Independent People

 

I post this review not necessarily as a recommendation but because it may be of interest to some to hear about a little known though a well- regarded book by an Icelandic author who won the Nobel prize for literature.  I had not heard of either the author or the novel before though some famous writers rank it as one of their favorites.  I've not read anything about Iceland previously.

Some of the following is from Wikipedia:  

Independent People is an epic novel, by Halldór Laxness, originally published in two volumes in 1934 and 1935; literally the title means "Self-standing [i.e. self-reliant] folk". It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving on isolated crofts (farms) in an inhospitable landscape.

Book One and Two are published in English in a single volume.  I have only read Book One thus far, as it is somewhat of a labor to read of the harsh life and grinding poverty page after page, and Book One ends on a down note.  However, the writing is good, especially descriptions of the landscape, the geography, the life of Icelandic farmers, the history and myths of that country.  The dialogue is sometimes quite humorous and reveling of the furiously independent nature of the people in that rural culture.

Independent People is the story of the sheep farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson, generally known in the novel as Bjartur of Summerhouses, and his struggle for independence. There is a little bit of the character in A Man Called Ove in this character, but Bjartur is much less likeable and quite a stubborn and brutish man. 

This book is considered among the foremost examples of social realism in Icelandic fiction in the 1930s.^[1] It is an indictment of materialism, the cost of the self-reliant spirit to relationships, and capitalism itself. The book finally brought Laxness the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.^[2]

The novel is set in the early decades of the twentieth century but ... Independent People is a pointedly timeless tale. It reminds us that life on an Icelandic croft had scarcely altered over a millennium".^[3] As the story begins, Bjartur ("bright" or "fair") has recently managed to put down the first payment on his own farm, after eighteen years working as a shepherd at the farm of the well-to-do local bailiff, a man he detests. The land that he buys is said to be cursed by Saint Columba, referred to as "the fiend Kolumkilli",^[4] and haunted by an evil woman named Gunnvör, who made a pact with Kólumkilli.

He marries a woman called Rósa, a fellow worker where Bjartur had worked and he is determined that they should live as independent people.  She is miserable in the spartan “croft” (farm), where they live in a rustic house with the farm animals kept in a pen below them.  He is not an easy person to live with, quite critical and insensitive.

Bjartur discovers that she is pregnant by the son of the bailiff. In the autumn, Bjartur and the other men of the district ride up into the mountains on the annual sheep round-up, leaving Rósa behind with a ewe to keep her company. Terrified by a storm one night, desperate for meat and convinced that the sheep is possessed by the devil, Rósa kills and eats the animal.

When Bjartur returns he is mystified as what has happened to the ewe, so he leaves his wife, by now heavily pregnant, to search for it in the mountains. He is delayed by a blizzard, and nearly dies of exposure. On his return to Summerhouses he finds that Rósa has died in childbirth. His dog Titla is curled around the baby girl, still clinging to life due to the warmth of the dog. With help from Rauðsmýri, the child survives; Bjartur decides to raise her as his daughter, and names her Ásta Sóllilja ("beloved sun lily").

The narrative begins again almost thirteen years later. Bjartur is now remarried to a woman who had been a charity case on the parish, Finna. The other new inhabitants are Hallbera, Finna's mother, and the three surviving sons of Bjartur's second marriage: Helgi, Gvendur and Nonni (Jón).

The rest of the novel charts the drudgery and the battle for survival of life on the farm, the misery, dreams and rebellions of the inhabitants and what appears to be the curse of Summerhouses taking effect.

The most important theme of the novel is independence, what it means and what it is worth giving up in order to achieve it. Bjartur is a stubborn man, often callous to the point of cruelty in his refusal to swerve from his ideals. Though undoubtedly a principled man, his attitude leads to the death and alienation of those around him