Mar 08 2010
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Independent People Bleak, comic, and unforgettable – M. Feldman – Bowdoin, Maine, USA
At the beginning of this edition of “Independent People” is a patch of thin ice onto which you must not–must not–venture. It is Brad Leithauser’s forward, which should really be an afterward (and it would be a very good one, indeed). Unfortunately, Leithauser’s essay gives away the plot in ways that no introduction ever should. Should you fall into this before reading such a wonderful novel, you will be very very sorry.
Once past this danger, prepare to give this book your full attention and to lose yourself in another time and place. There are many summaries of this novel in other reviews, so rather than repeat them, I’ll just mention two things, and I won’t give away anything. First, enjoy Laxness’s rendering of the farm talk among these Icelandic crofters when they come together at weddings and funerals. It’s specific (sheep maladies, taxes, straying children, straying sheep), bleak, colloquial, and often comic. If you live in a rural area, you can hear a version of the same thing at the feed store or a church supper. Second, get ready to be astonished at the sheer complexity of all of the characters, even minor ones, not just the central characters, Bjartur the crofter and his daughter, Asta Sollilja. There is, for instance, Madam Myri, the local well-to-do poetess who makes pronouncements on the virtues of rural life. There is Hallbera, the muttering grandmother who lives longer than almost anyone else, like a candle (as the narrator says) that can’t be snuffed. You will not be able to forget any of them.
This is not an easy novel to recommend to others. A novel about an Icelandic sheepherder, you say? A novel about a man so conservative, so principled, so stubborn, and so independent that he expects nothing from anyone (including the government) and can scarcely accept a gift proffered freely? Is Bjartur a man for our times?
Don’t fail to get your hands on this great novel so that you can decide for yourself.
M. Feldman
He who keeps his sheep alive through winter lives in a palace.
A free man can live on fish. Independence is more important than meat!
This is a great and large novel about the American Dream.
Stop, sorry, let me rephrase:
This is a great and large novel about the Icelandic Dream: be independent!
The ultimate `small government’ novel!
Bjartur of Summerhouses, a miserable but free crofter, made it to freedom from his hated boss. After 18 years of `slavery’, he bought his freedom and started his own sheep business.
His daughter makes it to freedom from her bossing father. Their relationship is one of the main themes of the novel.
The only main character who has mostly other things in mind is Titla, the bitch, who loves nothing better than being a sheep dog. Her communication with her boss is one of the chief pleasures of this gorgeous, funny, dramatic, poetic tale.
Bjartur is one of the great characters of 20th century literature. Congratulations if you don’t know him yet! You are in for a treat! He is not just legally and physically independent from his evil old boss, but also mentally from the curses of Iceland’s witches and their black magic. Not that they give up easily. And more, he is independent of other superstitions (which, on second thought, might more or less rule him out as a genuine American hero.)
Surprisingly, Bjartur is also a poet and a connoisseur of poetry. (Is that a normal affliction of shepherds? Iceland may be special, after all.) Another poet is the wife of his boss, who is not held in much esteem though. She is fond of praising poverty (poor people have fewer worries, they just work a little longer), while the crofters prefer to discuss tape worms and lung worms.
It is a book about sheep and about a lot else. It is not always politically correct by our standards of today. (Women are even more to be pitied than ordinary mortals.)
It is a pity that the editors did not find it necessary or did not take the time or trouble or expense to provide a glossary. That would have made some parts of the tale easier on us sheepless creatures.
P.S. I like the book so much that I could not wait until I finish it but needed to post the review halfways. While it is not likely that I change my mind, I may find additional things to add.
Like this one: Bjartur is so proud of his independance that he even praises his sheep for theirs: they don’t need man!
By the way, if you don’t know Laxness at all and are wondering what he could be compared to: I would say he is closest to Steinbeck and his Salinas stories, both in style and content and humor. Looking at other Scandinavians, you may be surprised at another comparison: some chapters, when he describes the world from Bjartur’s kids’ perspective, are from the H.C.Andersen school of marvels. And there is a definite touch of Hamsun in the dialogues.
: Bjartus is a sheep farmer hewing a living from a blighted patch of land in Iceland. After 18 years of servitude to a master he despises, all he wants is to raise his flocks unbeholden to anyone. Nothing, not inclement weather, not his wives, not his family will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Solillja, the child he brings up as his daughter, can pierce his stubborn heart. But she too wants to live independently – and when Bjartus throws her from the house on discovering she is pregnant, her more temperate determination is set against his stony will. Independent People
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