Halldór Laxness

[Stewart]

I've read The Atom Station which, to be honest, I barely managed to understand but soldiered on to the end. I think the prose carried it - well, the lyrical translation by former Mastermind host, Magnus Magnusson.

Now I'm reading Independent People by the 1955 Nobel Laureate and I'm finding it a bit more difficult to follow. I heard that The Atom Station was supposed to be a change in style, something I think may have been warranted if Independent People is to go on like this.

It's probably just me but I find Laxness' (translated) prose to be hard to get into. As I read it I'm getting the same sort of feeling that I got when attempting Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in that I'm 60 pages in and can hardly tell you what has happened this far. All I can make out is that a man has got married and his wife is pregnant...I think.

It's possible that I'm just finding it difficult determining if a name belongs to a person, an Icelandic town, or a breed of sheep. At least when Magnusson translated he saw sense to include some footnotes to aid the non-Icelandic reader as regards the folklore upon which it draws its influence. Without footnotes I'm finding it doing for Icelandic sagas what Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary did for the Greek classics - making it damn near impenetrable.

Is it just a quirk of his style that you need to be fully conscious and be prepared to digest every word, reading each sentence two or three times over? Or should I just get more sleep so as to concentrate better when reading it?

 

[abecedarian]

<Is it just a quirk of his style that you need to be fully conscious and be prepared to digest every word, reading each sentence two or three times over? Or should I just get more sleep so as to concentrate better when reading it?>

I can't begin to tell you how gratified I am that you should say this! I read The Fish Can Sing, and my experience was very much as you describe yours. More sleep can't hurt, but I honestly think Laxness requires full attention and rereading certain sentences more than once or twice. I wondered at the syntax of many of those phrases. I wish I had a copy of the book so I could give you examples. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

 

[Kenny Shovel]

I'll echo what abecedarain has said, you're not alone!

Laxness requires careful reading, and even then I don't think you can fully grasp everything that is of importance, unless you have an fully working understanding of Icelandic culture you probably can't expect too. I had big problems with 'Under the Glacier' because I just wasn't 'In the Zone' when I read it, and as a result ended up MIA and getting only a fraction from the book that I should.

Unfortunately this is one of the problems you have with world literature; lack of cultural understanding can be a big handicap. I have a similar problem at times with Russian authors who switch backwards and forwards between patronymics; you end up having to learn two sets of names, which with some writers can mean doubling an already large number.
That's why I got very annoyed with the lack of notes etc on the recent Knut Hamsun novel I read. For translated fiction, notes aren't a nice extra, they're an absolute necessity.

K-S

 

[Stewart]

It's become a bit easier to read, perhaps I'm paying it more attention but I'm afraid I'm not getting any of the humour that it is supposed to be full of.

The annoying thing, I think, is that a character was just referred to as the Fell King and he took up a portion of the narrative. Am I supposed to know what the hell a Fell King is, or what it means? The first mention of his is a bit of dialogue, for example, "How's it going? " said the Fell King. There was no point where the character was first introduced to the reader; was I supposed to assume he was one of the shepherds mentioned a few paragraphs before?

I had the same problem with Laxness' characters in The Atom Station, especially with the two guys referred to as gods. I had no idea why they were labelled such, or how the names had come to be in the first place.

 

[Kenny Shovel]

Yes, I can remember having the "Oh hello, and who are you?" feeling with Laxness in the past.

I think you've been quite brave to dive into Independant People so early. I've read a few of his other books, but I've decided to get some Islandic Saga's under my belt before moving onto more. I'm probably going to start with this public domain translation of the most famous one 'The Story of Burnt Njal'.

K-S

 

[Stewart]

I think you've been quite brave to dive into Independant People so early.

I think fools rush in... is more appropriate. At one hundred pages in I think I'm going to leave this one to a later date. The appearance of a character called The poetess from nowhere helped make the decision. I'll look into The Fish Can Sing, which I note you suggested to abecedarian for her Olympic challenge as an easier introduction to Laxness.