Alongside other Luminaries like Tucker Carlson and Peter Hitchens
https://twitter.com/thelampmagazine/status/1557411084222488579
cowards deleted it
Alongside other Luminaries like Tucker Carlson and Peter Hitchens
https://twitter.com/thelampmagazine/status/1557411084222488579
cowards deleted it
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?
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.
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.