Paradise Reclaimed Paperback – April 2, 2002

It was as a result of my plan to read at least one book by each winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature that I encountered--more than ten years ago--the work of Halldór Laxness. I bought a book in Spanish that contained two of his novels: _World Light_ (1937-40) and _Iceland's Bell_ (1943-46). The first one was long, and at that time I was in the mood for a long novel, so I decided to go with that one. I don't remember the details of the story, but I remember being captured by the author's style and by his view of the world, as well as by the setting, which had to me the aura of a distant land of poetry and sea voyages. I don't know why it has taken me so long to return to Laxness' work, but after reading _Paradise Reclaimed_ (1960) I know I won't let months go by before I pick up another Laxness novel._Paradise Reclaimed_ is the story of Steinar of Hlida and his family. The reader follows the steps of this man who, after a fateful meeting with a Mormon, journeys from Iceland to the promised paradise of Utah. The story of his family, especially the fates of his daughter and his wife, are interspersed with the narrative of his experiences in the United States during the early years of Mormonism. An oft-quoted passage from T. S. Eliot's _Four Quartets_ ("Little Gidding") would serve as an adequate epigram for this story: "...the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time." G. K. Chesterton's remarks on getting home also come to mind (and I paraphrase): one way to get home is to stay there, the other is to walk around the whole world.Laxness received the Nobel Prize in 1955. The citation read "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland." In the beginning, the Nobel Prize was in a sense a national prize: it was awarded to a writer who represented his or her native land. Some of the preferred genres were the historical novel (such as Sienkiewicz's _Trilogy_, Undset's _Kristin Lavransdatter_, and Andrić's _The Bridge on the Drina_), the novel of manners (such as Lagerlöf's _Saga of Gösta Berling_), and the novel of the land (such as Pontoppidan's _The Promised Land_, Hamsun's _Growth of the Soil_, Reymont's _The Peasants_, Sillanpää's _The Maid Silje_, Steinbeck's _The Grapes of Wrath_, Asturias' _Men of Maize_, Patrick White's _The Tree of Man_, and so many others, including García Márquez's _One Hundred Years of Solitude_, which is among other things a parody of the genre). Laxness, for his part, was conscious of the fact that, to the eyes of the rest of the world, he was writing in the shadow of the Icelandic sagas. As a narrator, he constantly refers to them in _Paradise Reclaimed_, sometimes critically, as when he says that all his people did (in the time of the story) was to read the sagas and wait for the appropriate time to go fishing. Laxness was a great candidate for the Nobel because he had written historical novels (_Iceland's Bell_) and novels of the land (_Salka Valka_, _Independent People_, even _Paradise Reclaimed_): his work put modern Iceland on the map of world literature.I was drawn to _Paradise Reclaimed_ because I wanted to see how Laxness depicted the United States, where he lived for a couple of years (1927-29). The novel, however, does not present a satisfactory portrait of life in the US. The new world is reduced to a rural area in Utah, where Steinar's activities and the details about Mormonism are more important than the surroundings. But even though this expectation of mine was not met, I was not disappointed. I love novels that describe life journeys with their twists and turns, and that is exactly what _Paradise Reclaimed_ is. Laxness' humanism is evident. He shows compassion for his characters while he points out their follies.I have not read enough by this author to determine whether _Paradise Reclaimed_ is, as the phrase goes, "representative of his work." It seems that _Independent People_ is the preferred novel for those who haven't read Laxness. I must say that _World Light_ made a stronger impression on me than _Paradise Reclaimed_, but the latter has the advantage of (relative) brevity._Paradise Reclaimed_ reminded me of a famous story from the _Arabian Nights_. On night 352, the story is related of a man who is told in a dream to go to a distant city, where he will find a treasure. All he finds is a beating and incarceration after he is mistaken for a thief. The chief of police tells him that he was stupid to follow a dream, which means nothing; he himself has dreamed three times that there is a treasure in a distant city, in a garden, under a fountain, yet he was never foolish enough to make the trip. The man realizes that the garden that the chief of police has described is his own; he returns home and finds a treasure under his own fountain. He needed to go on that seemingly pointless journey in order to realize that he had been literally standing on treasure his whole life..This is an excellent novel. It may not be Laxness' most acclaimed work, it may not even be his best work, but I give it five stars for the simple reason that I enjoyed reading it. I urge you to give it a chance, and to try _World Light_ afterwards.My next novel by Halldór Laxness will be _The Fish Can Sing_.Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!

This book traces blindly the long itinerary of a naïve fatalist (`One must just take it as it comes').The protagonist falls under the spell of a sectarian, anti-rational preacher (`I prefer the folly of man, for that has brought him farther than his wisdom') and follows him to his reclaimed paradise. He neglects thereby completely his family, his farm and livestock. He undergoes the same fate as Icelandic horses: `sold, blinded and put to work in the coal mines.'His good-hearted naiveté is also exploited by a `respected landowner-friend', who lets his big livestock herds trample the protagonist's farmland into mud. Into the bargain, he rapes his innocent daughter.Ultimately, the protagonist becomes a preacher himself and returns to his homeland and farm, as if nothing whatever happened in the meantime.One could interpret the story as a `minor' variation on the theme of `the paradise belongs to the innocents'. But the protagonist here is an irresponsible, naïve and dumb fool.Halldór Laxness doesn't evaluate or intervene, as the author, in the story. He tells it more or less as an uninvolved bystander, thereby creating a very ambivalent product. The negative hero is treated as a neutral one, as a kind of village fool.This is certainly not Halldór Laxness's best book and not a good introduction to his work.Recommended only to his fans.

This peculiar but affecting parable bears similarities to Laxness's most famous work, "Independent People." With its many references to Icelandic sagas, it describes the conflict between the simple life of a sparsely populated countryside and the cynical modernity of the outside world. Its farmer-hero, Steinar of Hildar, is a pastoral Don Quixote, a study of the innocence of a man who seeks meaning and "paradise" for himself and his family, who cannot bring himself to think ill of others, and whose optimism and faith is unshakable.Steinar's journey is not an easy one--for him or for his family; their trusting naivety is no defense against the guiles of those who think themselves wiser and better. Steinar's tale begins when he selflessly offers a pony, the beloved pet of his children, to the king of Denmark, who in return offers expenses-paid hospitality in his realm. On his pilgrimage to visit the king, Steinar crosses paths, several times, with a persecuted Mormon bishop who is proselytizing in the countryside; the bishop regales the farmer with tales of an earthly paradise: Utah. (The Mormon element of the novel is not gratuitous, by the way. A definitive study of Scandinavia, by T. K. A. Derry, notes that during the years 1873-90, at least 12,000 Icelanders--out of a population of 70,000--emigrated to the North America in large part because of Mormon conversions.)Steinar's subsequent travels eventually take him to Utah, where he hopes to bring his family to share in the earth's bounty. Little does he know that his equally gullible and simple wife and children have fallen victim to a series of scoundrels, particularly the local sheriff, who has made a career of seeding his offspring among the adolescent girls in his parish.How Laxness ties together these strands of folklore and adventure is fascinating and ambiguous, heartwarming and odd--and it is bizarrely unforgettable. I'm still puzzling over what Laxness's novel actually "means"--if, indeed, a clear moral is meant at all--but the haunting characterizations and the compassionate portrait of his homeland alone are the stuff of poetry.

Laxness is a terrible writer. He can and does offer sly asides and insights, some real thought provoking statements that linger long after the book is finished. I see why his writing earned the Nobel.

As always with Laxness - terrific read. Delivered promptly and in good condition.

This book traces blindly the long itinerary of a naïve fatalist (`One must just take it as it comes').The protagonist falls under the spell of a sectarian, anti-rational preacher (`I prefer the folly of man, for that has brought him farther than his wisdom') and follows him to his reclaimed paradise. He neglects thereby completely his family, his farm and livestock. He undergoes the same fate as Icelandic horses: `sold, blinded and put to work in the coal mines.'His good-hearted naiveté is also exploited by a `respected landowner-friend', who lets his big livestock herds trample the protagonist's farmland into mud. Into the bargain, he rapes his innocent daughter.Ultimately, the protagonist becomes a preacher himself and returns to his homeland and farm, as if nothing whatever happened in the meantime.One could interpret the story as a `minor' variation on the theme of `the paradise belongs to the innocents'. But the protagonist here is an irresponsible, naïve and dumb fool.Halldór Laxness doesn't evaluate or intervene, as the author, in the story. He tells it more or less as an uninvolved bystander, thereby creating a very ambivalent product. The negative hero is treated as a neutral one, as a kind of village fool.This is certainly not Halldór Laxness's best book and not a good introduction to his work.Recommended only to his fans.