I have three other books by Halld\u00f3r Laxness from the years he was a writer. I like him because he had a long career, and his books feature a variety of styles and examine various aspects of Icelandic culture, past and present, at the time he wrote.\u00a0 This is one of the last books he wrote, and so far the last to be translated into English; there is one more book, A Narration of God\u2019s Gift, yet to be translated into English.\u00a0 What I missed in this edition, I hadn\u2019t noted either: I got the UK Penguin edition, and it doesn\u2019t have Salvatore Scibona\u2019s foreword, which is in the US Archipelago Books edition.\u00a0 I was looking forward to that, as I love Scibona\u2019s debut novel from many years ago.\u00a0 I knew he was a huge fan of Laxness; this is set in the area where Laxness grew up.\u00a0 He, as ever, looks into Iceland\u2019s relationship with its past and the Sagas. I would love to do a Nobel project one day with this, and another recent Nobel winner reading reminds me of how many more winners I need to read<\/p>\n
\nAt the end of the Middle Ages, after the land had been gnawed down to its roots and defaced by every available means of destruction, as is currently being done in Vietnam, and soil erosion left entire districts barren, people began living again like Robinson Crusoe. They contented themselves with rowing out to sea and hauling in \u201cthose damned four\u201d instead of growing grain and brewing ale. And thus did they plod through the cen-turies, even forgetting to bathe for seven hundred years, despite having more hot water than any other nation on earth.<\/p>\n
In such a valley, there was in fact no way forward and no way back. The theory of evolution had not yet been born and the goal was to stand still, at most to resemble one\u2019s grandfathers.<\/p>\n
The Past is something Laxness focuses on<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The book is about a church and the history of the place where it is built, where the Skull of the famous Viking warrior Egill Skallagrimsson is buried, and how, over the years, this small country church grew up on that spot as well.\u00a0 The book follows when, finally, a hundred years after a decree to take down the church in the 1770s, it is ordered to be torn down and its historic past lost.\u00a0 But when the local farmer in the valley, Olafur, takes it to court to stop this from happening, we get the story now in the 1880s, and it is the story of a local serving girl, Gudrun, who gets by bartering her services.\u00a0 It is about family ties, as Olafur feels he is descended from Egill. What is captured is a world long gone, one that Laxness would have seen the dying embers of as a child, a world where people would barter to get by.\u00a0 Where people had Honour and would go without to be seen as honest. Beauty and darkness, as ever, are at the heart of Laxness\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\nThat same morning, around the usual time that people in the district started to stir, Reverend J\u00f3hann rode out to collect signatures in support of the unification of the churches. He and the parish council chairman, Kolbeinn of Kollafj\u00f6rfur, had arranged to meet. Reverend J\u00f3hann spoke slowly and in a somewhat dusky tone, like a voice from the deep, whereas Kolbeinn of Kollafj\u00f6rfur had humorous anecdotes at his fingertips that got others laughing, all except Reverend J\u00f3hann. Now, as is often the case when such worthies feel out their fellows, they encounter little by way of rebuttal from the other parishioners, and in fact, find most of them agreeable to the business at hand.<\/p>\n
The local vicar is also a character<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I have reviewed a number of Laxness\u2019s works; he always deals with his own country and its past, and sometimes with the country\u2019s absurd nature.\u00a0 I feel this is a book by an old writer looking back on something he heard of as a youth; supposedly, he came up with the story whilst travelling, but the setting is where he grew up in one of the remote valleys.\u00a0 He likes to look back at Iceland\u2019s past through the use of Egil, but sees how those sagas and myths have transferred to the contemporary setting, or, as in this case, the late Victorian age.\u00a0 I also found Gudrun, as a character from a long-ago age, a true old-fashioned, country-type servant.\u00a0 She was called a freewoman for the way she lived. Thus, getting by on handwork to make a living.\u00a0 For me, this is a gateway book to his writing, as it is so short that it can be read in a single day.\u00a0 Have you read Laxness yet?<\/p>\n
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