultivate and ignores the advice of fellow farmers, swimming against the currents of a modern era that is slowly changing the dynamics of their rural community.
Iceland, with its eerie, rugged landscape, its glaciers, glacial rivers with black sand, volcanoes and newly formed lava fields, arises as the mute protagonist at the backdrop of Bjartur’s story.
I spent more than half of the book begrudging him the many disgraces that befell his impoverished family. Starvation, sickness, dismal working conditions in a treacherous land where nature is man’s nemesis… the harshness of life he willingly imposed on his wife and children for the sake of his dream of self-sufficiency seemed inexcusably ruthless, even cruel, to my gaping self.
But then, in the arched descend of the narration, as the echoes of WWI rage silently in the backdrop of the storytelling, Laxness works his magic and starts peeling off the layers of Bjartur’s thick skin to slowly reveal the softer tissue that constitutes his inner being. As all his belief system gradually collapses, the farmer’s mind whispers in rhymed quatrains and his heart bursts with an irresistible force that he has trouble acknowledging when his daughter Asta Sollilja, or “Beloved Sun-lily”, when his one flower, the flower of his life, is concerned. Bjartur’s fight for independence is not against the world, but against the part of himself that doesn’t want to accept that he loves, that he loves and aches deeply.
As the morose peasant surreptitiously becomes the stoic poet, everything Bjardur fought for disintegrates amidst the muddle of impending modernity, but the telluric energy that emanates from Laxness’ low-keyed, subversive prose transforms brutish reality into timeless hope; the merciless cynic into a loving father; the little boy’s dreams into an everlasting song; and the incredulous reader finally understands that the beauty of this stony-hearted but young country remains in its independent people, who cherish love in order to survive in a Godless world.
Far from the national hero the title might suggest, the reader meets a curmudgeon, an ostensibly querulous peasant who is obsessed with earning his freedom at all costs. He never indulges in kindness and expects his family to break their backs to achieve his goal: owning a farmstead and a flock of sheep that are his means towards economic emancipation, towards complete independence.
Dogs and cattle, he finds more reliable than people, his own kin included.
He distrusts politics, hates the bailiff for whom he worked eighteen years before he became master of his own estate, and mocks those who put their trust in a God he is sure doesn’t exist.
Ancient myths and legends are no concerns of his, Bjartur remains skeptical about the supernatural curse that is said to haunt the moors he intends to cultivate and ignores the advice of fellow farmers, swimming against the currents of a modern era that is slowly changing the dynamics of their rural community.
Iceland, with its eerie, rugged landscape, its glaciers, glacial rivers with black sand, volcanoes and newly formed lava fields, arises as the mute protagonist at the backdrop of Bjartur’s story.
I spent more than half of the book begrudging him the many disgraces that befell his impoverished family. Starvation, sickness, dismal working conditions in a treacherous land where nature is man’s nemesis… the harshness of life he willingly imposed on his wife and children for the sake of his dream of self-sufficiency seemed inexcusably ruthless, even cruel, to my gaping self.
But then, in the arched descend of the narration, as the echoes of WWI rage silently in the backdrop of the storytelling, Laxness works his magic and starts peeling off the layers of Bjartur’s thick skin to slowly reveal the softer tissue that constitutes his inner being. As all his belief system gradually collapses, the farmer’s mind whispers in rhymed quatrains and his heart bursts with an irresistible force that he has trouble acknowledging when his daughter Asta Sollilja, or “Beloved Sun-lily”, when his one flower, the flower of his life, is concerned. Bjartur’s fight for independence is not against the world, but against the part of himself that doesn’t want to accept that he loves, that he loves and aches deeply.
As the morose peasant surreptitiously becomes the stoic poet, everything Bjardur fought for disintegrates amidst the muddle of impending modernity, but the telluric energy that emanates from Laxness’ low-keyed, subversive prose transforms brutish reality into timeless hope; the merciless cynic into a loving father; the little boy’s dreams into an everlasting song; and the incredulous reader finally understands that the beauty of this stony-hearted but young country remains in its independent people, who cherish love in order to survive in a Godless world.
March 28, 2024
Iceland. Its landscapes, its northern lights, its volcanoes with unpronounceable names. We cannot say it has an insane number of writers (or inhabitants, it must be said). Halldór Laxness, 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature, is generally considered the greatest. He is a funny character who has had his bump quite a bit and is keen to help people discover his country.
Nowadays, Iceland's image is that of a minor, prosperous, democratic paradise that is ideal for tourism. However, we do not know or forget that it was one of the worst pits in the world not so long ago.
In the 1900s, a farmer, Bjartur, decided to set up independently. With his flock of sheep and his young wife, he went to live in the mountains, in the depths of a lonely, windswept moor. There was plenty of pasture and no human presence for miles. He wanted to live governed by his will alone and by nature, under the guidance of no one.
Like most Iceland peasants, they live in a mud hut half-buried and full of smoke, sleep on low slopes, and eat fish scraps. Potatoes are a dish for the rich. The rain falls almost continuously. That's a precarious existence that requires a daily struggle in total solitude. The novel takes place over two or three decades. Around Bjartur, people live, die, or search for a better destiny. It remains the pivot of the story. Leading his life like a boat amid a storm, he never gets discouraged or gives up. Instead, he continues, tracing straight ahead as an independent man.
The degree of misery that Halldór Laxness shows us would make the Thenardiers look like a wealthy bourgeois. It is a world of total hardness, far from the postcard image we have today. That's what to think about if you can travel there.
Nowadays, Iceland's image is that of a minor, prosperous, democratic paradise that is ideal for tourism. However, we do not know or forget that it was one of the worst pits in the world not so long ago.
In the 1900s, a farmer, Bjartur, decided to set up independently. With his flock of sheep and his young wife, he went to live in the mountains, in the depths of a lonely, windswept moor. There was plenty of pasture and no human presence for miles. He wanted to live governed by his will alone and by nature, under the guidance of no one.
Like most Iceland peasants, they live in a mud hut half-buried and full of smoke, sleep on low slopes, and eat fish scraps. Potatoes are a dish for the rich. The rain falls almost continuously. That's a precarious existence that requires a daily struggle in total solitude. The novel takes place over two or three decades. Around Bjartur, people live, die, or search for a better destiny. It remains the pivot of the story. Leading his life like a boat amid a storm, he never gets discouraged or gives up. Instead, he continues, tracing straight ahead as an independent man.
The degree of misery that Halldór Laxness shows us would make the Thenardiers look like a wealthy bourgeois. It is a world of total hardness, far from the postcard image we have today. That's what to think about if you can travel there.
February 15, 2008
"How much can one sacrifice for the sake of one's pride? Everything, of course - if one is proud enough." - Halldór Laxness, The Atom Station, 1948
No less than the best book I have read so far in my life.
Independent People (original title: Sjálfstætt Fólk) is the tragedy of a man who is proud enough to sacrifice everything. It tells the story of Bjartur of Summerhouses, his family (especially his daughter, Ásta Sóllilja) and the 'world war' they wage against the harsh Icelandic landscape in which they live and the demons, imaginary or otherwise, that inhabit it. Bjartur has spent 18 years scraping together enough money to buy his own croft (a croft that is supposedly haunted by a ghost destined to bring failure to all who try and farm there) and is determined at all costs that he and his new wife Rósa will live as independent people. He is stoical beyond belief, often frustrating the reader to tears with his stubborn refusal to deviate from his principles, to the detriment of his wives and children. He is callous to the point of cruelty and yet not unloving, and this for me was the most heart-wrenching strand in the novel (portrayed most clearly in his relationship with Ásta Sóllilja, but present throughout). It isn't at all that Bjartur doesn't experience love; it's that his misguided desperation for independence forces him to suppress his own humanity. And, in fairness, clinging to his principles must have been the only thing that prevented him from being crushed. He simply cannot allow himself to feel, otherwise he would sink beneath all that death and poverty. Set in the late 19th and early 20th century, superficially this is a book about sheep farming and drinking coffee, but in reality it is a journey into the 'labyrinth of the human soul'. With a good dose of sheep as well.
The writing is simply first class. Laxness' voice is simple and wry and filled with black humour, weaving Icelandic folklore and child-like imagination into a world of grim hardship. He is a true poet. The rest of the Laxness I've read has been translated by Magnus Magnusson, but I prefer J. A. Thompson. The vocabulary is richer and the style is smoother. I haven't read the original so I can't really comment on whether Magnusson's or Thompson's is closer to the spirit of Laxness, but I suspect (or hope) the latter is.
Independent People is an epic tragedy, filled with melancholic despair and great suffering (physical and emotional), but to me the book was not depressing, despite the fact that it did, and still does, make me cry. The story and the writing are beautiful and contain moments of great joy, humour and love alongside the tragedy. The characters are just perfect, and Bjartur must be one of the most interesting and complicated protagonists I've ever encountered. Every time I read it I am overwhelmed. Literature at its best: I can't believe that anyone could come away from this untouched. I have read several other Laxness novels, but this is undoubtedly his masterpiece. It is a travesty that it is so little known; Independent People is one of the great modern classics and, to paraphrase Leithauser, this novel genuinely is not just good, not just great, but the book of my life.
No less than the best book I have read so far in my life.
Independent People (original title: Sjálfstætt Fólk) is the tragedy of a man who is proud enough to sacrifice everything. It tells the story of Bjartur of Summerhouses, his family (especially his daughter, Ásta Sóllilja) and the 'world war' they wage against the harsh Icelandic landscape in which they live and the demons, imaginary or otherwise, that inhabit it. Bjartur has spent 18 years scraping together enough money to buy his own croft (a croft that is supposedly haunted by a ghost destined to bring failure to all who try and farm there) and is determined at all costs that he and his new wife Rósa will live as independent people. He is stoical beyond belief, often frustrating the reader to tears with his stubborn refusal to deviate from his principles, to the detriment of his wives and children. He is callous to the point of cruelty and yet not unloving, and this for me was the most heart-wrenching strand in the novel (portrayed most clearly in his relationship with Ásta Sóllilja, but present throughout). It isn't at all that Bjartur doesn't experience love; it's that his misguided desperation for independence forces him to suppress his own humanity. And, in fairness, clinging to his principles must have been the only thing that prevented him from being crushed. He simply cannot allow himself to feel, otherwise he would sink beneath all that death and poverty. Set in the late 19th and early 20th century, superficially this is a book about sheep farming and drinking coffee, but in reality it is a journey into the 'labyrinth of the human soul'. With a good dose of sheep as well.
The writing is simply first class. Laxness' voice is simple and wry and filled with black humour, weaving Icelandic folklore and child-like imagination into a world of grim hardship. He is a true poet. The rest of the Laxness I've read has been translated by Magnus Magnusson, but I prefer J. A. Thompson. The vocabulary is richer and the style is smoother. I haven't read the original so I can't really comment on whether Magnusson's or Thompson's is closer to the spirit of Laxness, but I suspect (or hope) the latter is.
Independent People is an epic tragedy, filled with melancholic despair and great suffering (physical and emotional), but to me the book was not depressing, despite the fact that it did, and still does, make me cry. The story and the writing are beautiful and contain moments of great joy, humour and love alongside the tragedy. The characters are just perfect, and Bjartur must be one of the most interesting and complicated protagonists I've ever encountered. Every time I read it I am overwhelmed. Literature at its best: I can't believe that anyone could come away from this untouched. I have read several other Laxness novels, but this is undoubtedly his masterpiece. It is a travesty that it is so little known; Independent People is one of the great modern classics and, to paraphrase Leithauser, this novel genuinely is not just good, not just great, but the book of my life.
Read
December 11, 2019This story of a man determined to be an independent smallholder raising sheep in the years before the first world war is a great book, for the right reader. As a book it has two principal obstacles to being universally enjoyed. Firstly, sheep are among the most important characters and much like their human dependants, their hardy virtues are easier to admire than love. Secondly, it is full of misery, worse yet, misery that is handled with irony and detachment. The simplest way of describing Independent People it that is an Icelandic Don Quixote. The hero's broken down old nag, twenty-six years in his service, at the end of this novel would nod at Rocinante, if it wasn't so busy slowly cropping the grass.
The quixotic notion here is that of the independent man. His notion of independence involves dependence on world markets, on sheep, on fair dealing. The independence of a man who lives off imported coffee and wheat flour.
Repeatedly we are shown that the lake by his croft is full of fish while the marsh is full of fowl. Repeatedly the mouth watering trout and fat geese are dismissed as mere famine food in favour of dried stock-fish. Bjartur's independence is then independence from sense, independence from a natural world which, if not abundant, does have tasty proteins and vitamins there for the taking. An independence that denies independence to his wives for the sake of his own pride.
These small time crofters live in a state of perpetual world war, not helpless in the face of ravaging armies but helpless in the face of the weather, the lung-worm, the foxes, the whole of the world, natural and unnatural, allied against them.
The novel is built up of contrasts. Peace was poverty, war is prosperity. Like the prosperity in The Atom Station it is an alien intrusion, something criminal and bringing an insanity to Icelandic life. (In the light of the Icelandic banking crisis in 2008 what else can one say but Plus ca change).
Discussing the First World War, Bjartur, unconscious of the irony says "Nowadays they fight just from sheer stupidity and obstinacy. But, as I've said before, stupidity is all right as long as other people can turn it to account". As the novel progresses we realise that all his independence is the result not of his own efforts but of other people taking his stupidity into account. Whether that be the marshy valley brought to be his kingdom, the medicines the Doctor gives him or the account he holds with the merchant, Bjartur is fleeced while the other party holds the sheers (this is a novel written when Laxness was still in his Communist phase, but after his time in Catholic monastery).
Debt as creating a network of social obligations reminded me of Stone Age Economics. But this Iceland is no longer in the stone age but in an age of sheep and steamships. Here the rich can only grow richer if they they take advantage of the stupidity of others. The semi-starvation of Bjartur's family contrasted with the girth and sleekness of the Bailiff's family who rise and rise in the world on the backs of the misfortunes of others.
Typical of the ironic outlook of the novel it is the Bailiff's town born wife who champions a rural culture of steadfast crofters that stands in contrast to the rural culture we actually see in which the home-made whisk to froth up the dribble of milk from the starving cow was Jesus' gift to the Icelandic people.
This leads me to see Bjartur and his quixotic struggle as a stand in for Iceland in this book published before Icelandic independence was achieved (achieved as it happened as a by product of another world war). Bjartur is as independent as his country can be, dependent as he is on world markets. He is as open to abuse as his country is.
The issues of faith that Laxness picked up again in Under the Glacier are but spring lambs here. Christianity is chiefly a form of social propriety in a country that after a thousand years is still in a stalled process of conversion and accommodation with trolls, spirits, elves and rains that fall unceasing for longer than a mere forty days and nights.
The gloom is tragic-comic, the conversation between Bjartur and the Pastor a great comic set piece. The poetry that Bjartur delights in, of too complex a form to bear much meaning, a cause of difference with another peasant poet who prefers to write properly Christian verse and isolates both from the Bailiff's wife whose poems idealise a rural life by leaving out the lice, the hunger and the lung-worm that infests the sheep.
At the end of the novel the horse is aged. We're on the forth generation of yellow bitches, yet the hero carries on. Alongside resilience, the news of the death of the Tsar, a portrait of one of his ancestors hung in the Bailiff's office marks a change in consciousness, allowing an ending, if not exactly happy, at least compassionate.
The translation
I read the Thompson translation. It's noticeably richer in vocabulary than the Magnusson translations of other Laxness novels I've read. If your taste is towards the laconic you might prefer the Magnusson version.
The quixotic notion here is that of the independent man. His notion of independence involves dependence on world markets, on sheep, on fair dealing. The independence of a man who lives off imported coffee and wheat flour.
Repeatedly we are shown that the lake by his croft is full of fish while the marsh is full of fowl. Repeatedly the mouth watering trout and fat geese are dismissed as mere famine food in favour of dried stock-fish. Bjartur's independence is then independence from sense, independence from a natural world which, if not abundant, does have tasty proteins and vitamins there for the taking. An independence that denies independence to his wives for the sake of his own pride.
These small time crofters live in a state of perpetual world war, not helpless in the face of ravaging armies but helpless in the face of the weather, the lung-worm, the foxes, the whole of the world, natural and unnatural, allied against them.
The novel is built up of contrasts. Peace was poverty, war is prosperity. Like the prosperity in The Atom Station it is an alien intrusion, something criminal and bringing an insanity to Icelandic life. (In the light of the Icelandic banking crisis in 2008 what else can one say but Plus ca change).
Discussing the First World War, Bjartur, unconscious of the irony says "Nowadays they fight just from sheer stupidity and obstinacy. But, as I've said before, stupidity is all right as long as other people can turn it to account". As the novel progresses we realise that all his independence is the result not of his own efforts but of other people taking his stupidity into account. Whether that be the marshy valley brought to be his kingdom, the medicines the Doctor gives him or the account he holds with the merchant, Bjartur is fleeced while the other party holds the sheers (this is a novel written when Laxness was still in his Communist phase, but after his time in Catholic monastery).
Debt as creating a network of social obligations reminded me of Stone Age Economics. But this Iceland is no longer in the stone age but in an age of sheep and steamships. Here the rich can only grow richer if they they take advantage of the stupidity of others. The semi-starvation of Bjartur's family contrasted with the girth and sleekness of the Bailiff's family who rise and rise in the world on the backs of the misfortunes of others.
Typical of the ironic outlook of the novel it is the Bailiff's town born wife who champions a rural culture of steadfast crofters that stands in contrast to the rural culture we actually see in which the home-made whisk to froth up the dribble of milk from the starving cow was Jesus' gift to the Icelandic people.
This leads me to see Bjartur and his quixotic struggle as a stand in for Iceland in this book published before Icelandic independence was achieved (achieved as it happened as a by product of another world war). Bjartur is as independent as his country can be, dependent as he is on world markets. He is as open to abuse as his country is.
The issues of faith that Laxness picked up again in Under the Glacier are but spring lambs here. Christianity is chiefly a form of social propriety in a country that after a thousand years is still in a stalled process of conversion and accommodation with trolls, spirits, elves and rains that fall unceasing for longer than a mere forty days and nights.
The gloom is tragic-comic, the conversation between Bjartur and the Pastor a great comic set piece. The poetry that Bjartur delights in, of too complex a form to bear much meaning, a cause of difference with another peasant poet who prefers to write properly Christian verse and isolates both from the Bailiff's wife whose poems idealise a rural life by leaving out the lice, the hunger and the lung-worm that infests the sheep.
At the end of the novel the horse is aged. We're on the forth generation of yellow bitches, yet the hero carries on. Alongside resilience, the news of the death of the Tsar, a portrait of one of his ancestors hung in the Bailiff's office marks a change in consciousness, allowing an ending, if not exactly happy, at least compassionate.
The translation
I read the Thompson translation. It's noticeably richer in vocabulary than the Magnusson translations of other Laxness novels I've read. If your taste is towards the laconic you might prefer the Magnusson version.
August 3, 2015
Way back when. My wife and went to our prominent local bookseller over the holidays in 2003. She asked me if I had read anything by Laxness and I adroitly responded, "who?" She bought something else and the following day I jogged down to the public library. My face burning with shame I checked this out from the stacks and returned home. I read such over two days. Jonsson the sheep farmer is everyman and he's screwed. Modernity arrives along with a nascent globalization. Never razor sharp, the farmer does possess a tradition and a rustic skill set. I loved that. Ultimately it may be a meditation on living in a bleak landscape: such is helpful in Indiana.
Read
June 13, 2017Sheep saga
The power of Laxness's writing allows the reader to become truly immersed in the smells, sights and sounds of the world he has created and, for me at least, the smells seemed to predominate, the smell of damp wool especially. An amazing feat.
The power of Laxness's writing allows the reader to become truly immersed in the smells, sights and sounds of the world he has created and, for me at least, the smells seemed to predominate, the smell of damp wool especially. An amazing feat.
October 6, 2023
Un título dolorosamente irónico, un protagonista terco e irritante, una historia sobre la soledad y la libertad, donde la mitología, el argumento, el lenguaje y la indomable Islandia se conjugan para parir una obra de arte.
Islandia, principios del siglo XIX, Bjartur ("Brillante" en islandés) ha trabajado durante 18 años para un individuo que detesta y está orgulloso de tener su propia granja y de no deberle "nada" a "nadie". La vida de los campesinos pobres como él es inhóspita, solitaria y abrumadoramente dura. Pero es peor aún para las mujeres y los pocos niños que sobreviven a su nacimiento o a los primeros años de vida. Esta difícil realidad, parece separar a las personas en vez de unirlas. Perfecto para Bjartur, porque alcanzar la verdadera independencia es su anhelo más intenso.
Gente Independiente fue publicada en 1934 y en 1935 en dos volúmenes separados. Sin que podamos oponer resistencia y seducidos por una prosa magnífica (repito, magnífica), nos traslada a otra época, a un paisaje fascinante y a una vida dura e ingrata. Laxness deja translucir el concepto de que la libertad individual no pasa por la idea de absoluta desvinculación y autonomía, sino por la libertad interior, una límpida libertad de conciencia difícil de alcanzar. El autor describe con detalle cuan autodestructivos y autocomplacientes podemos ser cuando se trata de nuestros ideales y de demostrar que siempre tuvimos la razón al defenderlos. Bjartur, de alguna manera, anula sus posibilidades de alcanzar esa verdadera plenitud interior persiguiendo su libertad idealizada. Y fuerza a quienes lo rodean a ser muchas cosas (miserables, principalmente) pero de ninguna forma, libres.
El placer literario del año para mí. Me alegra habérmelo dado.
Islandia, principios del siglo XIX, Bjartur ("Brillante" en islandés) ha trabajado durante 18 años para un individuo que detesta y está orgulloso de tener su propia granja y de no deberle "nada" a "nadie". La vida de los campesinos pobres como él es inhóspita, solitaria y abrumadoramente dura. Pero es peor aún para las mujeres y los pocos niños que sobreviven a su nacimiento o a los primeros años de vida. Esta difícil realidad, parece separar a las personas en vez de unirlas. Perfecto para Bjartur, porque alcanzar la verdadera independencia es su anhelo más intenso.
Gente Independiente fue publicada en 1934 y en 1935 en dos volúmenes separados. Sin que podamos oponer resistencia y seducidos por una prosa magnífica (repito, magnífica), nos traslada a otra época, a un paisaje fascinante y a una vida dura e ingrata. Laxness deja translucir el concepto de que la libertad individual no pasa por la idea de absoluta desvinculación y autonomía, sino por la libertad interior, una límpida libertad de conciencia difícil de alcanzar. El autor describe con detalle cuan autodestructivos y autocomplacientes podemos ser cuando se trata de nuestros ideales y de demostrar que siempre tuvimos la razón al defenderlos. Bjartur, de alguna manera, anula sus posibilidades de alcanzar esa verdadera plenitud interior persiguiendo su libertad idealizada. Y fuerza a quienes lo rodean a ser muchas cosas (miserables, principalmente) pero de ninguna forma, libres.
El placer literario del año para mí. Me alegra habérmelo dado.
July 22, 2018
Like World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is not just enough zombie story, but also a well written book; so too Independent People by Halldor Laxness is not just another book about Icelandic sheep crofters and separates itself from that crowded genre of literature by the quality of writing.
The Nobel laureate from Reykjavik tells an engrossing and damn near hypnotic story about poor Icelandic farmers. And sheep.
No kidding, SPOILER ALERT!! this is about a sheep crofter in early twentieth century rural Iceland.
And it’s a good book, masterfully written and crafted to poetically describe a time and place. A small farm on the moors of Iceland comes alive with colorful dialogue, family dynamics and subtle political intrigue. While we follow the exploits and stubborn misadventures of Bjartur of Summerhouses, the real hero here is Laxness for his beautifully descriptive and inspired writing.
Bjartur had worked for years to afford to own his own piece of land and poor as it is, the farm is his, without debt and he is rich in his own mind as any tycoon. His daughter from his first marriage, Ásta Sóllilja, and he are two peas in a pod and her obstinate independence from Bjartur is both a source of ironic humor in the narrative and a vehicle by which the author examines and explores family, isolation, community and poverty. The haves and have nots, even in this poverty-stricken place, is a particularly captivating theme in the book and Laxness’ superb writing makes the most of the subject. Some readers will draw comparisons to John Steinbeck’s work, particularly The Grapes of Wrath or In Dubious Battle as Laxness describes early socialist movements amongst the poverty and disparity in economic distribution.
A well written and entertaining book of a unique setting.
The Nobel laureate from Reykjavik tells an engrossing and damn near hypnotic story about poor Icelandic farmers. And sheep.
No kidding, SPOILER ALERT!! this is about a sheep crofter in early twentieth century rural Iceland.
And it’s a good book, masterfully written and crafted to poetically describe a time and place. A small farm on the moors of Iceland comes alive with colorful dialogue, family dynamics and subtle political intrigue. While we follow the exploits and stubborn misadventures of Bjartur of Summerhouses, the real hero here is Laxness for his beautifully descriptive and inspired writing.
Bjartur had worked for years to afford to own his own piece of land and poor as it is, the farm is his, without debt and he is rich in his own mind as any tycoon. His daughter from his first marriage, Ásta Sóllilja, and he are two peas in a pod and her obstinate independence from Bjartur is both a source of ironic humor in the narrative and a vehicle by which the author examines and explores family, isolation, community and poverty. The haves and have nots, even in this poverty-stricken place, is a particularly captivating theme in the book and Laxness’ superb writing makes the most of the subject. Some readers will draw comparisons to John Steinbeck’s work, particularly The Grapes of Wrath or In Dubious Battle as Laxness describes early socialist movements amongst the poverty and disparity in economic distribution.
A well written and entertaining book of a unique setting.
July 12, 2022
New article on the author....
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
=============
What, at first, seemed like a straightforward story turned out to be a detailed and somewhat complex morality tale. The author is out to show that rugged individualism is not enough and inevitably leads to disaster. The main character, Bjartur, faces a series of trials that are reminiscent of the Book of Job. But Bjartur never offered help to anyone else and, with one exception, he didn't expect help from anyone either. He's a stubborn loner, which is his undoing.
The author was a Marxist and he is not only challenging the libertarian ethic, but is also showing how independent farmers such as Bjartur get screwed over by the landed gentry. For Bjartur, it was years of low wage labor working for a gentry landowner before Bjartur could buy a place of his own, a ram-shackle, drafty hut, with a mortgage held by this same landowner. The financial pressure, like fickle weather, is always there.
==
Another interesting background article on the author
https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/201...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
=============
What, at first, seemed like a straightforward story turned out to be a detailed and somewhat complex morality tale. The author is out to show that rugged individualism is not enough and inevitably leads to disaster. The main character, Bjartur, faces a series of trials that are reminiscent of the Book of Job. But Bjartur never offered help to anyone else and, with one exception, he didn't expect help from anyone either. He's a stubborn loner, which is his undoing.
The author was a Marxist and he is not only challenging the libertarian ethic, but is also showing how independent farmers such as Bjartur get screwed over by the landed gentry. For Bjartur, it was years of low wage labor working for a gentry landowner before Bjartur could buy a place of his own, a ram-shackle, drafty hut, with a mortgage held by this same landowner. The financial pressure, like fickle weather, is always there.
==
Another interesting background article on the author
https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/201...
October 23, 2014
I kept waiting, waiting, for Bjartur Jonsson to break from his character. Not about his politics, which were entirely pragmatic. And not about his essential philosophy, that a man must be independent and reliant on no one. But surely to his family. Surely there would be one wife or a child that would turn his soul - when one has a flower. There were moments, or more precisely near-moments. And you could read into the text, I suppose, and believe that he actually had a moment when he loved a daughter or a son. But Bjartur spoke only in insults; and, given a choice between a family member or one of his sheep, well, can you say baaaaaa?
It would have been a lesser book, though, if he had ever warmed. Through two wives, more children than Laxness could count, some stillborn, but all dying in one way or another, Laxness assures us. Bjartur remains resolute in his beliefs. And so we learn about Iceland's winters, and her nascent politics. Life and government are reduced to their simplest terms. Hardscrabble, brutal. There are lessons learned:
-- Someone, somewhere, will benefit from a war.
-- Never forego a pre-paid trip to America because of some girl.
-- Sooner or later, all sheep get worms.
-- And this, from a deathbed:
"There are two things I want to ask you to remember when you've gone," she said, the wrinkled old face trembling much more than usual. "I want to ask you never to be insolent to those who hold a lowly position in the world. And never ill-treat any animal."
There are discourses within about politics, religion, and the nature of war. This is a land where people read about Noah and sniff, having experienced 200 days of steady rain without a flood. A land where the World War was the most bountiful blessing that God has sent our country.
There is plot here, too, but in one vignette after another. You get invested. Bjartur, don't kill the cow. Bjartur, don't kill the cow! Bjartur............!!!!
Bjartur, as I said, does not stray from character, even as you grip the seat and beg him to.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
There is an old woman here, Bjartur's second mother-in-law. She is mostly bedridden, but as she asks for little, Bjartur is not overtly annoyed with her. She has her oracle moments, which I like in my female octogenarians. In Bjartur's hovel, with diminishing children, and a dog and a cat, she remains.
When the bitch had gone, the cat would spring down on the old woman's bed and, after washing himself with meticulous care, would lie down to sleep with his head across his hind legs. The old woman never called him anything but that scum of a cat or that brute of a tom, and yet he liked her best, for he valued not vocabulary but disposition. She had never been known to hurt any animal. It is strange what a great liking cats have for old people. They appreciate the lack of inventiveness, rich in security, which is the chief virtue of old age; or was it that they understood the grey in each other, that which lies behind Christianity and behind the soul?
Such a place.
It would have been a lesser book, though, if he had ever warmed. Through two wives, more children than Laxness could count, some stillborn, but all dying in one way or another, Laxness assures us. Bjartur remains resolute in his beliefs. And so we learn about Iceland's winters, and her nascent politics. Life and government are reduced to their simplest terms. Hardscrabble, brutal. There are lessons learned:
-- Someone, somewhere, will benefit from a war.
-- Never forego a pre-paid trip to America because of some girl.
-- Sooner or later, all sheep get worms.
-- And this, from a deathbed:
"There are two things I want to ask you to remember when you've gone," she said, the wrinkled old face trembling much more than usual. "I want to ask you never to be insolent to those who hold a lowly position in the world. And never ill-treat any animal."
There are discourses within about politics, religion, and the nature of war. This is a land where people read about Noah and sniff, having experienced 200 days of steady rain without a flood. A land where the World War was the most bountiful blessing that God has sent our country.
There is plot here, too, but in one vignette after another. You get invested. Bjartur, don't kill the cow. Bjartur, don't kill the cow! Bjartur............!!!!
Bjartur, as I said, does not stray from character, even as you grip the seat and beg him to.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
There is an old woman here, Bjartur's second mother-in-law. She is mostly bedridden, but as she asks for little, Bjartur is not overtly annoyed with her. She has her oracle moments, which I like in my female octogenarians. In Bjartur's hovel, with diminishing children, and a dog and a cat, she remains.
When the bitch had gone, the cat would spring down on the old woman's bed and, after washing himself with meticulous care, would lie down to sleep with his head across his hind legs. The old woman never called him anything but that scum of a cat or that brute of a tom, and yet he liked her best, for he valued not vocabulary but disposition. She had never been known to hurt any animal. It is strange what a great liking cats have for old people. They appreciate the lack of inventiveness, rich in security, which is the chief virtue of old age; or was it that they understood the grey in each other, that which lies behind Christianity and behind the soul?
Such a place.
November 17, 2013
Everything that one has ever created achieves reality. And soon the day dawns when one finds oneself at the mercy of the reality one has created.
There is a subtle beauty in this text - an expansive desolation that plays as canvas to Laxness' protagonist Bjartur of Summerhouses creation of an independent life. Told in the early years of the 20th century on the hard-scrabble tundra of rural Iceland, the narrative follows the course of this stubborn Bjartur and his quixotic life-long quest for complete independence, come what may.
An independent man thinks only of himself and lets others do as they please.
Laxness surrounds Bjartur with a panoply of well imagined characters. They are in his orbit, regardless of his desire for them to be there. Time and again he will shatter the worlds of his family, his own, and will pick up those pieces wet and cold to arrange in an increasingly fragile independence of his own defining.
Time effaces everything, crime and sorrow no less than love.
Through Bjartur I learned that in order to be independent one is completely reliant on other people. And that no seemingly how far gone, redemption is always a possibility.
Bjartur of Summerhouses is in you; as he is in me, even though we may not be related at all.
June 10, 2012
It took me a little to do this thing with Independent People. 500 pages of itsy bitsy print: it requires a monogamous, long term commitment.’ But’, Brad Leithauser enthuses in the foreword,’ this is the book of my life. I have to reign in the suspicion I am its only ideal reader’. Hey ho, not a bad sell. Still, why? What is the book about?
‘Well, its a book about sheep’ says Leithauser. Well, for heavens sake. 500 pages about sheep, do I have it in me? I’m not Welsh after all, where the men are men and the sheep are afraid. Still, Laxness won the Nobel prize for it. Not that this is an iron clad guarantee. These things seem to be politically motivated at times, I think. I mean, I’m wagering no one from Iceland will win any sort of international prize after that little stunt they pulled in 2008 (when Landsbanski collapsed and the Icelandic government wouldn’t honour the international debt. All across Europe we were treated to well cushioned Icelanders wallowing in steaming mineral water holes in the ice, guzzling brandy, belching, and shouting to the TV camera’s how their tax payers money wasn’t gonna pay up for the folly of already bloated up European investors).
And yet. I’m a sucker for foreign lit: I like to see how the other half lives. Even if it is sheep. Which, I can now say, is a little misleading. Because, in fact, in amidst all those Icelandic sheep, there was also a cow. In fact, it was the cow, I posit, which was the star of the show. Laxness spends over 100 pages building up this cow, and when Bjartur slaughters her one day, his wife died of grief and I started bawling myself. But I didn’t shed a tear over the sheep I can tell you.And, don't let me forget the Coffee. These people like their coffee. 30 cups a day and counting.
Independent People is the Icelandic version of a family saga. I don’t read many of those, so my references are rather pedestrian, but here goes: ‘The grapes of wrath’, ‘Giant’ , ‘Thorn birds’, ‘.......’ insert your own favourite. Except, devoid of sentimentality and liberally endowed with historical references to the Icelandic struggle for Independence (not fully achieved until 1944), as well intelligent and sensitive discourse on Christianity.
The narrative unfolds languorously, a morass trickling in slow motion, buoyed by the driest, wittiest, most understated humour I’ve ever come across. Main protag Bjartur’s family life serves as the canvass on which Iceland’s mantle is pared back, vivisected and the core of the nation: its beating heart and hot pulse strewn forth for microscopic examination: a true epic. More than anything, its a book about Iceland, an enigmatic, little known, very cold North European and climatically inhospitable country with a population of scarcely 300,000, coming into its own at the turn of the 20tieth century.
Extremely rewarding read.
‘Well, its a book about sheep’ says Leithauser. Well, for heavens sake. 500 pages about sheep, do I have it in me? I’m not Welsh after all, where the men are men and the sheep are afraid. Still, Laxness won the Nobel prize for it. Not that this is an iron clad guarantee. These things seem to be politically motivated at times, I think. I mean, I’m wagering no one from Iceland will win any sort of international prize after that little stunt they pulled in 2008 (when Landsbanski collapsed and the Icelandic government wouldn’t honour the international debt. All across Europe we were treated to well cushioned Icelanders wallowing in steaming mineral water holes in the ice, guzzling brandy, belching, and shouting to the TV camera’s how their tax payers money wasn’t gonna pay up for the folly of already bloated up European investors).
And yet. I’m a sucker for foreign lit: I like to see how the other half lives. Even if it is sheep. Which, I can now say, is a little misleading. Because, in fact, in amidst all those Icelandic sheep, there was also a cow. In fact, it was the cow, I posit, which was the star of the show. Laxness spends over 100 pages building up this cow, and when Bjartur slaughters her one day, his wife died of grief and I started bawling myself. But I didn’t shed a tear over the sheep I can tell you.And, don't let me forget the Coffee. These people like their coffee. 30 cups a day and counting.
Independent People is the Icelandic version of a family saga. I don’t read many of those, so my references are rather pedestrian, but here goes: ‘The grapes of wrath’, ‘Giant’ , ‘Thorn birds’, ‘.......’ insert your own favourite. Except, devoid of sentimentality and liberally endowed with historical references to the Icelandic struggle for Independence (not fully achieved until 1944), as well intelligent and sensitive discourse on Christianity.
The narrative unfolds languorously, a morass trickling in slow motion, buoyed by the driest, wittiest, most understated humour I’ve ever come across. Main protag Bjartur’s family life serves as the canvass on which Iceland’s mantle is pared back, vivisected and the core of the nation: its beating heart and hot pulse strewn forth for microscopic examination: a true epic. More than anything, its a book about Iceland, an enigmatic, little known, very cold North European and climatically inhospitable country with a population of scarcely 300,000, coming into its own at the turn of the 20tieth century.
Extremely rewarding read.
February 11, 2017
What does it mean being independent? Stop for a moment and think: do you consider yourself an independent person? I've never asked myself this question seriously before reading this novel, although I've always tried to preserve my freedom by sticking to a few personal guidelines: I avoid becoming a working slave; I can't keep my mouth shut when I observe injustice or stupidity; I can't keep my head down to gain favors; I can't stand being tied to a person just out of politeness.
In my view, being independent means doing what you want to the farthest extent without obeying, humiliating yourself or giving up on your principles. Complete freedom is an illusion, because this world we are living in is not allowing us to be truly independent, unless we flee to the mountains and live a hermit's life. In the end, we need money, we need things, we need people. But we can be smart and find ways to do what we actually want; push the boundaries and gain as much freedom as we can; live for ourselves and not for the others.
In Bjartur's view, being independent means that he doesn't rely upon anybody and he is prepared to fight till the very end to preserve his independence. Through sickness, poverty, hunger and death, he relies upon himself only and does not ask for help. He does not flee and hide, he stays put and stubbornly fights every force that wants to kneel him down, be it nature, people, systems or supernatural forces. He may be stronger and tougher than most, but he is merely a human being in the end. He doesn't have the limitless powers of a God and the world tries to crush him with its iron fist.
Maybe you are wondering what is the outcome of Bjartur's fight for independence. I can only tell you that his strong will is not enough when confronted with the powerful tide of economic and political changes. It is a battle between unequal forces, but is his struggle worthless, like an ant's bite to an elephant foot? The masses hold the power, but it takes one individual to ignite the spark of change. He is a mere disposable human being and he might be defeated in the end, but this doesn't mean he can't rise again and find new ways of striving for his independence.
As human beings, our weakness will always be attachment and love. We lose some of our freedom because we enjoy doing something or we are crazy in love. We become dependent. Like I've became dependent on a certain community; I can't imagine my future reading life without being able to share my thoughts and receiving answers in return. I'm addicted and this is compromising my independence, but it's an addiction I don't want to be cured of. I'll never be a truly independent person unless I give up caring.
Bjartur owns his land and, still, he is in peril of losing it. Economic interests will always find a way to crush him. Our problem is that we don't own a parcel, we only own our thoughts and ideas. We could take them with us and leave an empty shell which will become worthless. We can't be fighting for our place here because we are mere tenants, and not even that; we can be kicked out any time. But we want to fight because of our attachment to a world of thought and ideas that we have created.
We could close our computers, step in the real world and forget that this beautiful realm of though ever existed. But what do we find in the world outside, are we actually free there? Because what's happening here is only a recreation of the real world, at a smaller scale. There are rules upon rules everywhere and we actually obey many of them. It's not possible to create a perfect, truly independent world. Only, this situation is more sarcastic because it's happening in the land of books, where freedom of speech (in the limits of decency) should be present in the same way as a book, whether good or bad, has the right to be present.
So we could deal with this situation in the same way we are dealing with our lives. We could do what we want and what we love to the farthest extent without obeying, humiliating ourselves or giving up on our principles. Take the good parts, ignore the bad parts. I know this is harder because we are tenants on somebody else's land and the new rules are in conflict with our principles. Maybe it's one of those moments when we need to be smart and earn our independence bit my bit, without fleeing to the mountains.
I wonder what Bjartur would do if he were in our shoes. We should not fool ourselves the way he did, indulging in ideals of limitless independence.
Go ahead and flag my review if you think it's off-topic, but you have to read the novel first (although it's so easy to pretend around here!).
I still have to figure out how to present my reviews from now on, but first I have to regain the pleasure of writing them.
In my view, being independent means doing what you want to the farthest extent without obeying, humiliating yourself or giving up on your principles. Complete freedom is an illusion, because this world we are living in is not allowing us to be truly independent, unless we flee to the mountains and live a hermit's life. In the end, we need money, we need things, we need people. But we can be smart and find ways to do what we actually want; push the boundaries and gain as much freedom as we can; live for ourselves and not for the others.
In Bjartur's view, being independent means that he doesn't rely upon anybody and he is prepared to fight till the very end to preserve his independence. Through sickness, poverty, hunger and death, he relies upon himself only and does not ask for help. He does not flee and hide, he stays put and stubbornly fights every force that wants to kneel him down, be it nature, people, systems or supernatural forces. He may be stronger and tougher than most, but he is merely a human being in the end. He doesn't have the limitless powers of a God and the world tries to crush him with its iron fist.
Maybe you are wondering what is the outcome of Bjartur's fight for independence. I can only tell you that his strong will is not enough when confronted with the powerful tide of economic and political changes. It is a battle between unequal forces, but is his struggle worthless, like an ant's bite to an elephant foot? The masses hold the power, but it takes one individual to ignite the spark of change. He is a mere disposable human being and he might be defeated in the end, but this doesn't mean he can't rise again and find new ways of striving for his independence.
As human beings, our weakness will always be attachment and love. We lose some of our freedom because we enjoy doing something or we are crazy in love. We become dependent. Like I've became dependent on a certain community; I can't imagine my future reading life without being able to share my thoughts and receiving answers in return. I'm addicted and this is compromising my independence, but it's an addiction I don't want to be cured of. I'll never be a truly independent person unless I give up caring.
Bjartur owns his land and, still, he is in peril of losing it. Economic interests will always find a way to crush him. Our problem is that we don't own a parcel, we only own our thoughts and ideas. We could take them with us and leave an empty shell which will become worthless. We can't be fighting for our place here because we are mere tenants, and not even that; we can be kicked out any time. But we want to fight because of our attachment to a world of thought and ideas that we have created.
We could close our computers, step in the real world and forget that this beautiful realm of though ever existed. But what do we find in the world outside, are we actually free there? Because what's happening here is only a recreation of the real world, at a smaller scale. There are rules upon rules everywhere and we actually obey many of them. It's not possible to create a perfect, truly independent world. Only, this situation is more sarcastic because it's happening in the land of books, where freedom of speech (in the limits of decency) should be present in the same way as a book, whether good or bad, has the right to be present.
So we could deal with this situation in the same way we are dealing with our lives. We could do what we want and what we love to the farthest extent without obeying, humiliating ourselves or giving up on our principles. Take the good parts, ignore the bad parts. I know this is harder because we are tenants on somebody else's land and the new rules are in conflict with our principles. Maybe it's one of those moments when we need to be smart and earn our independence bit my bit, without fleeing to the mountains.
I wonder what Bjartur would do if he were in our shoes. We should not fool ourselves the way he did, indulging in ideals of limitless independence.
Go ahead and flag my review if you think it's off-topic, but you have to read the novel first (although it's so easy to pretend around here!).
I still have to figure out how to present my reviews from now on, but first I have to regain the pleasure of writing them.
February 10, 2017
(review in English below)
1ª parte - O Colonizador da Islândia
Muito bom. Demorei algum tempo a "entrar", na forma de escrita (a fazer-me lembrar Saramago) mas sobretudo no ambiente, uma sociedade rural islandesa no início do século XX. Mas depois comecei a ficar encantada com a riqueza das descrições e o humor fabuloso dos diálogos.
Para já, uma bela surpresa e altamente recomendável.
...
Já terminei e a primeira impressão manteve-se. Gostei um pouco menos da última parte, mais centrada em questões sociais e políticas, mas no conjunto é uma excelente história, um pouco chocante para a nossa mentalidade urbana e actual mas contada duma forma por vezes quase mágica e que se torna viciante.
A tradução, feita directamente do islandês, parece-me boa, embora por vezes tenha estranhado as escolhas feitas relativamente aos tempos verbais, mas pode ser opção do escritor e característico da língua islandesa, que me é totalmente estranha (só sei que os apelidos são formado a partir do nome do pai, terminando os das mulheres em dóttir, que significa "filha" e os dos homens em son, que significa "filho", e que portanto variam de geração para geração, ao contrário do que acontece em Portugal e na maioria dos países ocidentais). As gralhas estão praticamente ausentes, mas ainda encontrei um ou outro erro ("enublado" em vez de "nublado", "eminente" em vez de "iminente", "querer" em vez de "crer") que deveriam ter sido eliminados na revisão.
Vou seguramente tentar ler outras obras deste autor.
Part I - Very good. I took a while to get into it, the writing (reminding me of Saramago) but mostly the ambiance, an Icelandic rural society in the beginning of the 20th century. But then I began to feel delighted with the rich descriptions and the fabulous humor of the dialogues. For now, it's a nice surprise, highly recommended.
...
I've finished it and the first impression persisted. I enjoyed the last part a little less, which was more focused on social and political issues, but on the whole it's a great story, a bit shocking to our urban and modern mentality, but sometimes told in an almost magical way that becomes addictive.
The translation, straight from Icelandic, seems OK, although at times some choices of verb tenses sounded a bit weird, but that could be the writers's option or a characteristic of the Icelandic language, which is completely alien to me (all I know is that last names originate from the father's name, with women's last names ending with dóttir, meaning daughter, and men's in son, meaning... that's right... son, unlike what happens in Portugal and in most Western countries).
I'll certainly be reading other books by this author.
1ª parte - O Colonizador da Islândia
Muito bom. Demorei algum tempo a "entrar", na forma de escrita (a fazer-me lembrar Saramago) mas sobretudo no ambiente, uma sociedade rural islandesa no início do século XX. Mas depois comecei a ficar encantada com a riqueza das descrições e o humor fabuloso dos diálogos.
Para já, uma bela surpresa e altamente recomendável.
...
Já terminei e a primeira impressão manteve-se. Gostei um pouco menos da última parte, mais centrada em questões sociais e políticas, mas no conjunto é uma excelente história, um pouco chocante para a nossa mentalidade urbana e actual mas contada duma forma por vezes quase mágica e que se torna viciante.
A tradução, feita directamente do islandês, parece-me boa, embora por vezes tenha estranhado as escolhas feitas relativamente aos tempos verbais, mas pode ser opção do escritor e característico da língua islandesa, que me é totalmente estranha (só sei que os apelidos são formado a partir do nome do pai, terminando os das mulheres em dóttir, que significa "filha" e os dos homens em son, que significa "filho", e que portanto variam de geração para geração, ao contrário do que acontece em Portugal e na maioria dos países ocidentais). As gralhas estão praticamente ausentes, mas ainda encontrei um ou outro erro ("enublado" em vez de "nublado", "eminente" em vez de "iminente", "querer" em vez de "crer") que deveriam ter sido eliminados na revisão.
Vou seguramente tentar ler outras obras deste autor.
Part I - Very good. I took a while to get into it, the writing (reminding me of Saramago) but mostly the ambiance, an Icelandic rural society in the beginning of the 20th century. But then I began to feel delighted with the rich descriptions and the fabulous humor of the dialogues. For now, it's a nice surprise, highly recommended.
...
I've finished it and the first impression persisted. I enjoyed the last part a little less, which was more focused on social and political issues, but on the whole it's a great story, a bit shocking to our urban and modern mentality, but sometimes told in an almost magical way that becomes addictive.
The translation, straight from Icelandic, seems OK, although at times some choices of verb tenses sounded a bit weird, but that could be the writers's option or a characteristic of the Icelandic language, which is completely alien to me (all I know is that last names originate from the father's name, with women's last names ending with dóttir, meaning daughter, and men's in son, meaning... that's right... son, unlike what happens in Portugal and in most Western countries).
I'll certainly be reading other books by this author.
September 17, 2014
When you say the word 'culture', watch out. The traps within the simple word are many, a loving gaze on the self and a objectifying fascination with the other, idealization and discrimination two shafts of light within the same grimy crystal. Nothing conveys this truth so well and so thoroughly as literature, as many throughout the centuries bring up their utensil of inkish intent and lay down their views, all for the most part bound within their single subset of country, family, faith. Nothing sells a turn of phrase like the simplicity of a forthright declaration, adulation and condemnation downright refusing to coexist in any measure, each shying away from the other as if the smallest admittance to the other would be the phrase that broke the novel's back. We have had our reactions to all this, true. Modernism, post-modernism, a straining towards the truth that is often only as effective as its level of readerly defibrillation, which I have applauded many times in the past and will continue to do so in the future, but. This is not the only way.
For, no matter how confabulated the methodologies, no matter how esoteric the means and ends by which the words display their worth in full, still there may remain the subtle divide between outright embracing and downright rejection, an implicit answer of no to the question of, is it possible to love, and still critique? Hate, and still recognize as valid? To accept the facts for what they are, and bring them to a plain more beautiful without an instance of warp and waiving over?
Laxness can.
Now, I know the dangers of first encounters, and this book exemplified so many. My first Icelandic author, my first experience of Iceland as conveyed in literature, my first acknowledgement of this Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, the final category littered with so many pompous landmines as to make a catastrophic debacle of its own right. And yet, I say, if you must choose a first, or for some tragic reason an only, piece of Icelandic literature to root around in a fervent search for whatever you read for, choose this one. Some say this would ruin the a large portion of future choices, to enjoy something of this supreme caliber as an initial course rather than a triumphant conclusion, but to that I say, life is short, and time is an awful thing to stretch and sap through other works, sustained by only lack of experience. For independence is all very well, but when it comes to living, I will never forgo the chance for change. I have enough confidence in my personal quirks to risk them in something new.
For here, you will find the piece of literature that others unconsciously grasp for when they decry the lack of reality of The Lord of the Rings. Here, you will soak in the bliss of gorgeous sights of nature and shudder at the fearful legends of heritage, but do not think you will be left to ride out the course of history in an icy land without the slightest glimpse of the morbid grip it has on its inhabitants. Does the biological workings of shit and parasites in sheep and other creatures make you turn up your nose? Do you frown on the turnings of politics as matters of little concern, disengaged as they seem from the livelihood you attempt to chase? Do you drown yourself in bucolic meanderings, flee from the slightest turn of horrors wreaked by the elements in all their gorgeous lashes against the alive, only take the idealized pieces of a single collective people of epic and landscape and curious traditions and leave the rest as not worth your readerly time? If so, this is not for you, for while it is heartbreakingly obvious that Laxness loved his people, here he does not coddle their faults, nor does he use them as an excuse to excise all the wonder generated in such a harsh world. You will love, and you will hate, and at the end you will be left with the accumulation of this one story of a man, an independent man, and it is for you to decide whether to cry on his shoulder or tear him to pieces with your teeth.
The great workings of the world beyond continue to wheel through the many cultures and the countless souls bred upon each and every one, and there is both singing and sorrow to be found within the lands and tongues and vibrancy of this turning sphere of ours. In this piece of work, you will discover one that you may have only heard trickles of tales, of Vikings, of bank failures, of volcanoes and of a small, cold land, where it is reported that one in ten will publish a book. If you are intrigued, don't hesitate for a moment. Love or hate, you will feel, and learn, and perhaps even appreciate this wide plain of existence we live and die upon, and all that comes out of the throes to be shared with those who follow.
For, no matter how confabulated the methodologies, no matter how esoteric the means and ends by which the words display their worth in full, still there may remain the subtle divide between outright embracing and downright rejection, an implicit answer of no to the question of, is it possible to love, and still critique? Hate, and still recognize as valid? To accept the facts for what they are, and bring them to a plain more beautiful without an instance of warp and waiving over?
Laxness can.
Now, I know the dangers of first encounters, and this book exemplified so many. My first Icelandic author, my first experience of Iceland as conveyed in literature, my first acknowledgement of this Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, the final category littered with so many pompous landmines as to make a catastrophic debacle of its own right. And yet, I say, if you must choose a first, or for some tragic reason an only, piece of Icelandic literature to root around in a fervent search for whatever you read for, choose this one. Some say this would ruin the a large portion of future choices, to enjoy something of this supreme caliber as an initial course rather than a triumphant conclusion, but to that I say, life is short, and time is an awful thing to stretch and sap through other works, sustained by only lack of experience. For independence is all very well, but when it comes to living, I will never forgo the chance for change. I have enough confidence in my personal quirks to risk them in something new.
For here, you will find the piece of literature that others unconsciously grasp for when they decry the lack of reality of The Lord of the Rings. Here, you will soak in the bliss of gorgeous sights of nature and shudder at the fearful legends of heritage, but do not think you will be left to ride out the course of history in an icy land without the slightest glimpse of the morbid grip it has on its inhabitants. Does the biological workings of shit and parasites in sheep and other creatures make you turn up your nose? Do you frown on the turnings of politics as matters of little concern, disengaged as they seem from the livelihood you attempt to chase? Do you drown yourself in bucolic meanderings, flee from the slightest turn of horrors wreaked by the elements in all their gorgeous lashes against the alive, only take the idealized pieces of a single collective people of epic and landscape and curious traditions and leave the rest as not worth your readerly time? If so, this is not for you, for while it is heartbreakingly obvious that Laxness loved his people, here he does not coddle their faults, nor does he use them as an excuse to excise all the wonder generated in such a harsh world. You will love, and you will hate, and at the end you will be left with the accumulation of this one story of a man, an independent man, and it is for you to decide whether to cry on his shoulder or tear him to pieces with your teeth.
The great workings of the world beyond continue to wheel through the many cultures and the countless souls bred upon each and every one, and there is both singing and sorrow to be found within the lands and tongues and vibrancy of this turning sphere of ours. In this piece of work, you will discover one that you may have only heard trickles of tales, of Vikings, of bank failures, of volcanoes and of a small, cold land, where it is reported that one in ten will publish a book. If you are intrigued, don't hesitate for a moment. Love or hate, you will feel, and learn, and perhaps even appreciate this wide plain of existence we live and die upon, and all that comes out of the throes to be shared with those who follow.
February 11, 2021
“Gente Indepedente” é um romance épico da autoria do Nobel islandês Halldór Laxness, em que a saga de um homem pode tornar-se a saga de toda uma nação. Ignorava a sua existência até ter dado uma espreitadela à lista de 100 melhores livros de todos os tempos do The Guardian, e chamou-me à atenção entre Eneida e o Velho Testamento.
A Islândia de 1900 é um local inóspito, uma nação em equilíbrio sobre 1000 anos de provações: houve erupções, fomes e guerras, mas a ameaça constante continuam a ser as distâncias, o isolamento e a necessidade de importar do estrangeiro bens essenciais como centeio, trigo, ou mesmo o café que lhes aquece as jornadas de trabalho.
À luz dos grandes, o nosso homem independente, Bjartur de Casas de Verão, é apenas um agricultor, um pequeno camponês que vive das ovelhas e da sua obsessão por possuir um pedaço de terra e ser autossuficiente. Porém, na Islândia de 1900, o progresso que vem de além-mar debate-se com as rimas, as sagas e as superstições de um povo que luta diariamente pela sobrevivência, e Bjartur é demasiado obstinado para confiar na modernidade ou nos outros em geral.
Bjartur é controverso, por vezes cruel, indecifrável e intransigente. Obriga os filhos a trabalharem a terra desde tenra idade, 16 horas por dia atolados na lama das charnecas, e a destruírem as mãos nas ferramentas agrícolas, tudo em nome de uma independência que apregoa como o mais elevado dos valores: a autêntica dignidade do homem. E é neste contraste entre a dureza das circunstâncias, a aspereza de Bjartur e a miséria generalizada, que a beleza das flores, dos fiordes, dos sonhos, das rimas e das meninas de mãos delicadas e olhos estrábicos se tornam impossivelmente comovedoras. Ainda que a Islândia os massacre, eles lutam e sonham, e nunca se vergam. Limitam-se a aguentar, divididos entre a gula dos capitalistas, a perfídia dos bancos e as promessas dos socialistas. A narrativa avança demorada, Laxness oferece-nos a perspetiva de cada personagem de modo singular, coloca-nos no seu corpo e faz-nos caminhar nos seus sapatos por aquelas estradas que oferecem vislumbres distantes de mar, de montanhas azuis e de geiseres. Acabamos por conhecer o bater do coração e a torrente de pensamentos de cada islandês aqui retratado, sofremos com os seus dilemas e a sua teimosia, e regozijamo-nos com os seus triunfos. Por entre discursos políticos, a ambição dos merceeiros e a qualidade do café, somos brindados com relances do mais belo que existe na natureza humana e no modo como molda e é moldada pelo ambiente.
A Islândia de Bjartur é uma ilha gelada onde as ovelhas e os cães têm as barrigas cheias de lombrigas e ténias, e os dorsos mordidos por pulgas, mas ainda assim há tanta beleza no espírito indomável do homem que tudo suporta e tudo supera…
Podemos considerar que os tempos vergaram Bjartur das Casas de Verão? Podemos acreditar que os fantasmas dos fundadores da Islândia e das bruxas que a povoaram mastigaram o seu sonho de independência e derrubaram o seu casebre de turfa? Podemos considerar que o vale onde ergueu Casas de Verão não lhe era nada, mas um mero meio para atingir a autossuficiência, e que perante as exigências do corpo a paisagem é secundária e até olvidável?
Não sei se é o livro do século, mas sei que é um livro inesquecível, um livro que me trouxe novo conhecimento sobre aquilo de que a nossa espécie é capaz de suportar. Voltarei a ler Laxness, agora com a fé inabalável de estar perante um dos grandes pensadores e artistas do século XX.
A Islândia de 1900 é um local inóspito, uma nação em equilíbrio sobre 1000 anos de provações: houve erupções, fomes e guerras, mas a ameaça constante continuam a ser as distâncias, o isolamento e a necessidade de importar do estrangeiro bens essenciais como centeio, trigo, ou mesmo o café que lhes aquece as jornadas de trabalho.
"O que é a alma? Se cortarmos a cabeça a um animal, a alma sai da espinha dorsal a voar e desaparece no céu como uma mosca? (...) Um homem quantas almas tem? Lázaro voltou a morrer numa outra altura? E porque razão as almas se comportam com cortesia perante os altos funcionários do Estado, enquanto molestam os pequenos agricultores dos vales?"
À luz dos grandes, o nosso homem independente, Bjartur de Casas de Verão, é apenas um agricultor, um pequeno camponês que vive das ovelhas e da sua obsessão por possuir um pedaço de terra e ser autossuficiente. Porém, na Islândia de 1900, o progresso que vem de além-mar debate-se com as rimas, as sagas e as superstições de um povo que luta diariamente pela sobrevivência, e Bjartur é demasiado obstinado para confiar na modernidade ou nos outros em geral.
"Fenómenos sobrenaturais são sumamente desagradáveis por uma razão: eles abalam o conhecimento do mundo que serve de alicerce à existência humana, e deixam a alma a flutuar no ar, onde ela não pertence."
Bjartur é controverso, por vezes cruel, indecifrável e intransigente. Obriga os filhos a trabalharem a terra desde tenra idade, 16 horas por dia atolados na lama das charnecas, e a destruírem as mãos nas ferramentas agrícolas, tudo em nome de uma independência que apregoa como o mais elevado dos valores: a autêntica dignidade do homem. E é neste contraste entre a dureza das circunstâncias, a aspereza de Bjartur e a miséria generalizada, que a beleza das flores, dos fiordes, dos sonhos, das rimas e das meninas de mãos delicadas e olhos estrábicos se tornam impossivelmente comovedoras. Ainda que a Islândia os massacre, eles lutam e sonham, e nunca se vergam. Limitam-se a aguentar, divididos entre a gula dos capitalistas, a perfídia dos bancos e as promessas dos socialistas. A narrativa avança demorada, Laxness oferece-nos a perspetiva de cada personagem de modo singular, coloca-nos no seu corpo e faz-nos caminhar nos seus sapatos por aquelas estradas que oferecem vislumbres distantes de mar, de montanhas azuis e de geiseres. Acabamos por conhecer o bater do coração e a torrente de pensamentos de cada islandês aqui retratado, sofremos com os seus dilemas e a sua teimosia, e regozijamo-nos com os seus triunfos. Por entre discursos políticos, a ambição dos merceeiros e a qualidade do café, somos brindados com relances do mais belo que existe na natureza humana e no modo como molda e é moldada pelo ambiente.
A Islândia de Bjartur é uma ilha gelada onde as ovelhas e os cães têm as barrigas cheias de lombrigas e ténias, e os dorsos mordidos por pulgas, mas ainda assim há tanta beleza no espírito indomável do homem que tudo suporta e tudo supera…
Podemos considerar que os tempos vergaram Bjartur das Casas de Verão? Podemos acreditar que os fantasmas dos fundadores da Islândia e das bruxas que a povoaram mastigaram o seu sonho de independência e derrubaram o seu casebre de turfa? Podemos considerar que o vale onde ergueu Casas de Verão não lhe era nada, mas um mero meio para atingir a autossuficiência, e que perante as exigências do corpo a paisagem é secundária e até olvidável?
"Ser pobre é exatamente aquele peculiar estado do homem de não poder desfrutar das condições excepcionais. Ser um agricultor pobre consiste em nunca poder tirar proveito das vantagens que os políticos oferecem ou prometem, e estar à mercê dos ideais que apenas fazem os ricos mais ricos e os pobres mais pobres."
Não sei se é o livro do século, mas sei que é um livro inesquecível, um livro que me trouxe novo conhecimento sobre aquilo de que a nossa espécie é capaz de suportar. Voltarei a ler Laxness, agora com a fé inabalável de estar perante um dos grandes pensadores e artistas do século XX.
August 22, 2016
It is hard to write about this novel, but others have managed to do so with words that make perfect sense. Perhaps, though, I'm still caught in that after-book glow, figuring out just whether or not my love for this book will condense itself into sentences with letters and words and commas and periods. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. For your sake and mine I'll keep this blathering short and encourage you, instead, to go and read reviews from others on this site. There are good ones.
It is a lovely work, which I have loved and will love again. It isn't often I say that I love books, though I often admit that I love reading. No, to actually love a book - to feel that kind of connection to the pages - is rare for me. But, well, I love this book. I love its writing, its compassion, its characters, its sadness, its connections to humanity. I love how it illumines the soul. I love how it talks about our shared condition. I love how it doesn't attempt to go over-the-top, I love that it is gentle without being genteel. I love this book.
Is that a sufficient endorsement for you? I hope so. Independent People is one of the great books I will read in a life filled with great books.
It is a lovely work, which I have loved and will love again. It isn't often I say that I love books, though I often admit that I love reading. No, to actually love a book - to feel that kind of connection to the pages - is rare for me. But, well, I love this book. I love its writing, its compassion, its characters, its sadness, its connections to humanity. I love how it illumines the soul. I love how it talks about our shared condition. I love how it doesn't attempt to go over-the-top, I love that it is gentle without being genteel. I love this book.
Is that a sufficient endorsement for you? I hope so. Independent People is one of the great books I will read in a life filled with great books.
April 29, 2014
My 109th book read this year and just the 6th time that I gave a 5-star rating.
This book truly deserves this. It feels like the Les Miserables of Iceland but the sights, smell and sound here is not the France in 19th century but the moors, the sheep, the snow of Iceland during the turn of the 20th century. Halldor Laxness (1902-1998) received the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature and the only Icelandic author who has won this prestigious price.
The story revolves around a man called Bjartur of Summerhouses who fights for the independence (not being beholden to any man) of the sheep farmers in his community. Yes, this book is about sheep. Everything about sheep. The book is 483 pages long and the font size is small that could be eye-straining and yet I read this with gusto. I just had to refer to my dictionary once-in-a-while because I did not know anything about sheep except the things about flukes and tapeworms that I studied in Parasitory during my Medical Technology days in college.
It also incorporates the Icelandic mythology like a snow demon Grimur who can creep into your dream and what Bjartur could do was not to fall asleep by reciting verses, poems and singing similar to the teenagers keeping awake otherwise when they fall asleep they'll have Jimmy Krueger with his five razors as his fingers.
The book is divided into three parts: Part I is Icelandic Pioneers that introduces the main characters of the story as well as the history of the place. It is very interesting to know for example that there are also gods and goddesses in the place and even if it the people were later converted to Catholicism, they still believe in the gods of their ancestors and this reminded me of the people in our province who still believe in faith healers. Bjartur here just left his job for 18-years as a sheep farmer and decides to marry Rosa and vowed that they will leave independently.
Part II is called Free of Debt and this is basically about Bjartur trying not to be free of any debts. Rosa dies when she gives birth to Asta Sollilja who is the son not of Bjartur but of Ingólfur Arnarson Jónsson, a bailiff's son. The rest of the chapter is about Arna's being clingy to her father who just like any daughter would try to be as close to her dad so that he would be proud of her and in Arna's case, not blame her for the lost of his wife (Arna's mother). This feeling of Arna is even compounded when Bjartur remarries and has three other children. The way the relationship of the father and daughter is so complex but it basically because of Arna's guilt and Bjartur's knowledge that Arna is not his own.
Part III is about the conclusion and the onset of World War II and its effect on the community. I never dreamed of Iceland being affected by war as Hitler did not go to Iceland as far as I know. However, the prices of their commodities like mutton and wool increased and the farmer begin to dream about better lives. Here also, the anti-war message of Laxness is very evident particularly the discussions of the farmers towards the end of this part.
One of the most memorable reads that I have this year. If money is no matter, I want to go to Iceland! Whew, especially with this kind of weather in Manila. Scorching summer heat!
This book truly deserves this. It feels like the Les Miserables of Iceland but the sights, smell and sound here is not the France in 19th century but the moors, the sheep, the snow of Iceland during the turn of the 20th century. Halldor Laxness (1902-1998) received the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature and the only Icelandic author who has won this prestigious price.
The story revolves around a man called Bjartur of Summerhouses who fights for the independence (not being beholden to any man) of the sheep farmers in his community. Yes, this book is about sheep. Everything about sheep. The book is 483 pages long and the font size is small that could be eye-straining and yet I read this with gusto. I just had to refer to my dictionary once-in-a-while because I did not know anything about sheep except the things about flukes and tapeworms that I studied in Parasitory during my Medical Technology days in college.
It also incorporates the Icelandic mythology like a snow demon Grimur who can creep into your dream and what Bjartur could do was not to fall asleep by reciting verses, poems and singing similar to the teenagers keeping awake otherwise when they fall asleep they'll have Jimmy Krueger with his five razors as his fingers.
The book is divided into three parts: Part I is Icelandic Pioneers that introduces the main characters of the story as well as the history of the place. It is very interesting to know for example that there are also gods and goddesses in the place and even if it the people were later converted to Catholicism, they still believe in the gods of their ancestors and this reminded me of the people in our province who still believe in faith healers. Bjartur here just left his job for 18-years as a sheep farmer and decides to marry Rosa and vowed that they will leave independently.
Part II is called Free of Debt and this is basically about Bjartur trying not to be free of any debts. Rosa dies when she gives birth to Asta Sollilja who is the son not of Bjartur but of Ingólfur Arnarson Jónsson, a bailiff's son. The rest of the chapter is about Arna's being clingy to her father who just like any daughter would try to be as close to her dad so that he would be proud of her and in Arna's case, not blame her for the lost of his wife (Arna's mother). This feeling of Arna is even compounded when Bjartur remarries and has three other children. The way the relationship of the father and daughter is so complex but it basically because of Arna's guilt and Bjartur's knowledge that Arna is not his own.
Part III is about the conclusion and the onset of World War II and its effect on the community. I never dreamed of Iceland being affected by war as Hitler did not go to Iceland as far as I know. However, the prices of their commodities like mutton and wool increased and the farmer begin to dream about better lives. Here also, the anti-war message of Laxness is very evident particularly the discussions of the farmers towards the end of this part.
One of the most memorable reads that I have this year. If money is no matter, I want to go to Iceland! Whew, especially with this kind of weather in Manila. Scorching summer heat!
October 28, 2023
“But he could not help it. No one can help it. One is a realist. One has put up with it all ever since childhood; one has had the courage to look it full in the eye, possibly courage enough to look it in the eye all one's life long. Then one day the distances beckon with their floating possibilities, and in one's hands are the admission tickets, two slips of blue paper. One is a realist no longer. One has finished putting up with it all, one no longer has the courage to look it in the eye, one is in the power of beckoning hospitable distances, floating possibilities, perhaps forever afterwards. Perhaps one's life is over.”
Another Nobel laureate and my first foray into Icelandic fiction. It is set in the early twentieth century before during and after the First World War. Laxness has created one of the most irritating and annoying protagonists in literature Bjartur of Summerhouses. Yet you can find yourself rooting for him and his and hoping he will be less stubborn. He is a practical and impoverished, yet independent sheep farmer. Living in a farmhouse with a turf roof: animals on the ground floor and a common room above. Bjartur wants to be independent and beholden to no one.
Laxness is a keen observer of human nature with a dry and rather sardonic sense of humour.
“The life of man is so short that ordinary people simply cannot afford to be born”
During the novel Bjartur marries and loses two wives and several children. There are the challenges of disease, poverty, the weather, the landscape, the lure of America and death. Bjartur remains unbending and cantankerous through it all.
There’s interesting stuff about workers cooperatives and rather sinister bankers and capitalists as well. Laxness managed to get a reputation as a socialist author as well: so much so that he was “blacklisted” by the US in the 1950s. Laxness also has a reputation for being a naturalist author in the vein of Zola or Steinbeck. He can certainly write well about the landscape and the world around his characters:
“And when the spring breezes blow up the valley; when the spring sun shines on last year’s withered grass on the river banks; and on the lake; and on the lake’s two white swans; and coaxes the new grass out of the spongy soil in the marshes – who could believe on such a day that this peaceful, grassy valley brooded over the story of our past; and over its spectres?”
There are plenty of references to Icelandic folklore and mythology’
It is also a critique of the sort of rugged individualism that is much prized these days. This is a great novel: although it is a twentieth century novel, it does almost feel like a Victorian novel with a central character, that, whatever you think of him, can’t be ignored.
“Size isn’t everything by any means,” he said aloud to the dog, as if suspecting her of entertaining high ideas. “Take my word for it, freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years’ slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through the winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year–then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.”
Another Nobel laureate and my first foray into Icelandic fiction. It is set in the early twentieth century before during and after the First World War. Laxness has created one of the most irritating and annoying protagonists in literature Bjartur of Summerhouses. Yet you can find yourself rooting for him and his and hoping he will be less stubborn. He is a practical and impoverished, yet independent sheep farmer. Living in a farmhouse with a turf roof: animals on the ground floor and a common room above. Bjartur wants to be independent and beholden to no one.
Laxness is a keen observer of human nature with a dry and rather sardonic sense of humour.
“The life of man is so short that ordinary people simply cannot afford to be born”
During the novel Bjartur marries and loses two wives and several children. There are the challenges of disease, poverty, the weather, the landscape, the lure of America and death. Bjartur remains unbending and cantankerous through it all.
There’s interesting stuff about workers cooperatives and rather sinister bankers and capitalists as well. Laxness managed to get a reputation as a socialist author as well: so much so that he was “blacklisted” by the US in the 1950s. Laxness also has a reputation for being a naturalist author in the vein of Zola or Steinbeck. He can certainly write well about the landscape and the world around his characters:
“And when the spring breezes blow up the valley; when the spring sun shines on last year’s withered grass on the river banks; and on the lake; and on the lake’s two white swans; and coaxes the new grass out of the spongy soil in the marshes – who could believe on such a day that this peaceful, grassy valley brooded over the story of our past; and over its spectres?”
There are plenty of references to Icelandic folklore and mythology’
It is also a critique of the sort of rugged individualism that is much prized these days. This is a great novel: although it is a twentieth century novel, it does almost feel like a Victorian novel with a central character, that, whatever you think of him, can’t be ignored.
“Size isn’t everything by any means,” he said aloud to the dog, as if suspecting her of entertaining high ideas. “Take my word for it, freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years’ slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through the winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year–then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.”
November 10, 2017
I felt together with Bjartur the blistering cold cutting to his bones after he let the reindeer escape, got out of the river and had to walk all wet through snow and blizzard for hours on end to find a shelter. I craved for milk and some meat together with Rosa during her pregnancy days. I discovered universes in the small space of a shabby room and discovered how time and shapes can be redefined in the mind of an innocent child together with Nonni. I felt together with Asta Solillja how it was to be confined within such narrow limitations imposed by her father, remoteness of their home and poverty, to be soaked to the skin every single day and to keep working like this during the whole summer. I daydreamed together with her about him (“him, him, him” to quote her), the charming stranger that put a mark on her imagination so.
You don’t just read this book, you feel everything that’s written inside with all your senses. And the intensity of the feeling leaves you almost breathless at times.
Laxness' powerful descriptions made me imagine Iceland in such detail that I hope when seeing the real one I will not be disappointed. Nature which is far from friendly, the crofts with their lack of light, the rain, the ewes all around and the people who, although not schooled much, have poetic abilities and a wisdom that cannot be learned in school, they all together made authentic idyllic landscapes whose charm cannot let one indifferent. The depth of the problems raised and Bjartur's incessant struggle to keep his independence are really touching.
You don’t just read this book, you feel everything that’s written inside with all your senses. And the intensity of the feeling leaves you almost breathless at times.
Laxness' powerful descriptions made me imagine Iceland in such detail that I hope when seeing the real one I will not be disappointed. Nature which is far from friendly, the crofts with their lack of light, the rain, the ewes all around and the people who, although not schooled much, have poetic abilities and a wisdom that cannot be learned in school, they all together made authentic idyllic landscapes whose charm cannot let one indifferent. The depth of the problems raised and Bjartur's incessant struggle to keep his independence are really touching.
"The poems that touched her heart most, suffusing her with exalted emotion, so that she felt she could gather everything to her, were those which tell of the sorrow that wakes in the heart whose dreams have not been fulfilled, and of the beauty of that sorrow."This book is about the most authentic of all worlds there is and it speaks about the sorrow felt when the most ardent dreams are not fullfilled. It makes you question what independence really means (what it means for the main character, what it means for you). There is so much beauty, sorrow and poetry in it that it can move anyone to tears.
March 24, 2021
Extraordinário.
“Os pássaros são mais felizes do que os homens, as asas fazem toda a diferença.”
“Os habitantes das cidades, dizia a senhora, não faziam a mínima ideia sobre a paz que a mãe natureza oferece, e enquanto tal paz não for encontrada o espírito é saciado com novidades efémeras. (…) A paz que reina na natureza tem subjacente um efeito calmante e alegra a disposição, a relva verdejante brilhantemente tecida com flores debaixo dos pés evoca uma sensação de beleza, quase de reverência, é cómodo repousar nela, o cheiro é aromatizante, a serenidade reconfortante.”
“Nada nutre melhor o talento poético do que a solidão das longas caminhadas pelas montanhas. Horas a fio fora capaz de mastigar as mesmas palavras até conseguir moldá-las num verso.”
“(…) a angústia é mais forte que toda a felicidade de uma vida junta, tentou concentrar a sua esperança no distante amanhecer, pois o ser humano procura sempre algo para o seu consolo, e esta esperança na consolação, mesmo quando parece não haver mais saídas, é a prova de que está vivo. A noite nunca chega a ser tão escura nem longa que os homens não depositem a sua esperança no distante nascer do dia.”
“(…) Pai-Nosso que estais no céu, sim, tão infinitamente longe que ninguém sabe onde estais, quase em lado nenhum, dai-nos hoje qualquer coisa pequenita para comer em nome da vossa glória e perdoai-nos se não podemos pagar atempadamente ao merceeiro e aos nossos credores, mas acima de tudo não nos deixais cair na tentação de vivermos felizes, porque vosso é o reino (…)
Os homens inclinaram as suas cabeças, todos excepto Bjartur, que nunca lhe passaria pela cabeça inclinar-se perante uma oração que não fosse rimada.”
“Nonni, já alguma vez reparaste que há pessoas que estão mortas ainda que estejam vivas? Não o tens visto nos olhos de certas pessoas que passam por cá? Vejo-o de imediato. Consigo logo distinguir as pessoas vivas das pessoas mortas, só precisam de olhar para mim, e eu já vejo, nem sequer precisam de olhar para mim. Naquele dia em que a mamã caiu nos braços da avó, foi quando ela morreu, não voltou a estar viva desde então. Não te lembras como nos olhava naquela noite?”
“É preciso ter um amigo que nos pode incutir paz no turbilhão da vida ao qual nos é impossível escapar.”
“Os pássaros são mais felizes do que os homens, as asas fazem toda a diferença.”
“Os habitantes das cidades, dizia a senhora, não faziam a mínima ideia sobre a paz que a mãe natureza oferece, e enquanto tal paz não for encontrada o espírito é saciado com novidades efémeras. (…) A paz que reina na natureza tem subjacente um efeito calmante e alegra a disposição, a relva verdejante brilhantemente tecida com flores debaixo dos pés evoca uma sensação de beleza, quase de reverência, é cómodo repousar nela, o cheiro é aromatizante, a serenidade reconfortante.”
“Nada nutre melhor o talento poético do que a solidão das longas caminhadas pelas montanhas. Horas a fio fora capaz de mastigar as mesmas palavras até conseguir moldá-las num verso.”
“(…) a angústia é mais forte que toda a felicidade de uma vida junta, tentou concentrar a sua esperança no distante amanhecer, pois o ser humano procura sempre algo para o seu consolo, e esta esperança na consolação, mesmo quando parece não haver mais saídas, é a prova de que está vivo. A noite nunca chega a ser tão escura nem longa que os homens não depositem a sua esperança no distante nascer do dia.”
“(…) Pai-Nosso que estais no céu, sim, tão infinitamente longe que ninguém sabe onde estais, quase em lado nenhum, dai-nos hoje qualquer coisa pequenita para comer em nome da vossa glória e perdoai-nos se não podemos pagar atempadamente ao merceeiro e aos nossos credores, mas acima de tudo não nos deixais cair na tentação de vivermos felizes, porque vosso é o reino (…)
Os homens inclinaram as suas cabeças, todos excepto Bjartur, que nunca lhe passaria pela cabeça inclinar-se perante uma oração que não fosse rimada.”
“Nonni, já alguma vez reparaste que há pessoas que estão mortas ainda que estejam vivas? Não o tens visto nos olhos de certas pessoas que passam por cá? Vejo-o de imediato. Consigo logo distinguir as pessoas vivas das pessoas mortas, só precisam de olhar para mim, e eu já vejo, nem sequer precisam de olhar para mim. Naquele dia em que a mamã caiu nos braços da avó, foi quando ela morreu, não voltou a estar viva desde então. Não te lembras como nos olhava naquela noite?”
“É preciso ter um amigo que nos pode incutir paz no turbilhão da vida ao qual nos é impossível escapar.”
November 28, 2013
Written as a pair with
Pericles
Reading Smiley on the back cover of this book:
‘I can’t imagine any greater delight than coming to Independent People for the first time’ Really? I mean, REALLY????? Better than sex? Chocolate icecream??? What sort of life has Smiley lived that makes her say that. I couldn’t help thinking of this exchange on the comments of my Harry Potter review:
Brook: "I hav read every single book 14 times and i read an average of 200 books per year and have never read a better written book."
Manny: "Hey, talk about a run of bad luck! My commiserations."
And how on earth, of all the words to use of this book could you come up with ‘delight’? Conversation with Manny last week:
For the rest, here: http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
Reading Smiley on the back cover of this book:
‘I can’t imagine any greater delight than coming to Independent People for the first time’ Really? I mean, REALLY????? Better than sex? Chocolate icecream??? What sort of life has Smiley lived that makes her say that. I couldn’t help thinking of this exchange on the comments of my Harry Potter review:
Brook: "I hav read every single book 14 times and i read an average of 200 books per year and have never read a better written book."
Manny: "Hey, talk about a run of bad luck! My commiserations."
And how on earth, of all the words to use of this book could you come up with ‘delight’? Conversation with Manny last week:
For the rest, here: http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
January 29, 2018
An odd, yet intriguing story. Bjartur's drive for independence affects his entire life and family. Their world is bleak and hard. Buried in this story is the story of Iceland. It's the farmers being exploited, the rich being rewarded. It's a hard scrabble life.
The prose is rich and deep. This isn't a book to read quickly. It requires a bit of commitment. The richness of the prose is the reward.
The story of Bjartur and his family roles out in an interesting pattern. The landscape of Iceland comes alive. Bjartur works for 18 years in order to purchase a tract of land. For the next (approx.) 25 years, we read his story of how he works to keep this land and thrive. He's not an open person. He's complex, yet what the world sees is a stingy, stubborn goat. He keeps his feelings inside, where no one, not even the reader, can see them.
I'm glad I read this book. This seems to be the first of a series of 4. I would give the second book a read to find out how Bjartur's family endures but the rest of the series has not been translated, it seems.
The prose is rich and deep. This isn't a book to read quickly. It requires a bit of commitment. The richness of the prose is the reward.
The story of Bjartur and his family roles out in an interesting pattern. The landscape of Iceland comes alive. Bjartur works for 18 years in order to purchase a tract of land. For the next (approx.) 25 years, we read his story of how he works to keep this land and thrive. He's not an open person. He's complex, yet what the world sees is a stingy, stubborn goat. He keeps his feelings inside, where no one, not even the reader, can see them.
I'm glad I read this book. This seems to be the first of a series of 4. I would give the second book a read to find out how Bjartur's family endures but the rest of the series has not been translated, it seems.
November 4, 2022
Desolation, oppression and alienation on a small, impoverished sheep farm in interior Iceland in the early 20th century. Much of the misery is caused by the stubbornness and insistence of the protagonist, Bjartur, who holds up his independence from any obligations familial, social, or political as his absolute religion. When self-reliance and care of his sheep trumps the health and welfare of pregnant wives or starving children, it’s hard to sympathize with the protagonist, but what a portrait.
The writing is beautiful (translated from the Icelandic) and shows the human habit of ignorance and self-delusion awesomely without condescension. We see the persistence of the struggle to survive and hold on to one’s principles, misguided or not. The redemption, however slight, however late, is to be cherished, like this book.
Nobel Prize winner.
The writing is beautiful (translated from the Icelandic) and shows the human habit of ignorance and self-delusion awesomely without condescension. We see the persistence of the struggle to survive and hold on to one’s principles, misguided or not. The redemption, however slight, however late, is to be cherished, like this book.
Nobel Prize winner.
February 7, 2008
Despite the reviews below, this book is not about sheep.
Independent People is about the complex intersection of pride and poverty. It is the story of the fiercely strong and intelligent everyman who has little to show for their successes yet holds their successes with high esteem. It is also about how one's endless struggle to be self-sufficient can make one bitter, senseless, hypocritical and cold.
This book is not about sheep at all. Main character Bjartur is preoccupied with sheep because being a sheep farmer is what helps him remain self-sufficient and independent. He defines himself as an independent man who has worked off all his debts to have a small farmhouse and a flock of sheep.
Laxness' writing is incredibly detailed, making this Icelandic saga-styled novel a bit arduous to read at times; but all the same, it is this detail is what makes the story so rich. Take this quote, for instance:
"And when the spring breezes blow up the valley; when the spring sun shines on last year's withered grass on the river banks; and on the lake; and on the lake's two white swans; and coaxes the new grass out of the spongy soil in the marshes - who could believe on such a day that this peaceful, grassy valley brooded over the story of our past; and over its spectres?"
As someone previously wrote in their review, every sentence is like a new story, full of lush imagery and genuine meaning. Absolutely lovely.
Independent People is about the complex intersection of pride and poverty. It is the story of the fiercely strong and intelligent everyman who has little to show for their successes yet holds their successes with high esteem. It is also about how one's endless struggle to be self-sufficient can make one bitter, senseless, hypocritical and cold.
This book is not about sheep at all. Main character Bjartur is preoccupied with sheep because being a sheep farmer is what helps him remain self-sufficient and independent. He defines himself as an independent man who has worked off all his debts to have a small farmhouse and a flock of sheep.
Laxness' writing is incredibly detailed, making this Icelandic saga-styled novel a bit arduous to read at times; but all the same, it is this detail is what makes the story so rich. Take this quote, for instance:
"And when the spring breezes blow up the valley; when the spring sun shines on last year's withered grass on the river banks; and on the lake; and on the lake's two white swans; and coaxes the new grass out of the spongy soil in the marshes - who could believe on such a day that this peaceful, grassy valley brooded over the story of our past; and over its spectres?"
As someone previously wrote in their review, every sentence is like a new story, full of lush imagery and genuine meaning. Absolutely lovely.
February 13, 2024
Every man for himself and Bjartur against all.
Myths and Sagas, Poetry and Prose, Mountains and Fields, Bjartur and Sheeps.
A Modern Saga from the Island of Heroes and Gods. Beautifully written, filled with rich history of this small nation and its inhabitants.
Myths and Sagas, Poetry and Prose, Mountains and Fields, Bjartur and Sheeps.
A Modern Saga from the Island of Heroes and Gods. Beautifully written, filled with rich history of this small nation and its inhabitants.
![Profile Image for [P].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1486240560i/40516522._UY200_CR13,0,200,200_.jpg)
August 9, 2015
In 874 CE a Norwegian chieftain, Ingólfr Arnarson, became the first permanent settler on the island that came to be known as Iceland. Ah, truly an independent man! One can’t help but think that Gudbjartur of Summerhouses, the dominant character in Halldor Laxness’ Independent People, would have approved of such a state of affairs. As the novel begins, Bjartur has purchased his own piece of land, after working, for eighteen years, for the Bailiff. This is, despite the measly nature of the land and the shabby dwelling upon it, a momentous occasion for him; he is, at last, a free and independent person. Indeed, Bjartur prizes this independence above all else, so that it becomes almost a mania with him. For example, in the opening chapter there is told the story of the witch Gunnvor, out of which has grown a kind of superstition that one must, when passing her so-called resting place, ‘give her a stone.’ Bjartur, however, refuses, even when his new wife begs him out of a fear of bad luck. He would, it is clear, rather make her unhappy than compromise his principles, than for one moment sacrifice the smallest amount of his freedom [i.e. his freedom to act as he pleases]. Likewise, when she later yearns for some milk, he makes it clear that he will not countenance it because he cannot produce it himself. Bjartur will not ask for anything from anyone else, as he sees this as begging; nor will he accept gifts either.
[Iceland on the Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus]
One might wonder then how one is to approach Bjartur, what one is to make of him, for there are elements of his personality and behaviour that are agreeable and elements that are, in contrast, entirely disagreeable. First of all, we instinctively root for those who strive for freedom; as we do those who live in accordance with their principles, and those who are prepared to work hard. However, his behaviour has disastrous results for his family. Hard work, principles, ideals, freedom, all that is well and good, but if the result is overwhelming misery then one must question whether it is worth it, whether the man who brings down this misery upon his family [if one wants to say that he does – and you do not want to blame economic conditions] is not actually a good person. This, for me, is one of the key questions that the novel raises: just how important are principles? Are they worth sacrificing your health and happiness for? I must admit that I was never really sure how I felt about Gudbjartur of Summerhouses. He has many admirable qualities, and he is capable of tenderness, but he is equally capable of monstrous behaviour.
It is interesting in light of all this to consider that Laxness was, by all accounts, a Maxist. Indeed, he is said to have visited Russia prior to commencing work on Independent People and was very impressed. Even without this knowledge it is clear that with the novel Laxness was, to some extent, making a political statement. Throughout characters engage in political discussions, pass comment on the governing of the country, and wax philosophical about the status of the working man. Moreover, it is significant that the title is plural; Laxness is clearly not, therefore, only concerned with one resolute man, but, rather, an entire country or class. It is worth noting, in this regard, that from 1262 to 1918, Iceland was ruled by Norway and then Denmark, and that the country itself only became independent in 1918, shortly before the novel was written.
Yet if you accept that Laxness was concerned with an entire class or country, and one considers the Maxist sympathies, then his message seems somewhat obscure [although this may have much to do with my own ignorance]. Marx was himself concerned with labour, production, and the proletariat, all of which obviously play such a big part in the narrative of Independent People. For the German, giving up the ownership of one’s labour is to be alienated from one’s own nature, resulting in a kind of spiritual loss. This seems somewhat in line with how Bjartur is presented, a man who certainly does own his own labour. However, Marx also advocated that the proletariat should have class consciousness, that they ought to organise, and ultimately challenge the prevailing system, which is not at all in keeping with Bjartur’s behaviour and opinions, as he is suspicious of political engagement and, well, men-at-large. For example, when the Bailiff’s son, Ingolfur, broaches the idea of a Co-operative Society for farmers, which would, he claims, prevent exploitation, Bjartur isn’t at all interested.
If Bjartur was intended as some kind of anti-capitalist hero then the book fails, because he is not necessarily against capitalism [he defends the merchant], he is simply against anything, or anyone, he deems to be in some way attempting to deny him freedom or independence. For Bjartur, one can be as ruthless and money-grubbing as one likes as long as you don’t interfere with him. Moreover, this free man, this man who owns his own labour, only ends up exacerbating the suffering of innocent people. As the novel progresses, the reader may legitimately ask if he, or certainly his family, wouldn’t have been better off remaining in the pay of a wealthier employer, if that wouldn’t be a more comfortable and therefore rational way of living. In fact, while one might look to the Bailiff and his wife – who periodically appears in the text in order to make glib and patronising statements about the working class, about how only poor people are truly happy, and how much she envies them. She contrasts this, of course, with the hard life of being a bourgeois employer, where all your money goes on paying wages and one cannot [the horror!] afford that dress you’ve had your eye on for a while – as the capitalist villains of the piece, the more I thought about it the more I realised that Bjartur himself could be called a capitalist, just not in the way that we tend to understand that term these days.
When someone says capitalist we [or certainly I] tend to imagine someone rich, with at least one thriving business, which is run on the toil of hired workers. Well, Bjartur is categorically not rich; nor does he own a thriving business; and the only workers he has are his own family. Yet his situation is a capitalist model; his farm, although not at all flourishing, is a private enterprise and his family are absolutely exploited as a means of production. The kids, the wife, all are expected to put in extremely long hours, and far from being rewarded commensurate to their efforts are actually given very little to eat, live in wretched circumstances [a small, foul-smelling, leaky hut] and have only rags to wear; indeed, these workers are actually sacrificed in order to protect the business’ assets [i.e. the sheep, which are given preferential treatment]. It is likely that I am wrong about all this, as I am admittedly no expert on Marxism and so on, but It was only when this interpretation came to me that the politics of the novel started to make more sense. Marx wrote about the “despotism of capital,” and that phrase could be seen to sum up this book.
I worry that so far I have made Laxness’ work seem horribly dry and grim and unapproachable. I mean, it is grim, there’s no way of getting around that, but it is not without warmth and humour and beauty either. Bjartur, although a kind of tyrant, is also a funny character, particularly in the opening stages of the novel; and even when things are at their blackest there are still moments of absurd comedy, for example, when Bjartur says, “A free man can live on fish. Independence is better than meat.” Furthermore, there is some fine nature writing which acts as a contrast to the unrelenting drudgery. In fact, Laxness’ prose is what makes the novel bearable. While I dislike throwing the word poetic around, because I think it is often used merely as a way of describing so-called superior or flowery writing, it is apt in this case; the Icelander was, I believe, actually a poet; and, well, it shows.
Moreover, as with all great novels of some heft, there are certain scenes in Independent People that will likely stay with you long after reading the book. For me, there are two in particular. First of all, there is the chapter when Bjartur leaves his wife Rosa on her own over night with his favourite gimmer [one of the Rev. Gudmundur’s breed, no less!] as company. Rosa, who has been on edge ever since not being allowed to give Gunnvor a stone, sees in the sheep’s frightened bleating some kind of evil omen. Laxness takes this potentially ridiculous set-up and manages to imbue it with a creeping tension and horror, until Rosa finally snaps and executes the gimmer. It is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful descriptions of madness in literature. The other big favourite of mine is when Bjartur goes in search of the sheep, for he doesn’t know it is dead, and spots a group of reindeer. He decides, being a strong-willed independent man, that he is going to capture the buck for meat. This is no easy feat, of course. During the struggle he climbs upon its back and the buck takes him into the river Glacier in an effort to throw him.
When I read another of Laxness’ most well-known works, World Light, last year I felt as though the characters lacked depth; it struck me that they had a signature mood or quirk, and that is all. As I reread Independent People I was starting to get the same feeling about Bjartur; yes, he has mania for independence and freedom…I get all that, I enjoy it, but one reaches a stage where this point has been hammered home so frequently in the first one hundred pages that you start to worry about another four hundred of it. What sets this book apart from World Light, and many other lesser novels, is that Laxness knew when to change it up. So when Bjartur’s one-man-show [he has a wife, of course, but she’s only really there for him to harangue about independence] starts to creak a bit, when it’s becoming repetitive, the author introduces a number of interesting new characters. In a way, one could criticise this move, for it is so abrupt, but providing Bjartur with a new wife, mother-in-law, and children gives the book fresh impetus. Moreover, this family is more finely crafted, have a greater emotional range and a more sophisticated inner life; this is particularly true of the children, Nonni and Asta, who are wonderful creations.
I’ve never been one for child worship, for finding a child’s misfortune worse than any other; I find that attitude quite odd, in fact; but Asta, Bjartur’s daughter from his first marriage, ruined me. She was born in extraordinary circumstances, tragic circumstances, and her life at Summerhouses proceeds in a manner no less tragic. There are numerous books that have moved me, many that have needled my personal sore spots [which this one does too, actually – anything to do with poverty tends to affect me emotionally], but this, as far as I can remember, is the only book ever to make me cry, to provoke a tear into dribbling miserably down my cheek. And it is all Asta’s fault. I’m not even sure why she got to me so much; she’s a sensitive, trusting slip of a girl, who, in her naivety or innocence, wants so little [her joy at being given an old worn dress of her mother’s all but finished me off], but, crucially, unlike her father, she does want; she is inquisitive, eager to learn. Maybe it is that: desiring such meagre or basic things, and being denied them. Or perhaps it is simply that having been brought up by a struggling single mother I just can’t bear to see women unhappy. I don’t know.
It is worth noting, in conclusion, that, after all the exhausting and frequently oppressive bleakness, there is, towards the end, a tiny shaft of light, a few whispered comforting words that suggest that love, at least, will endure. Ah, hold onto those words, store them in your heart, because a little hope, even blind hope, is the most precious thing of all.
[Iceland on the Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus]
One might wonder then how one is to approach Bjartur, what one is to make of him, for there are elements of his personality and behaviour that are agreeable and elements that are, in contrast, entirely disagreeable. First of all, we instinctively root for those who strive for freedom; as we do those who live in accordance with their principles, and those who are prepared to work hard. However, his behaviour has disastrous results for his family. Hard work, principles, ideals, freedom, all that is well and good, but if the result is overwhelming misery then one must question whether it is worth it, whether the man who brings down this misery upon his family [if one wants to say that he does – and you do not want to blame economic conditions] is not actually a good person. This, for me, is one of the key questions that the novel raises: just how important are principles? Are they worth sacrificing your health and happiness for? I must admit that I was never really sure how I felt about Gudbjartur of Summerhouses. He has many admirable qualities, and he is capable of tenderness, but he is equally capable of monstrous behaviour.
“It was pretty miserable wretches that minded at all whether they were wet or dry. He could not understand why such people had been born. “It’s nothing but damned eccentricity to want to be dry” he would say. “I’ve been wet more than half my life and never been a whit the worse for it.””
It is interesting in light of all this to consider that Laxness was, by all accounts, a Maxist. Indeed, he is said to have visited Russia prior to commencing work on Independent People and was very impressed. Even without this knowledge it is clear that with the novel Laxness was, to some extent, making a political statement. Throughout characters engage in political discussions, pass comment on the governing of the country, and wax philosophical about the status of the working man. Moreover, it is significant that the title is plural; Laxness is clearly not, therefore, only concerned with one resolute man, but, rather, an entire country or class. It is worth noting, in this regard, that from 1262 to 1918, Iceland was ruled by Norway and then Denmark, and that the country itself only became independent in 1918, shortly before the novel was written.
Yet if you accept that Laxness was concerned with an entire class or country, and one considers the Maxist sympathies, then his message seems somewhat obscure [although this may have much to do with my own ignorance]. Marx was himself concerned with labour, production, and the proletariat, all of which obviously play such a big part in the narrative of Independent People. For the German, giving up the ownership of one’s labour is to be alienated from one’s own nature, resulting in a kind of spiritual loss. This seems somewhat in line with how Bjartur is presented, a man who certainly does own his own labour. However, Marx also advocated that the proletariat should have class consciousness, that they ought to organise, and ultimately challenge the prevailing system, which is not at all in keeping with Bjartur’s behaviour and opinions, as he is suspicious of political engagement and, well, men-at-large. For example, when the Bailiff’s son, Ingolfur, broaches the idea of a Co-operative Society for farmers, which would, he claims, prevent exploitation, Bjartur isn’t at all interested.
If Bjartur was intended as some kind of anti-capitalist hero then the book fails, because he is not necessarily against capitalism [he defends the merchant], he is simply against anything, or anyone, he deems to be in some way attempting to deny him freedom or independence. For Bjartur, one can be as ruthless and money-grubbing as one likes as long as you don’t interfere with him. Moreover, this free man, this man who owns his own labour, only ends up exacerbating the suffering of innocent people. As the novel progresses, the reader may legitimately ask if he, or certainly his family, wouldn’t have been better off remaining in the pay of a wealthier employer, if that wouldn’t be a more comfortable and therefore rational way of living. In fact, while one might look to the Bailiff and his wife – who periodically appears in the text in order to make glib and patronising statements about the working class, about how only poor people are truly happy, and how much she envies them. She contrasts this, of course, with the hard life of being a bourgeois employer, where all your money goes on paying wages and one cannot [the horror!] afford that dress you’ve had your eye on for a while – as the capitalist villains of the piece, the more I thought about it the more I realised that Bjartur himself could be called a capitalist, just not in the way that we tend to understand that term these days.
When someone says capitalist we [or certainly I] tend to imagine someone rich, with at least one thriving business, which is run on the toil of hired workers. Well, Bjartur is categorically not rich; nor does he own a thriving business; and the only workers he has are his own family. Yet his situation is a capitalist model; his farm, although not at all flourishing, is a private enterprise and his family are absolutely exploited as a means of production. The kids, the wife, all are expected to put in extremely long hours, and far from being rewarded commensurate to their efforts are actually given very little to eat, live in wretched circumstances [a small, foul-smelling, leaky hut] and have only rags to wear; indeed, these workers are actually sacrificed in order to protect the business’ assets [i.e. the sheep, which are given preferential treatment]. It is likely that I am wrong about all this, as I am admittedly no expert on Marxism and so on, but It was only when this interpretation came to me that the politics of the novel started to make more sense. Marx wrote about the “despotism of capital,” and that phrase could be seen to sum up this book.
I worry that so far I have made Laxness’ work seem horribly dry and grim and unapproachable. I mean, it is grim, there’s no way of getting around that, but it is not without warmth and humour and beauty either. Bjartur, although a kind of tyrant, is also a funny character, particularly in the opening stages of the novel; and even when things are at their blackest there are still moments of absurd comedy, for example, when Bjartur says, “A free man can live on fish. Independence is better than meat.” Furthermore, there is some fine nature writing which acts as a contrast to the unrelenting drudgery. In fact, Laxness’ prose is what makes the novel bearable. While I dislike throwing the word poetic around, because I think it is often used merely as a way of describing so-called superior or flowery writing, it is apt in this case; the Icelander was, I believe, actually a poet; and, well, it shows.
“Shortly afterwards it started raining, very innocently at first, but the sky was packed tight with cloud and gradually the drops grew bigger and heavier, until it was autumn���s dismal rain that was falling—rain that seemed to fill the entire world with its leaden beat, rain suggestive in its dreariness of everlasting waterfalls between the planets, rain that thatched the heavens with drabness and brooded oppressively over the whole countryside, like a disease, strong in the power of its flat, unvarying monotony, its smothering heaviness, its cold, unrelenting cruelty. Smoothly, smoothly it fell, over the whole shire, over the fallen marsh grass, over the troubled lake, the iron-grey gravel flats, the sombre mountain above the croft, smudging out every prospect. And the heavy, hopeless, interminable beat wormed its way into every crevice in the house, lay like a pad of cotton wool over the ears, and embraced everything, both near and far, in its compass, like an unromantic story from life itself that has no rhythm and no crescendo, no climax, but which is nevertheless overwhelming in its scope, terrifying in its significance. And at the bottom of this unfathomed ocean of teeming rain sat the little house and its one neurotic woman.”
Moreover, as with all great novels of some heft, there are certain scenes in Independent People that will likely stay with you long after reading the book. For me, there are two in particular. First of all, there is the chapter when Bjartur leaves his wife Rosa on her own over night with his favourite gimmer [one of the Rev. Gudmundur’s breed, no less!] as company. Rosa, who has been on edge ever since not being allowed to give Gunnvor a stone, sees in the sheep’s frightened bleating some kind of evil omen. Laxness takes this potentially ridiculous set-up and manages to imbue it with a creeping tension and horror, until Rosa finally snaps and executes the gimmer. It is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful descriptions of madness in literature. The other big favourite of mine is when Bjartur goes in search of the sheep, for he doesn’t know it is dead, and spots a group of reindeer. He decides, being a strong-willed independent man, that he is going to capture the buck for meat. This is no easy feat, of course. During the struggle he climbs upon its back and the buck takes him into the river Glacier in an effort to throw him.
When I read another of Laxness’ most well-known works, World Light, last year I felt as though the characters lacked depth; it struck me that they had a signature mood or quirk, and that is all. As I reread Independent People I was starting to get the same feeling about Bjartur; yes, he has mania for independence and freedom…I get all that, I enjoy it, but one reaches a stage where this point has been hammered home so frequently in the first one hundred pages that you start to worry about another four hundred of it. What sets this book apart from World Light, and many other lesser novels, is that Laxness knew when to change it up. So when Bjartur’s one-man-show [he has a wife, of course, but she’s only really there for him to harangue about independence] starts to creak a bit, when it’s becoming repetitive, the author introduces a number of interesting new characters. In a way, one could criticise this move, for it is so abrupt, but providing Bjartur with a new wife, mother-in-law, and children gives the book fresh impetus. Moreover, this family is more finely crafted, have a greater emotional range and a more sophisticated inner life; this is particularly true of the children, Nonni and Asta, who are wonderful creations.
I’ve never been one for child worship, for finding a child’s misfortune worse than any other; I find that attitude quite odd, in fact; but Asta, Bjartur’s daughter from his first marriage, ruined me. She was born in extraordinary circumstances, tragic circumstances, and her life at Summerhouses proceeds in a manner no less tragic. There are numerous books that have moved me, many that have needled my personal sore spots [which this one does too, actually – anything to do with poverty tends to affect me emotionally], but this, as far as I can remember, is the only book ever to make me cry, to provoke a tear into dribbling miserably down my cheek. And it is all Asta’s fault. I’m not even sure why she got to me so much; she’s a sensitive, trusting slip of a girl, who, in her naivety or innocence, wants so little [her joy at being given an old worn dress of her mother’s all but finished me off], but, crucially, unlike her father, she does want; she is inquisitive, eager to learn. Maybe it is that: desiring such meagre or basic things, and being denied them. Or perhaps it is simply that having been brought up by a struggling single mother I just can’t bear to see women unhappy. I don’t know.
It is worth noting, in conclusion, that, after all the exhausting and frequently oppressive bleakness, there is, towards the end, a tiny shaft of light, a few whispered comforting words that suggest that love, at least, will endure. Ah, hold onto those words, store them in your heart, because a little hope, even blind hope, is the most precious thing of all.
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