Independent People

I see a number of my GR friends have read this but A BILLION MORE of them have this listed as To Read. Yes, I see why. Every single person who has read this thinks this is a masterpiece but you stroke your chin and you think do I really need a 600 page novel about Icelandic sheep farmers in my life?......more

[Edited 1/4/21] I don’t usually cite book cover comments from critics in my reviews, but I’ll make an exception for this book by the 1955 Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author (1902-1998). In the introduction, Brad Leithauser, a poet, novelist and English professor called it (at the time he wrote the......more

Way back when. My wife and went to our prominent local bookseller over the holidays in 2003. She asked me if I had read anything by Laxness and I adroitly responded, "who?" She bought something else and the following day I jogged down to the public library. My face burning with shame I checked this......more

Everything that one has ever created achieves reality. And soon the day dawns when one finds oneself at the mercy of the reality one has created. There is a subtle beauty in this text - an expansive desolation that plays as canvas to Laxness' protagonist Bjartur of Summerhouses creation of an indepen......more