Independent People by Halldór Laxness

By Halldór Laxness

This extraordinary novel—which secured for its writer the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature—is finally on hand to modern American readers. even though it is determined within the early 20th century, it recollects either Iceland’s medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book’s protagonist, is a standard sheep farmer, his flinty decision to accomplish independence is really heroic and, whilst, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wishes not anything greater than to elevate his flocks unbeholden to any guy. yet Bjartur’s lively daughter desires to dwell unbeholden to him. What ensues is a conflict of wills that's via turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional depth and intimate in its homely aspect. titanic in scope and deeply worthwhile, Independent People is a masterpiece.

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The kid’s dumb as a tick. Were you smoking that wacky weed again, you freak? ” “Yes, you did,” said Kyle. ” “Well, there’s your problem right there,” said Tommy. ” He turned to the woman next to him. ” “Thank you,” she said as she leaned farther away. ” She turned to her friends. “Can we go now? ” said the woman with Skitch. “Tell her, Kyle,” said Skitch. Kyle turned to Betsy. “You have something there on your mouth. No, above. Yeah, right there. ” 34 WILLIAM LASHNER “He thought he saw his dad,” said Skitch.

Every step toward her took him further and further from what he had sought to become. He had dreams, hopes, he had fervent plans for his future. But she had made of him an errand boy, a thug, a murderer. And all he ever wanted from her was her love. Was that too much to ask? Evidently. CHAPTER 3 KYLE BYRNE SPIED his father watching him play in the seventh inning, which was a little disconcerting considering that his father had been dead for fourteen years. It was on the diamond at the Palumbo Recreation Center at Tenth and Fitzwater, during a lethargic Monday-night beer-league-softball battle between Dirty Frank’s and Bubba’s Bar and Grill.

They were a team, a single unit, Detectives Henderson and Ramirez. It didn’t matter that Henderson was tired and old, a burnout waiting for his full pension to vest so he could sit in his lawn chair and watch his tomatoes grow. Or that Ramirez was young and ambitious and disappointed in drawing Henderson as a partner after her meteoric rise to the Homicide Division. It didn’t matter that they came from different generations, listened to different music, viewed the world from entirely different perspectives.

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