The nights are drawing in, and what is better as we slope down into winter than curling up by a roaring fire, sipping on a hot toddy, and reading some fine goddamn literature about sheep? This month's book is Independent People, by Halldór Laxness, available on paper or electrons from Amazon. Set at the turn of the 20th century in rural Iceland, it's a prolonged meditation on families, farming, economics, bloody-mindedness, and the evil that cows do. It's also beautifully written, varying from intensely lyrical passages (the world from the eyes of a young child, for example, when your world is constrained to a small croft in winter), to the horror an isolated young pregnant woman can feel when threatened by demoniacally possessed sheep. Family history probably explains some of my liking for the book. My dad's side of the family comes from a crofting background. Not as squalid as Summerhouses, but when we used to visit my great aunt back in the early seventies, she had no indoor plumbing, and cut peat to burn. Shetland isn't Iceland, but there are similarities, and you haven't lived until you've been scared half to death by huge four-horned sheep - they seemed huge to five-year old me, anyway, though I'm sure in fact they'd be better described as delicious. The book is on the longer side, getting on for 500 pages of smallish text, and it really rewards attentive reading, so I'd encourage people to get an early start and take their time. I also appreciate that there are plenty of people who're not normally that into this kind of book. The Kindle sample unfortunately is half taken up with introduction (filled with spoilers, if that's a concern for you, skip it), but there are a couple of chapters in there, so you can take a look and see if it piques your interest at all. I hope it will!
I finished it yesterday, and it was good, but also kinda the literary equivalent of eating one's vegetables, I kept expecting to have a quiz to take or an essay to write. It's kinda like reading Hemingway, you feel better for having read it, but it takes more brainpower to read it than most other books I've been reading lately. The descriptions of the world were wonderful, the characters somewhat hard to really like. And man, fuck that intro. If I wanted to read a Cliff's notes of the whole book, I'd have read ... the Cliffs notes. That intro should have been an afterword.
I'm glad you liked it. Also sorry I haven't paid as much attention to the thread as I should - a nasty mix of work and ill-health got in the way. If it's eating your greens, at least they're well prepared. On re-reading, I'm once again impressed by how well-written it is. The characterization is fantastic, the sense of place perfect, and the overall structure just awesome. Did you get the call back to the start of the novel on the last page? - the "Running blood reddens the blade" line quotes the lullaby right at the start, and it's worth rereading the lullaby with Bjartur's story in mind. Right enough, a lot of the characters are rather hard to like. Bjartur is in a lot of respects a monster (he's compared to a troll more than once), and he's stupid as hell, but he does also have some good points, and he does learn a bit of flexibility in the end. Did you find Asta hard to like? For my money, their final reconciliation is one of the most moving passages in literature. Kind of a disappointing turnout for the thread. Maybe everybody is too busy writing books to read them this month! Not too late for anybody else wanting to jump in, though...
Started reading this last night and I am up to the part where a certain sheep has gone missing - about 20% in. Rather wonderful so far. The various descriptions of the land around Summerhouses is particularly good. Also enjoying the descriptions of early 20th century Iceland - just little snippets but quite nice. I might not finish it before December. But it'll get done. I'll start marking out some of my favorite passages while reading on the Kindle for some more discussion on this.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!! So I'm really, really loving this book. I'm still only about 60% through it according to my Kindle but I'd like to share some of my favorite passages so far.... That is a rather succinct explanation of Bjartur so far as I know him. Sure he is a complete asshole as we judge modern men. He is a miser and an awful bastard. But goddammit does he know Iceland and sheep. My next quote comes slightly after (during the Reindeer sequence) and highlights why I don't think this book is eating vegetables - though I can understand the sentiment. So far I'm getting into the Asta Sollilja story and I'm hopeful that Bjartur's relationship with Rosa will become the crux of this whole story and if so I love the early notes that Laxness put in. Rosa's funeral is a particular treat....
So I finally finished this the other day. Last third of the book really dragged - especially after Asta Solillja was kicked out. The various machinations that occur between the co-operative society and the merchants around the time the First World War kick off (and then the post-war problems) really did put a highlight into how this book is about how the little man in Icelandic society would always be ground down by debt and the false promises of his social betters. My earlier somewhat good impressions of Bjartur were largely erased as the book went on. Though he was a capable daleman his awful social skills and rampant neglect of his children and others really soured him to me. Sure he eventually reconciles with Sola, but so what? He finds the body of his eldest boy and doesn't even deign to bury him. He cares not a wit that his two younger sons go or try to go to America. Still an interesting read.
