Alongside other Luminaries like Tucker Carlson and Peter Hitchens

https://twitter.com/thelampmagazine/status/1557411084222488579

cowards deleted it

  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I once read a very long Icelandic fiction novel about a boy who converted to the Catholic Church (from Lutheran) because it was the one institution still around from very long ago and therefore must be "true." It was... interesting.

      • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yes, that one! It's the only Laxness novel I've read it I don't know if it was good. I still think about it months on, and he's clearly a talented author, but I could never really get into it. It had moments of greatness and (clearly) memorable characters but the rest was so... strange. Just don't think I get what he's trying to do yet. I still have no idea what he was trying to make me feel, or even what I myself felt other than a vague sense of confusion. I wanted the book to be so much more than it was, and it was clearly not interested in doing that. What was the best one you started?

        • Wertheimer [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Independent People is supposed to be his best, and perhaps his most communist, but I started it right after reading Hamsun’s The Growth of the Soil and wasn’t as in the mood for novels about farming / homesteading as I thought I was. All I really remember is that sheep carcasses were involved somehow, so I must not have stayed with it for long. Then I lent the book to a friend who was traveling to Iceland and I guess she never gave it back.

          The other one I started was World Light, which had a lot going for it. It was so bleak it was laugh-out-loud funny. The line I remember most goes something like “No one has known true sadness until they hear the sound of an old man bawling.” This one I abandoned because it was March 2020 and I got lost in the panic. When I came back to the book too much time had passed. I’ll start over next time I pick it up.

          I’ve also heard good things about Wayward Heroes but haven’t read it myself. Archipelago Books usually publishes good shit, though.

          • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Maybe I'll give Independent People a try. Yeah I bought the book solely because I liked the title and I trust Archipelago to put out good books.