Hard lives in a harsh land
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| Halldór Laxness |
Seven Icelandic Short Stories was published in 1961 by the Reykjavik Ministry of Education, presumably for the purpose of educating English-language readers about Icelandic literature. The introduction by Steingrímur J. Thorsteinsson gives a brief and interesting overview of the nation’s literary history. Each of the volume’s seven selections has a different author and translator. The final story is by Halldór Laxness, winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in literature, the only name here likely to ring a bell with most English-language readers.
The first story featured in the collection is an anonymous tale from the 13th century, “The Story of Audunn and the Bear.” In this fable emphasizing right manners and gratitude, Audunn travels to Denmark to give the Danish king the gift of a polar bear. Despite its antiquity, this brief example of Iceland’s medieval literature is admirably clever and still quite entertaining.
The book’s remaining selections were all originally published from 1905 to 1927. All the stories are concerned in some way with the lives of Icelandic common folk such as farmers, fishermen, and shepherds. In Einar H. Kvaran’s story “A Dry Spell,” the narrator operates a country store in a rural town, where he is witness to agricultural life during the haymaking season. In a similar vein, “The Old Hay” by Gudmundur Fridjónsson is about an industrious farmer who prides himself on his private stockpile of hay. When weather conditions threaten to starve the region’s sheep, his neighbors come begging for him to give up his stash. In “The Fox Fur” by Gudmundur G. Hagalin, a farmer is troubled by a chicken skulking amongst his sheep, until he finds the animal dead, shot by a hunter. In an oddly comic twist, he claims the kill as his own, and the fox fur becomes his prized possession and source of vanity.
The seafaring life is also well-covered. In Jón Trausti’s “When I Was on the Frigate,” a traveler in a small coastal town needs transportation to the opposite side of the fjord. Due to the bad weather, the only ferryman he can get is an old fishing boat captain rumored to be mentally ill. The story provides some good sailing action, but is primarily a touching character study. The best selection in the book is “Father and Son” by Gunnar Gunnarsson, a moving depiction of two poor fishermen, a father and his twelve year old son, who share a hard but honest life devoted to one another. Laxness provides another strong entry in the volume’s closing selection, “New Iceland,” which is also the name of an Icelandic settlement in Manitoba, Canada. With hope for a new and prosperous beginning, a farmer moves his family to this foreign outpost, but finds that life in the New World may be even more harsh than the life he left behind in his homeland.
Though some stories are stronger than others, there really isn’t a bad selection in the book. As intended, this volume would make an excellent introduction to any reader looking to investigate Iceland’s literature. The stories included here give the reader a fascinating glimpse of life in the harsh climate of this North Atlantic island, and they all aptly demonstrate the literary merit one would expect from such a book-loving nation.
Stories in this collection
The Story of Audunn and the Bear by Anonymous
A Dry Spell by Einar H. Kvaran
The Old Hay by Gudmundur Fridjonsson
When I Was on the Frigate by Jón Trausti
Father and Son by Gunnar Gunnarsson
The Fox Skin by Gudmundur G. Hagalin
New Iceland by Halldór Kiljan Laxness
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A great source for “medium-old” books (and more)
As I’ve done once before and hope to do more of in the future, I'm devoting today’s post to one of my favorite publishers. Open Road Integrated Media was founded in 2009 by a former executive from HarperCollins. The company’s business model seems to be to buy up the electronic rights for previously published print books, both fiction and nonfiction, and rerelease them as e-books. It’s possible they may publish some first-run titles as well, as many of their authors are still alive and kicking. Their selection is wide, with over 10,000 titles now available, and their prices are always reasonable.
Open Road has a “daily deal” email blast called Early Bird Books, which I look forward to every day. If you haven't signed up for it, you should. Each day they offer about a half dozen different e-book titles for two or three bucks apiece. Buyer beware: the purpose behind such generosity is often to hook you on the first book in a series, as they have recently addicted me to Clifford D. Simak (see more on him below). Open Road publishes some e-book reprints of public domain classics, which they sell for 99 cents and often give away, but I prefer to just get those for free from Project Gutenberg. What I like about Open Road is that they offer what I would call “medium-old” books; that is, books that are too old to be considered current literature, yet too young to be copyright free.
Below is a list of a few of Open Road’s authors that I’ve sampled, often by taking advantage of their Early Bird Books deals. This is barely the tip of the iceberg as far as what they offer, however, so go browse their website.
Authors
Poul Anderson (1926-2001)
Anderson was named a Grand Master of science fiction, and he also wrote historical novels. In the latter category, I have purchased The Golden Horn, book one in the Last Viking Trilogy, but haven’t read it yet. Open Road sells e-books of 33 Anderson novels, including the sci-fi Harvest of Stars trilogy and the King of Ys series, set in ancient Rome and cowritten with his wife Karen Anderson.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
It was Pearl S. Buck who first turned me on to Open Road. After years of looking for her novels in used book stores, it was a relief to find her works available in e-book format, often offered for very low prices. Open Road sells 29 e-books of Buck’s best-known works, mostly her historical novels of China. Old Books by Dead Guys has reviewed eight Buck books: East Wind: West Wind (1930), The Good Earth (1931), Sons (1933), A House Divided (1935), Dragon Seed (1942), The Promise (1943), China Flight (1943), and The Living Reed (1963). All but China Flight are available from Open Road. I have another handful waiting to be read, including This Proud Heart (1938) and Peony (1948). I hope Open Road eventually expands this line to include Buck’s more obscure, farther afield works. Perhaps there are rights issues standing in the way, or maybe those less critically acclaimed works just haven’t been deemed worthy of resurrection.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Several collections of Einstein’s writings are published by Open Road, including his landmark work The Theory of Relativity. Books like Essays in Science and Essays in Humanism cover the wide breadth of Einstein’s thought. His personal convictions and idealism are revealed in The World As I See It and Out of My Later Years. A while back I picked these up for free, but they usually go for about ten dollars each.
James Grady (1949 - )
Grady is the author of the Condor series of spy novels, beginning with Six Days of the Condor (1974), upon which the Robert Redford film Three Days of the Condor was based. Open Road has it, along with four other Grady books, including Condor.net (2011), a recent sequel.
James Hilton (1900-1954)
Open Road offers e-books of six of Hilton’s novels, including his best known works Lost Horizon (1933) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934). The former is a pretty good novel about a secret utopia in the mountains of Tibet.
Halldór Laxness (1902-1998)
Icelandic author Halldór Laxness won the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. Open Road only publishes one Laxness e-book, The Atom Station (1948), which I did not care for. The English-language rights for most of Laxness’s novels are held by Vintage Books.
Fritz Leiber (1910-1992)
Leiber is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. He was a pioneer of the sword and sorcery genre with his Lankhmar series of “Swords” novels (e.g. Swords in the Mist [1968], Swords against Wizardry [1968]), which I remember reading in junior high. The series chronicles the adventures of two sword-wielding heroes called Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, the former being a giant barbarian and the latter a diminutive thief. These books are kind of like Robert E. Howard’s Conan series, but with a better sense of humor. Open Road offers the complete Lankhmar Series, as well as several of Leiber’s science fiction and horror novels, including The Big Time (1961).
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)
I had previously read all of Porter’s short stories and essay in the volume of her works published by the Library of America (2008). However, her only novel, Ship of Fools (1962), was not included in that volume, and I was able to pick it up in e-book format from Open Road for a couple of bucks. I was not too crazy about the book, to tell the truth, but I’m glad I had an opportunity to read it on my Kindle for a low price.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957)
Sayers is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey, one of the best sleuths in British literature this side of Sherlock Holmes. I have read the first book in the series, Whose Body? (1923), and gave it a favorable review. Open Road has all 15 of Sayers’ books in the series, which includes both novels and short story collections.
William Shatner (1931- )
Hardly a classic author, but when Shat’s TekWar (1989) came up as a daily deal, how could I resist? Though I’m a fan of pulpy sci-fi, I found it so-so at best. However, if you’re so inclined, Open Road offers e-books of all nine volumes in the Tek series.
Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)
Simak is one of the most respected and highly decorated science fiction authors of the 20th century, having won multiple awards for sci-fi as well as fantasy and horror (and he wrote westerns!). I have encountered a few of his stories over the years, but never really knew the extent of his prolific career until I read the collection I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, Volume One (2015). This series, published by Open Road, is projected to amount to 14 volumes (the first six are available now). If the first book is any indication, this will be an excellent series. Open Road also publishes e-books of about 20 Simak novels, including his best-known work, City (1952).
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
Open Road recently released e-book editions of Sinclair’s 11-volume Lanny Budd series. Previously, one had to hunt for used copies of these books or pay $50 for a hardcover edition. Now they can be dowloaded in seconds for about $10 each. I can’t thank Open Road enough for finally making these books accessible to a broader audience. Lanny Budd is a wealthy American, living in France, who gets involved in many of the most important historical events of the early 20th century, all told through the lens of Sinclair’s leftist views. (Imagine if Howard Zinn wrote spy novels.) Fans of this series include Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Mahatma Gandhi. So far I have reviewed the first three volumes—World’s End (1940), Between Two Worlds (1941), Dragon’s Teeth (1942)—and I’m currently working on book four, Wide Is the Gate (1943). Open Road also offers inexpensive e-books of several other Sinclair novels, including The Jungle (1906) and King Coal (1917).
Philip Wylie (1902-1971)
I’ve only read one book by sci-fi author Wylie, Gladiator (1930). The bad news is Open Road doesn’t publish it, but the good new is it’s in the public domain, so you can read it for free. Open Road does, however publish seven of Wylie’s sci-fi novels, including The Disappearance (1951), which I hope to get to soon.
On their website, Open Road boasts that they publish over 2,000 authors. Granted, that includes the authors of many public domain works that you can get elsewhere. Even so, they’ve still got a sizable stable of talent in the “medium-old” books category. If only all of my favorite early 20th-century authors were so easy to find, purchase, and download. Keep up the good work, Open Road!
The humor is an acquired taste
The Atom Station, published in 1948, is a novel by Icelandic author Halldór Laxness, winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. I had previously read his novel Independent People, which I enjoyed, so I thought I’d give this one a try. Though Laxness writes novels of modern Iceland, he depicts Icelandic life and culture as being firmly grounded in the classic sagas of his nation’s literature. There’s often a tension between the nation’s entry into the modern world and a harkening back to the traditions of the past. Chances are, the more you understand Iceland’s history and literature, the more you will enjoy Laxness’s work, which may prove a problem for many English-language readers, myself included. The Atom Station is a political satire, which complicates matters even further, and I’ll confess much of the humor was lost on me.
Ugla, a girl from a rural village in Northern Iceland, moves to Reykjavik to take up work as a servant in the home of Búi Arland, a member of parliament. The wealthy urban lifestyle of the legislator’s family is a culture shock to the small-town girl, but she soon earns the family’s trust and becomes an integral member of the household. Arland and his political cronies are plotting to “sell the country” to America, which wants to build a nuclear missile site in Iceland. Not only is this a threat to Icelandic sovereignty; it also endangers the lives of all the nation’s citizens if nuclear war should break out between the two Cold War superpowers. Part of the pro-American faction’s strategy for winning the hearts and minds of the populace, or at least distracting them, is to repatriate the bones of the Nation’s Darling, a revered poet who had been buried in Denmark. Ugla becomes involved with a communist cell who opposes the government’s plan. This episode, based on actual events, gives Laxness the opportunity to contrast rich and poor, urban and rural, North and South, conservative and communist—lampooning everyone in the process.
A few chapters into the book, Ugla goes to an organist’s house to take lessons on the harmonium. There she meets two men referred to as the atom poet and the god of Brilliantine, who speak mostly nonsense. There’s also a character named Two Hundred Thousand Pliers, an industrialist who serves as one of the villains in the book. Do we have Laxness to blame for these goofy names, or are these poorly handled puns on the part of the English translator? Hard to tell, but it was all a bit too heavy-handed and slapstick for me. Later in the book, there are some more serious scenes that give a better idea of Laxness’s talents as a writer. Ugla’s relationship with the family who employs her, and her own family in the North, allow for some moving moments, as does her desire to live as an independent woman. You really do feel for the character, and there’s a definite feminist message to the book that’s ahead of its time. But just when you think Laxness has given you something to hold onto, something to care about, he forces you to wade through another absurd conversation that feels like an utter waste of time.
I can see how The Atom Station might be hailed as a comic masterpiece in Iceland, much like the movie Dr. Strangelove is regarded in the U.S. However, few English-language readers will have the prior knowledge of Icelandic politics and culture necessary to get the jokes. What I liked about Independent People is that it gave me a glimpse into the life and history of a nation I know little about, but the social realism of that novel is a lot more accessible than the parody of this one. I don’t think I’m done with Laxness yet, but if I see another book of his described as “comedy” or “satire,” I’m going to steer clear.
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