Independent People

I ended up listening to this book and propped it up there with my life’s most treasured books. It’s brutal, it’s honest, it’s literary and lyrical, it contains so much pain and misery. Sheep, toil, and death. It made me fall head over heels for Iceland, I saw the place and met some of its people. I can’t believe they survived, it was terribly hard, but they survived. Yes, I have a lot of love for a people who processed trauma through fabulous tales. I will need to read this book again at some point. This is a grand and epic book. Nobel prize well deserved.

Sure, on its face, this seems the story of a single impoverished Icelandic crofter in the early 20th century. But Bjartur of Summerhouses, a man who has the blood of the Vikings coursing through his veins, is not that simple. Though this book follows the travails of this one great, independent man through times of boom and times of bust, it is no mistake that the title of the book is Independent People, and not Independent Person. Bjartur represents a generational cycle of hardship that seems impossible to break, sometimes as a caricature, sometimes as an exemplar, and sometimes as a champion of all poor Icelanders, the essence of what it means to stand in the face of extreme adversity with your chest puffed high and fists clenched. Bjartur's own code is such that to take even the smallest bite of bread from another man is an affront to his morality, to his very existence. Often, the code is his bane.Indeed, Bjartur is more than just an archetype of a certain class of people: he is also the spirit of Iceland. While countless other folk begin to inhabit cities, change political systems and leaders, fiddle with new-fangled technologies, build houses, adopt foreign religions, and tangle with new social norms, Bjartur remains steadfast. He resists the allures of new things, and instead harkens back to days of yore, of Vikings, of honor, of vengeance, of sheep as the holiest of all holies. There are, of course, other characters, and they are important in Bjartur's life, none more so than little Asta Solilja, his daughter and flower of his life. Much of the story follows these two throughout their struggles, as things keep happening around them, to them, against them, but rarely ever for them. Bjartur's sons, his wives, and his neighbors are also significant, but this novel stays lean on characters and strong on building their depth.Halldor Laxness was well deserving of the Nobel Prize for this tale. He writes with a deep reverence for the days of legend in Iceland. His rhythm is unique, his landscapes are colorful even in a country that can often be grey. The narrative is conversational, philosophical, easy. The dialogue is thorough, entertaining, and sometimes so ridiculous as to make you laugh, especially when Bjartur and his neighbors discuss matters under the pretense of great knowledge where they actually hold great ignorance. And isn't it the mark of a truly great novel that the same passages that make you laugh, a few pages later will make you shed a tear? Such is the beauty of Independent People. A must-read, for anyone.

In this literary epic of Icelandic fiction by Halldor Laxness we have the story of an Icelandic peasant and his family and how they try to live, but are repeatedly thwarted.It is also a story of love. Actually, the loves of Bjartur, the peasant, and his family, are repeatedly thwarted too. Bjartur himself doesn’t seem to be too much affected; both of his wives die in part because he is indifferent to their suffering, and it is many years before he learns to express even the barest hint of love. His daughter, Asta Sollilja, falls in love with nearly every remotely eligible man who comes to their isolated croft (this isn’t many men). But this never works out well for her either. The second of her three half-brothers allows himself to fall for a rich town girl and gives up the opportunity to go to America his younger brother has provided him with, thereby losing the love of this same girl.Their financial endeavors run on in the same way. Bjartur’s main aim in life is to be free of debt and to have enough to build himself a real house. Before that the family lives in a sod house that initially also houses their sheep and other animals; only a handful of little luxuries separate them from the exact same lifestyle lived by their ancestors, Iceland’s original settlers almost a thousand years before. Eventually, along comes World War I, bringing temporary prosperity as the price of sheep and Icelandic wool rise to unheard-of highs, and Bjartur begins to build his house, only to find out that is costs much more than he had envisioned and is virtually unliveable as well. Plus, it has come about somehow that he is now deeply in debt once more.This is in many ways a sad book. The family lives in a beautiful and majestic area, but they have to work so hard to keep going that they hardly ever have time to see it. All summer they are busy trying to get in hay for their sheep for the winter that they hardly have time to look up, and all the long winter they are pretty well pinned in the single room of their sod house by the snow and cold. Nevertheless, at the end, when it seems that they have practically lost everything, they find some hope and a way to go on.From the position of this book in my reading list, I have to assume that it was first brought to my attention back during the time when I was a member of the Book-of-the Month club. Since I failed to purchase it at that time, I had a hard time finding a copy until I came across the Kindle edition a couple of years ago and am glad I did.

Beautifully written and makes it feel as though you are experiencing the struggles. Not a cheerful story, but one that stays with you for a long time and makes you appreciate current times and comforts.

The writing is beautifully descriptive, and the mis en scene very informative.

This is the story of the failed struggles of a crofter for securing his independence. He ultimately failed and was ousted by the powers that be from his land as ever in the history of crofters, the peasants. Human beings are not the protectors of one another, rather, they prey upon one another and the wily people eventually succeed as ever in stripping the gullible by hook or by crook. Bjartur of Summerhouses ultimately met the same fate. The fate of Bjartur is the well-known fate of the entire crofter/ peasant community throughout the world irrespective of the nationality. A masterpiece from a Nobel Literature Laureate!

Why would you give this grand piece of literature one star! Quite simply I found it one of the richest and most fascinating stories I have ever read and I gather it was this book that so impressed the Noble Prize judging committee back in the early 1950s. OK, I love the powerful and dramatic saga story telling technique which informed medieval Icelandic literature and which Laxness so competently translated into an early 20th century setting...along with a healthy dose of magic realism.

In this formidable saga about the conquest of individual independence Halldór Laxness exposes his outspoken views on mankind, politics, economics and literature.Vision on man and womanFor Halldór Laxness's protagonist, `it is freedom that we are all after. I say for my part that a man lives in vain, until he is independent. For desire for freedom runs in a man's blood, as anybody who has been servant to another understands.'But, isn't the life of the independent man, in its nature, not a flight from other men who seek to kill him?His respect of women doesn't go further than `from my experience of women folk most of them want to be raped, more or less.'Conquest of independenceThe protagonist has `the heroic spirit of the first settlers`. It is `a man who had broken new soil; a man who also had faith in his country, and who showed it in his deeds.'But his search of independence is a terrible struggle against a harsh climate, against the economy's short booms and long busts and against debt: `Is their freedom worth as much as the worms that feed from eternity to eternity on the bags of skin and bones they call their sheep?'Doesn't the independent man sow his enemy's field all his life, day and night? Are those who are struggling for independence not far better off, more independent, in prison?The Lord's Prayer of the independent farmer sounds as follows: `Our Father, which art in Heaven, yes, so infinitely far away that no one knows where You are, almost nowhere, give us this day just a few crumbs to eat in the Name of Thy Glory, and forgive us if we can't pay the dealer, and our creditors and let us not, above all, be tempted to be happy.'All too relevant vision on economics and politicsPure capitalism is not the solution. The few steal everything from the many. `I hold that people aren't big enough criminals to live under this system. Folk, the masses, aren't big enough bloody rogues ... and we aren't armed either.'What we need is organized solidarity: the lone-worker will continue to live `in affliction as long as man is not man's protector, but his worst enemy.'What makes a politician `a great man is first and foremost his ideals, his unquenchable love of mankind, his conviction that the people need improved conditions of life and better facilities of cultural advancement, his determination to mitigate his follower's sufferings by establishing a better government, instead of a helpless puppet in the hands of oppressors.'LiteratureThe protagonist is also a bard, bawdy and outspoken; not one of those who `crawl around licking a woman's feet, like these love poets do nowadays'; and not one of those `cheap poets and misanthropists and liars (who) write books full of sunshine and dreams to fool, ridicule and insult (their readers).'With such moving and unforgettable scenes, like the birth of the first child, the funeral of his first wife, the boy's awakening, the first night out of the daughter with her `father' or the reuniting of the `father' and `daughter', Halldór Laxness wrote a formidable and poignant masterpiece.This novel is an immense literary highlight and a must read for all lovers of world literature.