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Independent People: An Epic de Halldor…
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Independent People: An Epic (edició 1946)

de Halldor Laxness

MembresRessenyesPopularitatValoració mitjanaConverses / Mencions
2,8861014,843 (4.15)3 / 445
This magnificent novel-which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature-is now available to contemporary American audiences. Although it is set in the early twentieth century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic. Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.… (més)
Membre:TristanJohn
Títol:Independent People: An Epic
Autors:Halldor Laxness
Informació:1946, Hardback
Col·leccions:La teva biblioteca
Valoració:
Etiquetes:Cap

Informació de l'obra

Independent People de Halldor Laxness

  1. 20
    Growth of the Soil de Knut Hamsun (chrisharpe)
  2. 31
    The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists de Robert Tressell (thorold)
    thorold: Icelandic peasants to English house painters might not be such an obvious leap, but these two books, one artful and structured, the other naive and direct, both do a great job of showing us capitalism from the bottom.
  3. 00
    Gunnar's Daughter de Sigrid Undset (DieFledermaus)
  4. 00
    The Old Man and His Sons de Heðin Brú (rrmmff2000)
  5. 11
    The Jungle de Upton Sinclair (rwjerome)
    rwjerome: These books share surprisingly similar main characters who both experience extreme misfortune. Interestingly enough, both books also showcase slightly misplaced political overtones.
  6. 00
    The Emigrants de Vilhelm Moberg (harmen)
    harmen: Similar setting and themes.
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» Mira també 445 mencions

Anglès (93)  Neerlandès (5)  Noruec (1)  Castellà (1)  Totes les llengües (100)
Es mostren 1-5 de 100 (següent | mostra-les totes)
The weather is as brutal and unforgiving as some of the characters in Halldor Laxness' arduous and earth-and-sky-bound family saga (an almost obligatory word for a review of an Icelandic novel), and both snow and intransigence make for hard lives and hard reading at times.

The ironic title foregrounds the way in which Laxness' isolated sheep crofters are unable to escape the weather and each other, as well as time and place (with one exception), limited as they are by geography, politics, disease, ignorance, distrust and delusion. Much of the time they seem free only to make bad choices, hurt one other, and suffer the ups and downs of world war or sick sheep.

The story centers on Bjartur, a stubborn, harsh and myopic crofter who attempts to assert his financial, social and political independence in the face of an inhospitable landscape, disaffected family members, economic hardship and local superstition. His daily concerns and those of his busybody neighbours and local potentates revolve around sheep worms, mythical evil spirits, Icelandic poetry, debt and ownership, and coffee and food. Shepherding is foremost in his mind, and he is a disaster as a husband and father. The plot takes several tragic turns, through which Bjartur largely plows unbowed, unrepentant and unaware of his fundamental dependence on the world around him.

If this all sounds grim, it is. However Laxness manages to bring a sardonic humour to bear on the misunderstandings, illusions and impulses of his characters that allows the reader to find a lighter perspective on these lives that allows - in some admittedly narrow crevices - for signs of hope and redemption. Not to mention his frequently lyrical writing, as translated by J. A. Thompson, and his compassion for his characters' limitations and impoverished lives. This rich and complex novel continually reminds us that our dependencies, not just our autonomies, can provide meaning and beauty:

". . . but weeping too is an independent element in the breast of man, another current, and weeping also is controlled from another world, and man is defenceless against his own tears and cannot get away and cannot get away and cannot get away"
( )
  breathslow | Jan 27, 2024 |
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 in an inhospitable landscape.
Laxness won Nobel prize in Literature, in 1955.
  NordenClub | Jan 11, 2024 |
A harsh ode to sheep, the men who tend them, the women lost to those humble endeavors in remote places, and humanity's delusion of total self-reliance. ( )
1 vota dele2451 | Dec 29, 2023 |
(...)

Bjartur is of the strong, silent type, and he buries his stillborn children without tears. This is not to say there is no longing or love in these pages. The relationship between him and Asta Sollilja, Bjartur’s daughter who is not of his own blood, is touching, and a sharp portrayal of a time and a culture wherein people were ill-informed about their own psychology, reluctant to express themselves, and as a result much more lonely than they need have been.

Laxness’ naturalist novel is a triumph as it lures people in with a promising title, seemingly waving the banner of meritocracy, but slowly shows true independence does not exist, not at all, and it turns out nobody even knows what ‘freedom’ is. It all culminates in the fleeting moment Bjartur and his fellow Icelandic farmers make heaps of money because World War 1 has driven up the demand for their mutton and their wool: their success the result of other people’s misery.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It ( )
1 vota bormgans | Nov 28, 2023 |
Read as a prep for the Iceland Writers Retreat April 2017. This book won the Nobel prize in literature. It's thick, meaty, filled with philosophical discussions about being independent. It gives a picture of the Icelandic people that also shows through in their "lighter" fiction.
The writing is dense but involving. I felt the harshness of life in the croft, the bitterness of the man struggling to be independent and losing his family on the way- the tension between independence and selfishness is strong. Well worth a read, but keep mood lighteners nearby. Reading it in winter, especially over the solstice, will help place you in the croft with the starving farmers. Bring coffee. ( )
1 vota Dabble58 | Nov 11, 2023 |
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» Afegeix-hi altres autors (65 possibles)

Nom de l'autorCàrrecTipus d'autorObra?Estat
Laxness, Halldorautor primaritotes les edicionsconfirmat
Craigmyle, AntheaAutor de la cobertaautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Freeman, JohnIntroduccióautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Kress, BrunoTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Leithauser, BradIntroduccióautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Myklebost, ToneTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Nix, RobertDissenyador de la cobertaautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Otten, MarcelTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Otten, MarcelEpílegautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Posthumus, AnnieTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Seelow, HubertEpílegautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Sigureir SigurjónssonAutor de la cobertaautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Thompson, J. AndersonTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
Thompson, J.A.Traductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
VINEA, IonTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat
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IJslandse kroniken beschrijven dat zich in vroeger tijden in dit land Ieren ophielden, die kruisen, klokken en andere magische voorwerpen achterlieten.
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The history of the centuries in this valley is the history of an independent man who grapples barehanded with a spectre which bears a new and ever a newer name. Sometimes the spectre is some half-divine fiend who lays a curse on his land. Sometimes it breaks his bones in the guise of a norn. Sometimes it destroys his croft in the form of a monster. And yet, always, to all eternity, it is the same spectre assailing the same century after century.
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Wikipedia en anglès

Cap

This magnificent novel-which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature-is now available to contemporary American audiences. Although it is set in the early twentieth century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic. Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.

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Mitjana: (4.15)
0.5 1
1 13
1.5
2 14
2.5 8
3 55
3.5 25
4 137
4.5 42
5 202

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